The plot (or its deficiencies) leaves me with some unanswered questions. It’s also quite interesting to find that the setting in the book corresponds with World War II, which fits in with other books I’m reading.

And that certain types of makeup that were previously used contained certain minerals that poisoned the wearer. One of the most interesting tidbits I picked up (if you assume that all the little tidbits in this story are carefully researched and true, as the 'Acknowledgments' seem to indicate) is that geishas used to use nightingale droppings in their pasty-white makeup (62). Not only are there enough mini-plots to detract from the overall lack of meaning, there’s are plenty of mini-facts to keep you thinking long after you’ve put the book down. Resolutions aside, however, this book is a great story.

Perhaps that is this book’s notorious problem ending: there is a resolution with nothing to resolve. What we are left with, then, is a very well-written, entertaining story without a climax. The author sets us up to believe that Mameha was the sole contributor to Sayuri’s apprenticeship, but he fails to put any uncertainty in the picture, or any reason why one might think or wish otherwise. For one thing: who cares? It’s not as if the Chairman were a depraved criminal.

(Granted, I’ve only read the Moby Illustrated Classics version in grade school). The fact that the Chairman turns out to Sayuri’s 'benefactor,' as it were, does not contribute to the story in any sort of manner near the similar revelation in Great Expectations. This is not to say that the author is another Charles Dickens, although in places he seems to be trying to emulate (or borrow from) the latter. I, however, didn’t feel the letdown experienced by many of the other readers, and overall I found the work adequately consuming. (Admittedly, reading reactions such as these tend to bias one before even starting to read a book, but seeing that I have a finite amount of time I must limit my perusals in some fashion.) In an interview with the author himself, he agreed that (if I remember correctly) the ending seemed somewhat an attempt to tie up the loose ends of a first novel. Having glanced around on (that’s where I discovered Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha to begin with), I read not a few responses from other readers that indicated the plot simply fell apart - or maybe faded away - in somewhere in the middle of the story. ☰ Review: Memoirs of a Geisha Title Memoirs of a Geisha Author Arthur Golden Publisher Alfred A. Review: Memoirs of a Geisha Garret Wilson

Author arthur golden