Tracey's Reviews > Geisha, a Life

I'd vaguely remembered hearing/reading something (maybe on NPR or 50bookchallenge posts) about Mineko Iwasaki, the prime source & inspiration for Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel, being disappointed with the portrayal of the geisha life in that novel, and therefore, she had written her own memoirs. So I checked this book out from the library and I now see where her concerns lie.

Mineko (born Masako Tanaka) joined the Iwasaki okiya as a child, due to some family issues. She was fascinated by the dance, striving to reach perfection as the only way to make everything right. She debuted as a minarai, or apprentice geisha, at an unusually young age and worked herself nearly to death for the next few years. As she matured, she became one of the most popular geisha of the Gion area. Eventually, she started to burn out and made the decision to end her career rather early. Falling in love may have had something to do with her decision as well.

The two sections of pictures were very helpful to identify certain elements of the dress, as well as get a feel for the flow of her life. The writing style is relatively plain and straightforward, what I would expect of an autobiography, as opposed to a work of fiction. Some of the fine points of the social standings and rituals got a little confusing, however.

It was interesting to read these two books back to back - seeing what small incidences in Iwasaki's life Golden chose to modify into major plot elements, and vice versa. For example, Golden chose to move his story back one generation (Iwasaki was born in 1949), probably in order to add WWII as a dramatic plot point. The attribution of a certain ritual of the oiran (courtesans) to the geishas was probably what made Iwasaki upset. (and I wouldn't blame her!)

Recommended to anyone looking for a more realistic portrayal of the waning "flower and willow world" of the geisha.