Geisha : A Life (Hardcover)

by Mineko Iwasaki (Author), Rande Brown (Contributor) "I FIND GREAT IRONY in my choice of profession..." (more)
Key Phrases: other geiko, old meanie, silent pilgrimage, Auntie Oima, Gion Kobu, Mother Sakaguchi (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Now in her 50s, Mineko Iwasaki was one of the most famed geishas of her generation (and the chief informant for Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha). Her ascent was difficult, not merely because of the hard, endless training she had to undergo--learning how to speak a hyper-elevated dialect of Japanese and how to sing and dance gracefully while wearing a 44-pound kimono atop six-inch wooden sandals--but also because many of the elaborate, self-effacing rules of the art went against her grain. A geisha "is an exquisite willow tree who bends to the service of others," she writes. "I have always been stubborn and contrary. And very, very proud." And playful, too: one of the funniest moments in this bittersweet book describes a disastrous encounter with the queen of England and her all-too-interested husband.

Revealing the secrets of the geisha's "art of perfection," this graceful memoir documents a disappearing world. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
From age five, Iwasaki trained to be a geisha (or, as it was called in her Kyoto district, a geiko), learning the intricacies of a world that is nearly gone. As the first geisha to truly lift the veil of secrecy about the women who do such work (at least according to the publisher), Iwasaki writes of leaving home so young, undergoing rigorous training in dance and other arts and rising to stardom in her profession. She also carefully describes the origins of Kyoto's Gion Kobu district and the geiko system's political and social nuances in the 1960s and '70s. Although it's an autobiography, Iwasaki's account will undoubtedly be compared to the stunning fictional description of the same life in Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha. Lovers of Golden's work-and there are many-will undoubtedly pick this book up, hoping to get the true story of nights spent in kimono. Unfortunately, Iwasaki's work suffers from the comparison. Her writing style, refreshingly straightforward at the beginning, is far too dispassionate to sustain the entire story. Her lack of reflection and tendency toward mechanical description make the work more of a manual than a memoir. In describing the need to be nice to people whom she found repulsive, she writes, "Sublimating one's personal likes and dislikes under a veneer of gentility is one of the fundamental challenges of the profession." Iwasaki shrouds her prose in this mask of objectivity, and the result makes the reader feel like a teahouse patron: looking at a beautiful, elegant woman who speaks fluidly and well, but with never a vulnerable moment.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Atria (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743444329
• ISBN-13: 978-0743444323
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (104 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #198,782 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but somewhat incomplete, August 21, 2004

By	debeehr "debeehr" (Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Geisha: A Life (Paperback)

I first got interested in geisha reading Arthur Golden's MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, then decided to go hunting for more information on geisha to see how accurate his account was. I started with Liza Dalby's GEISHA, and then came to read this.

Mineko delivers an absorbing account of her life and training as a very top geisha in Gion, the most exclusive of Kyoto's geisha districts. For those who are comparing her tale to Golden's, keep in mind that Golden is writing fiction, in fact, almost fairy-tale-esque fiction (complete with wicked stepsister, wicked stepmother, fairy god-mother, handsome prince, etc.) Mineko's tale is true, and archly told; Mineko herself comes across as a very strong, in some places almost domineering personality, as one would expect given her position in the family she was adopted into and her family's high-status position in Gion. The strength of her personality makes reading this book a wonderful pleasure.

However, Mineko's position within the geisha hierarchy was very atypical. She was at the very top of the heap, with all sorts of perks and privileges due to her station that many other geisha did not have (atotori so everyone respects her from day one; she gets personal access to the Big Mistress, tremendous financial and professional support in launching her career from her very-high-status okiya etc.), and it's not clear in the book that she understood this at the time, or indeed understands this now. For example, when talking about sexual matters (such as mizuage and whether a geisha's patron was entitled to sexual favors--Dalby and Golden say yes, Mineko says no), Mineko talks about her earnings, which were at the time she was working somewhere on the order of hundreds of thousands of yen a night in goshugi alone, and says something to the effect of "This is another reason why the idea of geisha selling sexual favors is so ridiculous. Given that geisha earn so much just by performing, why would they?" Well....most geisha, especially those who didn't have access to Mineko's advantages, probably *didn't* earn that much. Not that they necessarily sold sexual favors, you understand, it's just that Mineko doesn't seem to realize that her earning status was quite extraordinary and that there were probably a *great* many geisha who were a lot less fortunate.

(It may be worth pointing out here that Liza Dalby worked in Pontocho, a slightly-lower-status geisha district of Kyoto than Gion, where Mineko was located. Of course, Dalby also suggests that a great amount of the "sex" aspect of the concept of geisha may have come from the conflation of many different types of geisha and female entertainers.)

All in all, this is an entertaining book, well-written and highly readable, by turns sad and funny, as well as a great look inside the world of very-high-status geisha. In a way, this book is a tragedy as well, as by the end of it Mineko gives up her career and closes the okiya that had been entrusted to her by her adoptive family (an act that would have made Mineko look a lot less sympathetic if we hadn't seen just how hard she had been pushed as a child, even though her family cared for her.) Those reading it for information, however, should keep in mind that Mineko's account of geisha life is, while wonderfully detailed, also quite narrow in scope and that it may not be representative of all or even most geisha. For a look at a very different kind of geisha experience, I suggest AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A GEISHA, by Sayo Masuda, who was a hot-springs geisha around 1940 or so.

63 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No. 1 Geisha, November 25, 2002

By	sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Geisha, A Life" Mineko Iwaski's autobiography is not scandalous nor is it particularly revealing. Perhaps there is a cultural chasm or translational difficulty, but bluntly, Mineko does not come off as particularly truthful, likable, or appealing. The aspects she chooses to display show her great love of dressing up, dancing, and her almost frenetic energy.

The most interesting part of the book is her early childhood that was in a semi-rural part of Japan and was idyllic. The reader has to swallow that Mineko had an almost photographic memory from age three plus great insight into people's characters. She was an odd little girl who preferred to be alone, spent most of her time (by choice) in closets, and did not like to talk to people. She nursed (or tried to nurse) until she was almost 10 years old, long after she had left her mother. Maybe this is a Japanese custom. She left her family for good by the time she was six-years old to live permanently in the Iwasaki okiya (geisha house). She insists throughout the book that her father, an aristocrat in reduced circumstances, was not, as accused, a baby-seller; yet he did just that with three of his four daughters. His eldest never forgave him and ran away to get married before the debt to the geisha house was paid. Mineko heaps scorn upon this eldest sister throughout the book because she "dishonored" the family and caused her father grief.

Mineko was not typical because she was heiress-apparent of the house, and was always treated with a great deal of honor. To most American readers, it might seem this "honor" turned her into a spoiled, arrogant brat. She complains the other girls did not like her and were jealous of her attainments and superiority. It was likely they had more genuine reasons for their dislike. There is no doubt that Mineko worked hard and earned her number one status. Her schedule is almost unbelievable (she says she only slept a few hours a night). It is interesting the amount of celebrity she occasioned as the top geisha (geiko) in Kyoto. Crowds gathered round, autograph hunters were everywhere; she had commercial endorsements. To us, she had the life of a rock star. She retired at the height of her fame at age 29. Since that time, she has been successful in business (why does this not surprise me?), married and has one daughter.

"Geisha, A Life" is interesting and the author is very good at giving us small vignettes of her experiences with her peers. Her descriptions of her beautiful attire and the backbreaking work of making up, hairdressing, and donning the various garments to ready herself for public appearances are fascinating. I really wished I could have liked her more.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Geiko of Gion, July 14, 2004

By	Zack Davisson "All Good Things" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Geisha: A Life (Paperback)

Most people outside of Japan do not realize just how exclusive and secret the world of the Geishas is. Connections and wealth buy a seat in an Ochaya, and on the streets of Gion in Kyoto catching a glimpse of a Geiko (Geisha in the Kyoto dialect) is as rare as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Geiko move fast down the streets and alleyways, and a sighting is something to tell your friends about.

With "Geisha : A Life," Mineko Iwasaki lifts some of the veils of this fantasy world and shows that, underneath the make-up and fancy hairstyles, Geiko are just women, with the same thoughts and feelings and pride and emotion as everyone else. In some ways, this destroys the fantasy, being able to see "behind-the-scenes." The life of a Geiko is very difficult and somewhat...boring. Like a dedicated ballet dancer, the bulk of their life is training and practice, trying to achieve a near-impossible idea of body and movement.

"Geisha: A Life" is not compellingly written, nor as fascinating as the sexualized and fictional account "Memoirs of a Geisha." It is not as academically insightful and full of details as Liza Dalby's "Geisha." But it is honest and real. Mineko's account of her life is straightforward, without much decoration. After reading it, you will know what it is like to be a Geiko.

Woven into this account, perhaps unintentionally, is the loss of Japan's disappearing past. Mineko doesn't bat an eye when telling the story of how she leveled their 100-year old Geisha residence, in order to build a modern night club and hair salon because she thought it would make more money. She talks with hope of her artist husband someday becoming one of Japan's legendary Living Treasures, but doesn't see how she should belong in the same category. She feels loss for the fading world of the traditional Japanese arts, but keeps destroying them along with everyone else.