Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art (Paperback)

by Jodi Cobb (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
The fabled world of the geisha is one few Westerners know anything about. Cobb, whose prose is as pristine as her photographs, was able to enter this secretive, sensual, and artful realm and learn the truth about the lives of the ever-dwindling community of traditional geishas. Cobb summarizes their curious history and their hallowed place in Japan's hierarchical society, describes their training, and relates life stories of individuals, tales full of heartbreak and stoicism, pride and nobility. Geishas are both artists and living works of art, professional performers who transform themselves into embodiments of a timeless, anonymous, and emblematic beauty. With their stark white faces and carefully exposed necks, sculptured black hair, and brilliant red lips, eyebrows, and eyelids, these poised and elegant women transcend the everyday, offering their clients the opportunity to live a fantasy and providing themselves with a sustaining way of life in a culture that offers women few options beyond marriage. Cobb's elegant study is both striking and haunting. Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Everybody has seen the whitened, impassive face and red lips of the Japanese geisha, as much a symbol of the country as the annual cherry blossom. What lies behind their masks? This book of photographs, accompanied by the accounts of women who have been in the 'trade' since childhood, reveals something of their private face. Mayumi, a geisha from Tokyo, recalls one client with whom she fell in love. She told nobody except her mother: 'Geisha don't often confide in each other; they are professional at hiding these things. Your private life and your public life... don't meet. Secrecy is the essential art of geisha.' The photographs are full of everyday colour and they catch these women, young and old, in moments of hilarity, sadness and poignant reflection. (Kirkus UK)

Geisha. In the West, we think of her as woman debased: Her beauty stylized, her face masked, she is at the service of man, whom she pleasures at his will. Cobb, a National Geographic photographer, confers dignity on the geisha - or rather, she allows the geisha's natural dignity to emerge. She enters the geisha's "flower and willow world" and returns with stunning photographs and personal stories told by the women themselves. To be a geisha is an art, and it is a dying one - only 1,000 geishas remain, and their average age is over 40, Cobb reports (some of the most striking photos here are of elderly geishas, faces lined, skin sagging under the artfully applied makeup). Mayumi, a geisha, evokes the mystery and magic of her world in terms even a Westerner can understand: "This world is like Hollywood - the smart young girls concentrate on their skills; the dumb ones look for a man. As in A Chorus Line, everyone has something different she wants. But the serious ones stay. In the end, art is everything." (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (October 27, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037570180X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375701801
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #672,503 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Some nice photos but paparazzi point of view, January 18, 2000

By	PETER MACINTOSH "pmac in kyoto" (KYOTO, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art (Hardcover)

Having lived in Kyoto, the geisha capital ofJapan, for the past seven years, I found this book a typical "take what you can get from Japan and run without thinking about all the bridges you burned". I think this book has some technically fine shots but a foreign reader does not know what they are looking at because of the lack of captions to explain the photographs. [...]As for some of the shots, mostly taken in one geisha district(Miyagawa-cho), I think that she used poor judgement when publishing them. The shots such as "cigarette smoking geisha" "bathing women" and the many other unflattering shots of the women who ALLOWED her into to their world. [...] In every part of any culture there are the not so beautiful images behind the scenes that are sometimes witnessed by outsiders but that doesn't mean it is okay to publish such photos without thinking of the images of the parties involed. [...]image and beauty is a very important asset for the women involved. The other unwritten rule, which she even mentions in her very biased text, is that what goes on behind the doors of the teahouses is to stay behind the doors. [...]What a waste of some good introductions to this secret world and thank goodness that it hasn't been printed in Japanese for the geisha and customers from the other districts to see.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This isn't fiction; this is real!, September 29, 2001

By	Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Subtitled, "The Life, the Voices, the Art," this book of exquisite photographs by Jodi Cobb, a National Geographic photographer depicts both the public and the private moments of traditional geisha in modern-day Kyoto and Tokyo. A hundred year ago, there were more than 80,000 traditional geisha in Japan; today there are less a thousand. This vanishing way of life, captured in both words and photographs, will introduce the realities of the very special world to the western reader. We learn the history and understand the fantasy. We see the faces with and without makeup, including some stirring photos of elderly geisha with their white makeup emphasizing every line in their faces. And we hear their voices as they share their life stories. This isn't fiction. This is real. There are 77 full color photographs in this 11.5 x 10.5" book that is just 114 pages long. I read it one sitting, thirsting for more. Highly recommended.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Art and journalism, November 17, 2000

By	Paul Robert Hodierne (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art (Hardcover)

Jodi Cobb's "Geisha" is stunning. It is stunning visually, which anyone can see just leafing casually through it. But it is also a stunning journalistic accomplishment. This is not the first time Cobb has gone behind the closed doors of female society. She did a story for National Geographic, where she is a staff photographer, on Arab women. Like the Geisha book, it was an intimate and loving look at the lives of women usually hidden from us behind veils. The Geisha book gives us way more than the superficial beauty shots that usually pass for a look at Geisha life. We see them (quite literally) with their hair down. Which is, after all, what good journalism does. Enjoy the book just for the art if you like. Cobb takes photos with handheld, 35mm cameras using nothing but available light and makes them look like the work of a Flemish master. But also know that you are getting a glimpse of a world few women -- and no men -- can ever know.