Customer Reviews

The Courtesan's Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives Includes CD

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The power of the Indian wife was (and perhaps is) her sexual purity. She was neither expected nor permitted to indulge in fine arts or education of any kind. This was reserved for ganikas who were supposed to be well-versed in 64 arts! The writer makes a distinction between the different types of women and the roles they played in the structured caste based society of ancient India.

You learn this and more in this excellent book of essays about courtesans across the ages, in different countries. I was particularly impressed by the write-up on Geishas, Chinese courtesans and the Indian ganikas.

I was surprised to learn that Japanese men were supposed to marry only for procreation. To love one's wife was actually considered low. Like with the Greek civilizations, the Japanese men derived greater pleasure from young boys. Prostitutes served for their pleasure. And slowly, women versatile in arts evolved into Geishas. On the other hand, Chinese women were judged on the basis of their ability to sing. This book certainly provides insights that explain the status of women in society today.

I give this book 4 stars as there seemed to be an imbalance in the geographical coverage of courtesans, with an emphasis on the European ones.

Bottomline: Informative and engaging. Definitely a must read.

This book sucks. I'm sorry, but the whole thing is nothing but an over-written college essay. The author seems to have collected nothing but undescriptive, dry, unopinionated facts from other documents and simply thrown them together with no bearing on flow or feeling within the pages. The author jumps from one unrelated subject matter to the next, introducing names and events that have no bearing on the point of the chapter. There is continuous overuse of elaborate vocabulary as to keep focus on the author's wit & inteligence of such words, instead of simply focusing on describing the subject at hand. It is a perfect example of a waste of a tree.