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Memoirs of a Geisha
Couverture de Memoirs of a Geisha
Memoirs of a Geisha
Emprunter Emprunter
An alluring tour de force: a brilliant debut novel told with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism as the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.  
Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love, always elusive, is scorned as illusion.  
Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Through her eyes, we see the decadent heart of Gion—the geisha district of Kyoto—with its marvelous teahouses and theaters, narrow back alleys, ornate temples, and artists' streets. And we witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. But as World War II erupts and the geisha houses are forced to close, Sayuri, with little money and even less food, must reinvent herself all over again to find a rare kind of freedom on her own terms.
Memoirs of a Geisha is a book of nuances and vivid metaphor, of memorable characters rendered with humor and pathos. And though the story is rich with detail and a vast knowledge of history, it is the transparent, seductive voice of Sayuri that the reader remembers.
A dazzling literary achievement of empathy and grace by an extraordinary new writer.
An alluring tour de force: a brilliant debut novel told with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism as the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.  
Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love, always elusive, is scorned as illusion.  
Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Through her eyes, we see the decadent heart of Gion—the geisha district of Kyoto—with its marvelous teahouses and theaters, narrow back alleys, ornate temples, and artists' streets. And we witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. But as World War II erupts and the geisha houses are forced to close, Sayuri, with little money and even less food, must reinvent herself all over again to find a rare kind of freedom on her own terms.
Memoirs of a Geisha is a book of nuances and vivid metaphor, of memorable characters rendered with humor and pathos. And though the story is rich with detail and a vast knowledge of history, it is the transparent, seductive voice of Sayuri that the reader remembers.
A dazzling literary achievement of empathy and grace by an extraordinary new writer.
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  • Disponible:
    1
  • Copies de la bibliothèque:
    1
Niveaux-
  • Niveau ATOS:
  • Lexile Measure:
    1000
  • Niveau d'intérêt:
  • Difficulté du texte:
    5 - 7


 
Prix remportés-
Extraits-
  • From the book

    Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, "That afternoon when I met so-and-so...was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon." I expect you might put down your teacup and say, "Well, now, which was it? Was it the best or the worst? Because it can't possibly have been both!" Ordinarily I'd have to laugh at myself and agree with you. But the truth is that the afternoon when I met Mr. Tanaka Ichiro really was the best and the worst of my life. He seemed so fascinating to me, even the fish smell on his hands was a kind of perfume. If I had never known him, I'm sure I would not have become a geisha.

    I wasn't born and raised to be a Kyoto geisha. I wasn't even born in Kyoto. I'm a fisherman's daughter from a little town called Yoroido on the Sea of Japan. In all my life I've never told more than a handful of people anything at all about Yoroido, or about the house in which I grew up, or about my mother and father, or my older sister—and certainly not about how I became a geisha, or what it was like to be one. Most people would much rather carry on with their fantasies that my mother and grandmother were geisha, and that I began my training in dance when I was weaned from the breast, and so on. As a matter of fact, one day many years ago I was pouring a cup of sake for a man who happened to mention that he had been in Yoroido only the previous week. Well, I felt as a bird must feel when it has flown across the ocean and comes upon a creature that knows its nest. I was so shocked I couldn't stop myself from saying:

    "Yoroido! Why, that's where I grew up!"

    This poor man! His face went through the most remarkable series of changes. He tried his best to smile, though it didn't come out well because he couldn't get the look of shock off his face.

    "Yoroido?" he said. "You can't mean it."

    I long ago developed a very practiced smile, which I call my "Noh smile" because it resembles a Noh mask whose features are frozen. Its advantage is that men can interpret it however they want; you can imagine how often I've relied on it. I decided I'd better use it just then, and of course it worked. He let out all his breath and tossed down the cup of sake I'd poured for him before giving an enormous laugh I'm sure was prompted more by relief than anything else.

    "The very idea!" he said, with another big laugh. "You, growing up in a dump like Yoroido. That's like making tea in a bucket!" And when he'd laughed again, he said to me, "That's why you're so much fun, Sayuri-san. Sometimes you almost make me believe your little jokes are real."

    I don't much like thinking of myself as a cup of tea made in a bucket, but I suppose in a way it must be true. After all, I did grow up in Yoroido, and no one would suggest it's a glamorous spot. Hardly anyone ever visits it. As for the people who live there, they never have occasion to leave. You're probably wondering how I came to leave it myself. That's where my story begins.

    In our little fishing village of Yoroido, I lived in what I called a "tipsy house." It stood near a cliff where the wind off the ocean was always blowing. As a child it seemed to me as if the ocean had caught a terrible cold, because it was always wheezing and there would be spells when it let out a huge sneeze—which is to say there was a burst of wind with a tremendous spray. I decided our tiny house must have been offended by the ocean sneezing in...
Au sujet de l’auteur-
  • Arthur Golden was educated at Harvard College, where he received a degree in art history, specializing in Japanese art.
Critiques-
  • AudioFile Magazine In 1929 young Chiyo's father sells her to a fashionable geisha house outside of Kyoto. Thereafter her life, touched with struggle, heartache and, finally, a kind of triumph, becomes a window on both her soul and on pre-war Japanese culture, which is fragmenting around her. Bernadette Dunne's reading of this world and its strange (to Western eyes) inhabitants traces across our vision like a landscape painting on silk. The cultivated refinement of her voice ranges effortlessly and credibly from the innocent nine-year-old Chiyo to the magnificent but subtle Nitta Sayuri, the geisha she inevitably becomes. By the end we can almost see and hear the beautiful Sayuri step lightly across the polished wooden floor of the teahouse in her richly brocaded kimono to pour saki for the chairman. P.E.F. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
  • Publisher's Weekly

    April 3, 2000
    Trigiani's story of a middle-aged spinster finding love and a sense of self in a small Virginia coal town is a lot like a cold soda on a hot summer day: light and refreshing, if just a little too sweet. Trigiani, a playwright, filmmaker and former writer for The Cosby Show, has a Southern voice that perfectly embodies her main character, the embattled Ave Maria Mulligan. Ave Maria, who's satisfied if not exactly happy in her role as the town pharmacist, begins questioning her quiet, country life after a posthumous letter from her mother reveals a jarring secret. Ave Maria soon faces a crisis of identity, the advances of a surprising suitor and the threat of her acerbic, money-grubbing Aunt Alice. From the suitor, who points out his brand-new pickup truck during a marriage proposal, to the town temptress, who dispenses romantic advice from her bookmobile, Trigiani brings the story alive with her flexible vocal inventions. Fans of true love stories and happy endings certainly won't be disappointed. Based on the Random hardcover (Forecasts, Jan. 31).

  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from September 22, 1997
    The life of a famous Kyoto geisha--from her painful apprenticeship in the early 1930s through the years of her prime and her later career in Manhattan--is rendered with stunning clarity in this fully imagined first novel. Golden effortlessly spins the tale as the dictated autobiography of quick-witted Chiyo Sakamoto, the daughter of a poor fisherman, who attains the pinnacle of geisha success. In the process, Golden evokes the spectrum of traditional Japanese society. Sold as a child by her financially desperate father, Chiyo is placed in a house for geisha as the personal maid to Hatsumomo, one of Kyoto's most sought-after geisha. There she is trained in the arts of dance, singing and the tea ceremony. Hatsumomo, however, threatened by Chiyo's beauty, treats her with unrestrained cruelty. Chiyo's position is one of indentured servitude: she may not leave until she has repaid all of her living expenses and even her original purchase cost. After many vicissitudes, Chiyo is transformed into a celebrated geisha called Sayuri; many men offer to be her danna (high-paying boyfriend), an honor that--defying Western expectations--does not include sex unless the geisha chooses so. Despite legions of admirers however, Chiyo/Sayuri secretly pines for an unattainable man. Golden splendidly renders the superficiality of geisha culture: the word geisha translates to "artist" or "artisan," and the women spend hours painting on porcelain make-up, caring for their beautifully hued silk kimonos and honing clever conversational skills. Counter to everything geisha are taught, Chiyo learns that her own feelings do matter, and honoring them results in a well-earned, intelligent and satisfyingly happy ending. Foreign rights sold in 11 countries; Random House audio; author tour.

  • AudioFile Magazine Boyd makes a prudent choice in this evocative novel that plumbs a facet of Japanese culture utterly unfamiliar to a Western readership. Wisely avoiding the mistake of aping an Oriental accent, her voice has an appealing exotic flavor that manages to evoke another time and place. The book is a remarkable journey into the education and existence of geishas, who represent a mysterious mixture of degradation and grandeur. Golden's novel, while always illuminating, is also encyclopedic, sometimes to a fault. Boyd's warmth adds a necessary charm that helps make Golden's erudition go down easier. M.O. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine
  • AudioFile Magazine Sold into geisha training in 1929 when she's only 9 years old, Nitta Sayuri transforms herself over the next decade from a poor fisherman's daughter to a coveted geisha. Elaina Erika Davis does an exquisite job bringing Sayuri's mythic adventure to life. She's just as convincing portraying the child at the mercy of the elder geisha who desperately wants to see Sayuri fail as she is bringing to life the adult Sayuri's passionate yearning for the man she loves. Davis's talent, combined with Arthur Golden's painstaking detail of life in Japan in the early twentieth century, makes Memoirs of a Geisha both fascinating and educational. R.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
  • Publisher's Weekly

    October 10, 2005
    Arthur Golden's 1997 tale appealed to director Marshall (Chicago
    ) for the same reasons it attracted millions of readers: because it "not only peers into the fascinating and forbidden world of a geisha's life in 1930s Japan, but also tells the emotional tale of one particular girl's journey." This accompanying volume to the forthcoming film based on the book will certainly enchant fans. In his introduction, Golden recalls how "curious" it was for him to walk around a full-scale geisha district of the 1930s built on a field in California and know that such a detailed set grew out of his grueling experience writing the novel. A history of the geisha comes next, and then a portfolio of images from the film, some quite striking (such as the one of geisha practicing movements with fans, hair down, relaxed in their dressing robes and lit from behind). The book's final portion is devoted to the making of the film, with archival images of geisha, a concept illustration of a cherry-blossom-viewing party and notes on how, for example, the structural surfaces of the buildings on the set were sandblasted to add texture and age.

  • Washington Post Book World

    "Astonishing . . . breathtaking . . . You are seduced completely."

  • The New Yorker "A story with the social vibrancy and narrative sweep of a much-loved 19th century bildungsroman. . . . This is a high-wire act. . . . Rarely has a world so closed and foreign been evoked with such natural assurance."
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