Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden -- review

 

Disclaimer: this blog is affiliated with third party sellers and, if following any of the links in this blog leads to the reader making a purchase, Monsta Reader might earn a small commission from that sale. However, no item's price is affected by this, and these affiliations do not influence the content of this blog.

Memoirs of a Geisha is a fictional tale about the life of geisha Sayuri, a story that spans from her childhood in the 1920s, in the small poor fishing town of Yoroido, and through her experiences as a geisha into the 1950s.

Sayuri recounts the story of her earlier years from a New York apartment, in the latter part of the twentieth century, so we know that her circumstances change a great deal during the course of her story. But, as the reader follows her journey, it is unclear whether she has been brought where she has been by steps of her own choosing, or whether circumstances have simply swept her there.

As a child, Sayuri (named Chiyo in her youth, but renamed Sayuri when she becomes a geisha), sees her mother grow ill and then die. Her father, with no money and advanced in age, sells her and her sister, through a deal with a businessman that visits their town for work, to the entertainment district of Kyoto. Sayuri finds herself put to work in an okiya (a geisha boarding house), whilst her sister is sent to a brothel.

The first of many times Sayuri's circumstances are decided by deals done by businessmen. 

It is worth noting that this is a historical novel, set very much during that span of time in Japan's history, especially after the Second World War, when traditions would be upset by Westernisation and changing social attitudes. Just before traditional geisha training would begin to decline in practice.

Sayuri's story reflects these changes, and by the end of her story she is much more in charge of her life. Her horizons literally broaden, her story even moving from Japan to America, and her way of living begins to encompass and acknowledge something beyond what she has been taught and the duties she has been expected to perform.

The Chairman, a man who is kind to Sayuri and a key character in the novel, is a businessman who begins to recognise that duty and tradition must incorporate a changing world. A world of burgeoning globalisation, the necessity of taking a place on the world stage if an individual's business is to survive.

 Sayuri's world is one of duty and tradition drawn heavily from the past, and the Chairman's is one that will play a key part in the Westernisation of his country and its social attitudes.

The theme of impermanence is key to the novel. It begins with Sayuri's change of fortunes at the beginning of the novel -- and many other characters see their circumstances change profoundly throughout this book -- and also considers how the wider world evolves and fluctuates. Indeed, often how one affects the other; how changes in the world can impact upon the individual, and vice versa.

But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising in the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.

I think that Golden must have chosen to have the main character be a geisha for the reason that, at the time the novel is set, it was a role on the cusp of great changes. It was a role that demanded a great sense of duty and was weighted in traditions of the past but, especially in the post-war decades of the 1950s and beyond, it was a traditional role on the wane. 

That this story is told in the first person, seen through Sayuri's eyes, told in her voice, means that the story is a more intimate and poignant telling than it might have been in the third person, and able to explore wider social circumstances and how they affected people. And Sayuri is such a well drawn character that the reader simply falls into the story.

There is hope in this story too. Though much of the protagonist's story is decided by circumstance and the duties she is expected to perform, she does not float through the story without striking out, without trying to steer the course of her life in a direction with some happiness and hope. 

From the beginning, Sayuri's situation is decided by events beyond her control. However, she often seeks out a way to improve her situation, if even only ever so slightly. She attempts to run away, she finds a way to contact her sister, she forms relationships with those that become good friends and allies. Through her story, Sayuri holds on to hope. 

As much as this is a story about change, it is a story about hope. To see the impermanence of things is to see hope is never lost.

I enjoyed this novel very much, and think that Sayuri is a wonderfully conceived character. I enjoy reading novels that offer the reader another point of view, another little way of looking at the world. And for this white, English guy, born in the mid-eighties, a story told from the point of view of a Japanese geisha in the middle of the last century took me away to another time and place for a while. And the story is so excellently told, these characters so well drawn, that that little bit of travel through time and space wasn't at all jarring -- ultimately, regardless of where the story is set, or who populates that world, it is a story about humanity. A story about hope, fears, love, and just trying to be okay in a world that sometimes barely makes sense.

Within the pages of Memoirs . . . , the reader is immersed into a world of Japanese culture and tradition, where geisha in beautifully embroidered kimono -- silk dragons and water -- entertain businessmen in teahouses. Sometimes the atmosphere is debauched and drunken, sometimes it is more delicate and enchanting. Traditional Japanese dance and the sound of shamisen play throughout the pages. Gasps and moans of the erotic and the horrific are heard intertwined. There is exploitation and degradation, but there are friendships too. Sayuri finds friendship with other geisha and some of the men she entertains. But it is a story, ultimately, as most good stories are, about being human and finding a way.

Sayuri holds onto hope, even when all seems bleak. Mameha is a friend and an ally, careful and intelligent. Hatsumomo is a bully, perhaps because she too recognises the impermanence of things, and the delicacy of her position. Though her recognition of this leads her to fear and hate, rather than to a place of hope. 

They all navigate a changing world. Something, in struggles and in triumphs, many readers can recognise and understand, regardless of the setting of time and place.

To an extent, a person's character is shaped by the times in which they live. And also by the changes that take place during the course of that person's life.

The historical novel, the best of them, explores the human in the historical. The conflicts that take place between a person's inner world and the times they live; how those times mould who they are and what they become; and, the great changes that take place on the personal level and on a more broad and global scale. And so, with that as my definition, I might tell you, with some confidence, that this historical novel is one of the best.

Poignant, beautifully written, and told with empathy . . . A wonderful book!

I recommend that, if you haven't already, you spend some time in Sayuri's company and listen to her story.

You can order a copy of Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden here!

Before you go, can I ask that you please consider supporting MonstaReader with a coffee for the blogger here.

You can also show support by leaving a little like for this post, by subscribing to the blog, leaving a little comment with your thoughts about the review (because I know I haven't covered everything!), and sharing this post with your friends on social media -- it's all very much appreciated!

And thank you for reading!

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells – review

 

Disclaimer: this blog is affiliated with third party sellers. If you make a purchase through the links in this blog, I might earn a small commission from the sale. However, this does not impact the cost of items, and it does not influence the content of this blog. 

The War of the Worlds is the first modern alien invasion novel, and has been massively influential in the genre. And even this description is an understatement. 

As with the best science-fiction, the story makes use of the extraordinary events of the novel to explore themes familiar to the reader. Wells was very much interested in social reform and the political landscape of his time, a progressive, and admitted that his story of Martian invasion was, at least in part, a comment on British imperialism. On the self-entitled rape and pillage of foreign lands and people, with only self-interest fuelling the spread of the empire.

Throughout the novel, the narrator reflects upon how humanity might seem nothing more than insects or cattle to Martians with their superior intelligence, and their apparently being more developed on the evolutionary scale. The Martians conquer and take the land seemingly with that same entitlement and self-interest that readers might recognise in the actions of their own imperial nation.

But the novel comments not just on the social, but also on the scientific. As mentioned above, Wells also considers evolution and humanity's place on that slippery scale. As I say, the author compares human beings to other animals, such as rabbits and ants, when he stacks them up against the intelligence and physiology of the Martian invaders.

Again, in this, the author has been able to consider humanity's sense of entitlement in the way that it exploits life on Planet Earth. The narrator considering that his own experience of subjugation has changed the way he sees humanity's treatment of animal life. However, the fact that some of the more highly evolved animals can be affected by the smaller, less evolved creatures is also explored. From the extra-terrestrial armies, to the bacteria of our own world.

The main themes which run throughout the novel are scientific and social, turning a mirror on humanity and our place in the big wide scope of time and space. Asking questions about where we are, where we have been, and where we are going.

There are signs in the novel that Wells was not wholly optimistic about these questions. Some characters come to an end not in the instant death of a Martian heat ray, but under the feet of fellow human beings.

At the time of Wells' writing War of the Worlds, it really was thought possible life might exist on Mars. An idea dismissed as pure fiction today, but in the late nineteenth century, when the planet had only been observed through telescopes, the possibility seemed real, and exciting.

An Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiapparelli, had observed channels on the surface of Mars in 1878. A geographical detail of the planet which gave rise to ideas about extra-terrestrial life creating canals or irrigation for the movement of water from the planet's poles. Again, an idea that might seem silly today, but space exploration was a thing of fantasy at the time, and what could be observed through telescopes was obviously limited. And so, the minds of nineteenth century earthlings were left to fill in the gaps for themselves. If nothing else, it proved wonderfully fertile ground for H. G. Wells and other science fiction writers of the time. And in turn, a great influence on all those writers of the genre that followed.

At the time Wells wrote The War of the Worlds, the invasion novel was very popular, however these novels depicted human beings invading the lands of other human beings. Pondering the questions of what if this nation invaded that nation? Or, what if war came to Dorking? That sort of thing.

Wells' genius was to write the invasion novel which pitted humanity against a far greater foe, to set his sights beyond this blue and green planet falling through space.

I think Wells had to have his invaders be creatures of superior intelligence and evolution. Something profoundly removed from earthbound cares and concerns. It is an excellent device for dismantling humanity's foibles and cruelties through the eyes of the ultimate outsiders. The novel even opens with the Martians observing humanity as though we were nothing more than specimens of life in a laboratory. No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. 

I don't think myself a particularly keen science fiction fan, but I do enjoy those authors who use the premise of their fantastic stories to turn their gaze on real issues. And, of course, the genre offers itself effortlessly to asking questions about where we might be heading. 

In turn, the science fiction of today can very well become the scientific truth of today. A number of scientists, whose work would lead eventually to the Apollo moon landings, said they were inspired by the descriptions of space travel in the novel.

Wells also predicted darker things, a state of total war in England, for example, in this novel, and later in others, which was considered fantastical when first published. However, when World War II brought destruction to British cities it became all too real. As did the descriptions of Martian weaponry, with their weapons of war including the use of chemicals, much like what would be seen in later, very real wars.

Today, with the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns still very fresh in the public consciousness, the reader might find themselves drawn by the author's consideration of bacterial life and the spread of disease. How life can be brought down by that which we cannot see but with microscopes. And that is probably why the novel has never been out of print and is one of the most influential science fiction stories ever written. It casts its eye upon the world in which it was created, the world of nineteenth century imperial England, but it persists. Still gazing at the world with a relevant comment on the progress of humanity and where we are heading.

For those that might be put off by the age of the novel (it was first published in 1898), I say to you that the novel still feels quite modern and fresh. Yes, there are some antiquated words or phrases, and references that the reader might have to refer to notes to understand, but it is quite readable to the modern reader. There are not so many dated references that the reader will be wading through them like mud. Perhaps because the story is extraordinary anyway, asking the reader to believe in aliens from Mars, it is easier for the reader to immerse themselves into a world separated from them by time too.

I very much recommend this book, to science fiction fans, to fans of classic fiction, and to anyone that likes a good story. And, if nothing else, if you've ever watched a film about aliens or alien invasion, it might be fun for you to see where it all began. Because I can almost guarantee this story has touched many of the space stories that followed it!

You can purchase a copy of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells here.

Before you go, can I ask that you please consider supporting this blog with a coffee for the blogger here.

If you are unable to donate, you can also like, share, leave a comment, and share this post with those that care.

Thank you for reading!