Geisha, A Life

Amazon.com
Now in her 50s, Mineko Iwasaki was one of the most famed geishas of her generation (and the chief informant for Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha). Her ascent was difficult, not merely because of the hard, endless training she had to undergo--learning how to speak a hyper-elevated dialect of Japanese and how to sing and dance gracefully while wearing a 44-pound kimono atop six-inch wooden sandals--but also because many of the elaborate, self-effacing rules of the art went against her grain. A geisha "is an exquisite willow tree who bends to the service of others," she writes. "I have always been stubborn and contrary. And very, very proud." And playful, too: one of the funniest moments in this bittersweet book describes a disastrous encounter with the queen of England and her all-too-interested husband.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
The geisha has long been a mystery to those in the West. In her compelling memoir, Mineko, often called the best geisha of her generation, reveals the secretive world that inspired a bestselling fictional counterpart, Arthur Golden's bestselling Memoirs of a Geisha.

Mineko's remarkable story dispels Western myths about the geisha as prostitute and describes a demanding life as a highly trained artist. With an even and objective voice, she tells of leaving home at the age of four to enter a geisha house. Here, Mineko made her fame and fortune as a dancer. Appearing and entertaining at as many as ten parties an evening, she would dance for ten minutes at each and earn tens of thousands of dollars for the night's work. Mineko also covers the importance of appearance, describing the elements of beauty, including the kimono. These garments were a special -- and costly -- part of a geisha's appearance, and could only be worn a few times.

In Geisha, Mineko Iwasaki leads us through a fascinating profession. While a glossary of Japanese terms would have been helpful, nothing detracts from this powerful and intimate glimpse into a mysterious world.

This is a fantastic book that will enthrall its readers. Glenn Speer

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Celebrated as the most successful geisha of her generation, Mineko Iwasaki was only five years old when she left her parents' home for the world of the geisha. For the next twenty-five years, she would live a life filled with extraordinary professional demands and rich rewards. She would learn the formal customs and language of the geisha and study the ancient arts of Japanese dance and music. She would enchant kings and princes, captains of industry and titans of the entertainment world, some of whom would become her dearest friends. Through great pride and determination, she would be hailed as one of the most prized geishas in Japan's history, and one of the last great practitioners of this now fading art form." In Geisha, a Life, Mineko Iwasaki tells her story, from her warm early childhood, to her intense yet privileged upbringing in the Iwasaki okiya (household), to her years as a renowned geisha, and finally, to her decision at the age of twenty-nine to retire and marry, a move that would mirror the demise of geisha culture.

SYNOPSIS

Celebrated as the most successful geisha of her generation, Mineko Iwasaki was only five years old when she left her parents' home for the world of the geisha.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

From age five, Iwasaki trained to be a geisha (or, as it was called in her Kyoto district, a geiko), learning the intricacies of a world that is nearly gone. As the first geisha to truly lift the veil of secrecy about the women who do such work (at least according to the publisher), Iwasaki writes of leaving home so young, undergoing rigorous training in dance and other arts and rising to stardom in her profession. She also carefully describes the origins of Kyoto's Gion Kobu district and the geiko system's political and social nuances in the 1960s and '70s. Although it's an autobiography, Iwasaki's account will undoubtedly be compared to the stunning fictional description of the same life in Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha. Lovers of Golden's work-and there are many-will undoubtedly pick this book up, hoping to get the true story of nights spent in kimono. Unfortunately, Iwasaki's work suffers from the comparison. Her writing style, refreshingly straightforward at the beginning, is far too dispassionate to sustain the entire story. Her lack of reflection and tendency toward mechanical description make the work more of a manual than a memoir. In describing the need to be nice to people whom she found repulsive, she writes, "Sublimating one's personal likes and dislikes under a veneer of gentility is one of the fundamental challenges of the profession." Iwasaki shrouds her prose in this mask of objectivity, and the result makes the reader feel like a teahouse patron: looking at a beautiful, elegant woman who speaks fluidly and well, but with never a vulnerable moment. (Oct. 1) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT - Janet Julian

Now in her fifties, Mineko Iwasaki was once the best geisha of her generation, retiring at 29 because of disillusionment with the archaic system of her profession. Her intimate autobiography takes readers into the secret world of the karyukai, where geisha are trained in the arts. She dispels the myth that geisha are prostitutes. In fact, they are professional entertainers who perform at exclusive banquet facilities known as ochaya. Iwasaki left her home when she was five to live in the karyukai and seldom saw her parents. She was surprised to find two elder sisters working there, sisters she had known nothing about. Initially she lived a pampered life. She excelled at the dance, but also played musical instruments. After she made her debut, she was much in demand, but her popularity did not come without a cost. She writes, "It's hard to imagine living in a world where everyone—your friends, your sisters, even your mother—is your rival. Inevitably, all of this took a psychological toll...I suffered periodic anxiety, insomnia, and difficulty speaking." She used comedy to ease the stress. She met a famous actor, fell in love, and became his lover even though he was married. He promised to divorce but never did. Finally, she met an artist. They married 23 days later and now have a daughter. Behind the smiling faces and perfect grooming of geishas is a life of pain, stress, disappointment, limited opportunities, a narrow education, and hard work. Iwaski's book is a vivid picture of a hidden part of Japanese culture. Sixteen pages of photos accompany the text. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002,Simon & Schuster, Washington Square Press, 297p. illus., Ages 15 to adult.

Library Journal

Iwasaki, who started training for her demanding profession at age four, here takes readers into the rarely glimpsed world of the geisha. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An exponent of the highly ritualized￯﾿ﾽand highly misunderstood￯﾿ﾽJapanese art form tells all. Or at least some.

In her homeland, Iwasaki￯﾿ﾽs account begins, ". . . there are special districts, known as karyukai, that are dedicated to the enjoyment of aesthetic pleasure." This "flower and willow world" has been a very specialized field for Japanese women for the last 300 years, she adds, and it endures even today. During the 1960s and early ￯﾿ﾽ70s, "when Japan was undergoing the radical transformation from a post-feudal to a modern society," the now-52-year-old Iwasaki trained to become "certainly the most successful" geisha of her generation; had she not taken up this line of work, she writes, she would instead have become a Buddhist nun or a policewoman. Attaining the top spot, as in any other show-business venue, meant waging crafty campaigns against jealous rivals; training endlessly in the arts of singing, dancing, conversation, and walking in a mincing gait; putting in 20-hour days; and cultivating the friendship of the otokosh (dressers), who assure that all is well in the kimono and obi department while acting as "the standard brokers of various relationships within the karyukai." This account, the first of its kind from a contemporary Japanese woman, does a good job of spelling out the "aesthetic pleasure" component of the geisha￯﾿ﾽs world, although the author is quite reticent about other kinds of pleasure that the geisha is alleged to provide; on this point, Liza Dalby￯﾿ﾽs Geisha (1983), set at about the same time as Iwasaki￯﾿ﾽs memoir and offering another firsthand view, is more forthcoming. Iwasaki￯﾿ﾽs narrative can sometimes be a little dense; as a not untypical passage puts it, "Idecided to try to orchestrate the company myself by asking the okasan of the ochaya to invite certain geiko to attend the ozashiki for which I was booked"￯﾿ﾽquite a mouthful for the uninitiated.