Customer Reviews

Yoshiwara

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

 

 

For anyone doing serious work on sexuality (Japanese or otherwise), prostitution or Japanese history or even Japanese political culture, "Yoshiwara" is not to be missed. Seigle has written not only a comprehensive, but fascinating and accessable book about the history of the licensed prostitution quarter near (now inside) Tokyo during the Tokugawa Era.

She gives a fascinating (if at times - by necessity - disturbing) look at how sexual politics and popular culture were regulated and maintained during the Tokugawa Shogunate. She gives equal weight to everything from architecture and anecdotes and gives an impressively complete cross-section of life in the district throughout the vast majority of the Yoshiwara's history. The picture she gives is also one that shows rise, evolution and decline of the district in equal importance. Even the cultural impact of the Yoshiwara upon cultural phenomena like style and societal standing are covered in admirable depth.

I have found this book of great use in studies of both Japanese sexuality and urban history. Seigle does a wonderful job of neither romanticizing nor attacking the Yoshiwara, but is (on the whole) content to lay out as complete a history and case study as she can. For any serious student of Japanese history or culture, I recommend not missing this book.

This is first class scholarship. While dense for its size because it is an academic work (with extensive references, footnotes, glossary and explanatory notes), it is readable with numerous translations and summaries of period works. Highly recommended for anyone looking to go beyond and much deeper than mass medium oriented works like Memoirs of a Geisha.

Whilst this book does contain a lot of information, it's not all that well organized. There are references in early chapters to terms, practices or events which aren't explained until much later in the book, which can be confusing unless you already have extensive knowledge of the subject. Some areas are just touched upon with no great detail given, and it's easy to get lost when the author moves from one time period to another without explaining changes that were taking place fully. Information about the ranking of courtesans is confusing, and there are a number of inconsistencies in the text. The index doesn't help because it's so limited. Despite talking about the harsh realities of Yoshiwara life, the author talks a fair amount about the women being better off than ordinary Japanese women, happy in ignorance, etc., and the rose-tinted glasses are definitely on some of the time, which was disappointing considering the nature of Yoshiwara life and its dependence on a system of slavery. You need to read this one more than once because of the arrangement of information.