Little Songs of the Geisha [Paperback]

Liza Crihfield Dalby (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2000

A fascinating look into the world of the Geisha through the 400-year-old art of Ko-Uta, the traditional song form sung to three-stringed shamisen music. A vivid evocation of the romanticism of feudal Japan.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Japanese (translation)
Original Language: Japanese

About the Author

Liza Dalby has lived intermittently in Japan since she was a teenager. Fluent in Japanese, she is the first non-Japanese ever to have become a geisha. She received a PhD in anthropology from Stanford University in 1978 and is the author of Geisha, Kimono: Fashioning Culture, and Tale of Murasaki. Liza Dalby will also provide the new introduction to Tuttle's reissue of the classic Book of Tea.

Product Details

• Paperback: 6 pages
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing (November 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804832501
• ISBN-13: 978-0804832502
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful presentation, helpful explanations for the new reader, December 12, 2005

By 

Raven (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Songs of the Geisha (Paperback)

In "Little Songs of the Geisha", Liza Dalby stretches her scholarly wings. She's an anthropologist who went through a year of geisha training as part of her study, learning skills such as shamisen playing and ko-uta, or "little songs". In this volume, she presents twenty-five traditional ko-uta, complete with notes on meanings and inferences lost on most Western audiences, and pointers on Japanese symbolism. Throughout, she brings out overarching themes such as the identification with nature, particularly in the grip of strong feeling. Though some of the songs are poignant and some are disturbing (there's one about rape which paints it as an erotic act), Ms. Dalby does everything I like in a book of poetry. She includes the original language side by side with her translations, and in this case goes one better by including a fine calligraphy hand as well as the typeset romanji. She also includes both Western and Japanese musical notation for one of the shamisen songs, to make it easier to get an idea what they sound like. Even for a reader unfamiliar with Japanese culture, this book is worthwhile.