Re-visiting books is tough to do. More so when the written word has been translated into celluloid. You either want to remember it in the written form, you end either loving or hating the film or sometimes if you have loved and inhabited the mind of the author so much, you don't ever want to see the film.
Since I have yet to watch the movie, heading back to Arthur Golden's 'Memoirs of Geisha' turned out to be a quite a journey. I had first read in the book in 1998 and what a journey that was. As I settled into the re-launched movie cover edition with those distinct red lips, just like the first time, there was no putting the book down.
Golden's prose is poignant, every detail vivid and the story moving. It begins in the years before World War Two when a Japanese girl is sold by her penniless family.
She ends up working as a maid in a geisha house. Her name is Chiyo, she is later re-named Sayuri and ends up working as a maid for a geisha called Hatsumomo, who is jealous of her beauty and makes her life miserable.
The captivating story unravels through Sayuri's life and narrative. It tells us how another geisha Mameha, who is as kind as Hatsumomo is cruel takes Sayuri under her wings. With that, the lives of several others who she has loved, lost or hated unfold.
This extraordinary tale covers a quarter century from 1929 to the post-war years of Japan's dramatic history. And Sayuri's story opens a half-hidden world of eroticism and exploitation.
What stands through it all is the extent of research that went into the making of this book. To capture the geisha experience, Golden trained as hard as any geisha would.
After earning a degree in art history specialising in Japanese history, he worked towards a masters in Japanese history from Columbia University. Here he also learnt Mandarin.
After a summer at Beijing University, he went to work in a magazine in Tokyo. It was in Tokyo that he met a man who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman and a geisha.
This led to 10 years of painstaking research. Golden spent time researching every detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on Mineko Iwasaki, who spent years charming the rich and the famous.
Though the character of Sayuri and her story are completely invented, Golden has ensured the historical facts of geisha's life in the 1930s and the 1940s are not.
The result of this engrossing mix between fact and fiction or fact-ion as the term is better known, is a novel that covers a broad social canvas. It is quite simply a stunning portrayal of lives in a time that's long gone by.
I loved the book in 1998, I love it now. Just can't wait for the movie to hit the screens here.
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:
"A novel that refuses to stay shut." - Newsweek
"Enthralling....draws the reader in from the very first page." - USA Today
"You feel as if you've entered not just another world, but an extraordinary and foreign heart." - Pico Iyer, Author |
Deepika Shetty is a Producer with Prime Time Morning and takes care of the book segment 'Off The Shelf' as well. | 
