Memoirs of a Geisha #
Author Arthur GoldenDate September 18, 2026Rating 2/5
Generally speaking, I dislike it when an author writes a series of curious and unfortunate events towards the main character that drag them frither and further down. It’s not that I dislike a sad story or a depressing part of a story, I just think that sometimes it almost feels unnecessarily cruel, and it just feels like they just want to write something hing miserable. That’s how the opening felt to me, at times I would genuinely feel somewhat sad, but after more and more of this, I just got annoyed that the author felt he needed to keep torturing this character. Certainly it served something to the plot, but it needn’t be hyperbolized to the point of insanity. Of course, the story itself follows a somewhat predictable and standard procedure, so perhaps it was too much for me to expect anything else.
There were moments in this book, a great deal of them, that reminded me of the way some others in the mid century would write about Arab culture or about some culture in some world that was supposed to be adjacent to Arab culture. The sort of reminiscing upon nature and heavy handed use of proverbs that reminds me heavily of Edward Said’s Orientalism. Perhaps I should have expected no less given the circumstances of this novel, but still it did pull me out of the book whenever I caught something particularly egregious. Pretty early on in the book I read “I suppose Hatsumomo pays her no more attention than she would a leaf that has fluttered into the courtyard”, and the on page later “I’m no more a rival to her than a puddle is a rival to the ocean”. As soon as I’m pulled into the story, Arthur Golden seems quite intent on pushing me out again. I think these ruminations on nature can serve a pretty good purpose if you use them right, but it feels like a way of mysticizing another culture and people.
There are moments in this book where I am at least somewhat enjoying reading what is happening, that I can give Golden at least, but overall, I found the book somewhat lacking.