Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki
Geisha, A Life by
Mineko Iwasaki with Rande Brown
Masako Tanaka was born in Kyoto,
Japan in 1949, the last of eleven children. She lived with her parents and
seven of her siblings for the first five years of her life. Unbeknownst to her
she had three older sisters that were leaving in Gion Kobu, working in okiyas,
what we know as geisha houses. At a young age Masako was actively being pursued
by the proprietress of the Iwasaki Okiya, Madame Oima. She was in desperate
need of an atatori, a successor, to run the okiya when she was no longer able.
It was at the age of five that Masako decided to leave her family and move to
the okiya. She would eventually take on the name of the family and forever be
known as Mineko Iwasaki. Within the pages of the autobiography Mineko divulges
what it was like for her to leave her family, her passion for dance, how she
strived and became the most successful geiko (the word commonly used for geisha
in Kyoto) of her time.
Geisha,
A Life is an interesting story. Mineko had a very vivid memory of being a
young child and relayed her motions wonderfully. She expressed the overwhelming
fear and anxiety that was ever present in her youth. Part of becoming a geiko
for her included overcoming her fear of people and being in social situations.
She talked about the effect that being a geiko had on her older sister Yaeko,
who fostered resentment and anger against her parents from the moment she was
sent to the okiya. Mineko described in detail the exhaustion she felt and how
success ultimately forced her to make due with an average of three hours of
sleep a night. She revealed the life of a geiko and what that truly meant to
the people of Japan.
I’m torn with this book. On one
hand I really enjoyed reading about this different and highly mysterious aspect
of Japanese culture. My interest had been sparked after reading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
years ago, so I was very interested in reading this true account by the geisha
that inspired what I considered to be a great novel. Reading Mineko’s account
of the life of a geiko was extremely intriguing. She provided so much detail
about her schedule, traditions, clothing and the culture that I could visualize
and appreciate the true beauty and the art of being a geiko. On the other hand,
this autobiography became repetitive and somewhat boastful. The tone would
change in parts of the book from informative to, in my opinion, cocky and
irritating. I got tired of reading about how successful she was and how she
knew she was successful but had no true concept of how much money she was
making or how much money was being spent. She just knew that she was the best
geiko because she was the busiest. Mineko knew she was making money but only
partially aware of the scope. I don’t know, I just got bored whenever Mineko
would talk about her success. I found myself much more intrigued when hearing
her speak about her relationships with other people and the dynamics between
geikos. I give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. It was enjoyable but it had its
faults.
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