(diaryland) March 8, 2001 - 15:58:38

I just finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. It's just not that good. It's a nice idea and all, but, no. It's badly written.

It's all like, "I was standing there like some kind of innocent little naive cute girl, hoping someone would notice me. And then some crusty old guy checked me out. Yay!" That's what the whole book is like. Oh, except for the bits where it's all like, "Why was that mean chick so nasty to me all the time? Oh, that's right. Because she was jealous that I was hotter than her. But it's OK because she went crazy and became a prostitute. Yay!"

It's just your basic "Everyone was mean to me, but I becams a hot chick and got the guy I wanted" story. It's boring.

But the main problem wasn't even that. It was the way the guy who wrote the book used similies in every bloody sentence. "I picked my nose and it reminded me of the time when I was a little girl when the wind blew through the dead tree and made scary noises."

You know those days when you have so much snot in your nose all day and some of it is hard and some of it is juicy and soft? I love those days.

Also, I didn't like the picture of the author on the inside back cover. He looks silly.

Anyway, yes. Memoirs is OK. It's so-so. Any suggestions on what I should read next? Guestbook me.

Update: thanks to X who wrote a criticism of this entry in my guestbook. I suppose I did come off sounding like I think geisha are silly, but I have a great respect for them because they are artists. But I thought the book was written really, really badly. I think that Arthur Golden is an absolutely abysmal writer. Even the 'translator's note' at the start of the book was badly written. So, yeah. I was more saying 'Arthur Golden did not give geishas true justice through his writing' rather than saying 'geishas are dumb'. I doubt Arthur Golden would have been able to get his writing published had it not been for everyone being so interested in the subject matter. I just get bummed out seeing so much culture as presented second-hand by white men. There's been the movie The Pillow Book, lots of Art Nouveau, American architects of the 1960s who went nuts for sliding walls, The Magnificent Seven, etc. The Tale of Genji rings true and it should. This book just seems so false, cliche and staged. But I do agree with you that I can't really cope with the way that these women have to rely on men so much.
Also, I've never been to America before.