"The greatest university of all is the collection of books." -- Thomas Carlyle

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

"Never read any book that is not a year old." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have wondered in the past about this story - and whether I would like it. The story intrigues me, so when I saw that it was in the wild, where I was planning to be soon, I hoped it would still be there for me to catch. And, so it was....

This is a book that I would normally not read, and could not recommend to just anyone. However, it was very well written and kept my attention throughout the entire book - taking me only a few days to read it.

I will be giving it to another bookcrosser very soon in a controlled release.

I received this in a "controlled release" from a friend.

Superbly written. I've debated reading this for years, but was unsure. With the title, the author could have gone in so many directions, and wasn't sure his choices would lean more toward tasteful or titillating. Definitely the former. He chronicles the inner life of a girl sold to become a geisha c. 1929. There are a handful of profoundly disturbing scenes, handled extremely delicately, which I think makes them the more distressing. Distressing, because of the violation the title character experiences, and the way the author captures her feelings.

I think the most powerful parts are the first 2/3 or so, where she's coping with the emotional blow of being torn from her home, then separated from her sister, and being persecuted by the powerful, but quite cruel, geisha to whose "okiya" she was sold, and learning to rise above these losses and make a life in the circumstances in which she finds herself. The last third glosses over the WWII and immediately post-war era. I'm not saying that's a bad choice on the part of the author. In fact, it heightens the sense of isolated, even arguably sheltered unreality of the geisha life that the work portrays, and is important to unfolding Sayuri's (the narrator) story. But it's not the most powerful part. At least, not yet. I do have 60 pages more to read, and when I finish I may reconsider. I sense this last third is here to complete Sayuri's inner growth, especially getting her to realize some important things about living for a dream that may or may not come true.

Another thing I appreciate about this book is how Sayuri's humanity is portrayed. I don't really know much about geisha culture. I'm not condoning it, but am sensing that it was a lot more nuanced than I've (and I'd bet many Americans) assumed. I still think it's at best a morally gray zone, but that doesn't mean the women in it were (are?) sub-human or just 2 dimensional. Sayuri wrestles with a pretty full range of human emotions & experiences. To my mind, that's one of the prerequisites for a good book: well-rounded characters.

So, now that I've finished the book, here are my concluding thoughts.

I was caught off guard, and very disappointed, when the narrator betrayed another important character. Not only that, she did so rather lightly. She SAID she was torn, but the portrayal of this struggle--which was for purely selfish reasons--lacked the depth of the earlier part of the book.

Here's my question: does this mean the author is so good at his portrayal of his main character through her first person narration, that the character flaw that let her do this heinous thing fairly lightly was skillfully camoflogued (sp?) in the way we all are (sadly) skilled in hiding our worst instincts from ourselves?

Or is it that the author was unable to sustain the intensity of his skill through to the end, and wrapped things up a bit too hurriedly, glossing over (and in some instances "telling") things that he should have been developing by "showing"?

I'm not sure. Still a book worth reading.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Left it on the first bench closest to the municipal parking lot, inside a "bookcrossing" plastic bag.