Memoirs of a Geisha
this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism 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. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. 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. 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 is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction--at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful--and completely unforgettable.From the Trade Paperback edition.
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- LOL, I got to soi-disant (self-proclaimed; so-called) but that's actually just French, so it doesn't count. The word minatory (menacing; threatening) was the first actual English one I had to Google.
Stopped reading there, but hey, I learned a new word.
I did skim on, though, because I am kind of interested in the topic of difficult novels. My favorite novel, Neuromancer is at least marginally "difficult", based on the reactions of the high school friends to whom I recommended it in the late 1980s -- but I don't think it really is. It introduces many things before they are explained, and probably uses a wider range of vocabulary than most novels of its time, but it's really not that demanding.
A better example is probably The Road, the post-apocalyptic masterpiece by Cormac McCarthy, versus, say, The Dog Stars, the post-apocalyptic masterpiece by Peter Heller. Though the meat of both stories is similar, the former is an energy-intensive slog (but wonderful), while the latter is a light read that can be completed in a couple nights of falling-asleep-reading (and also wonderful).
The reason that I am interested in "difficult" novels is that I find myself incessantly badgering my friends who don't read, or who don't read fiction, to read novels. And even buying them books. But I've found that I can't start with the very best novels because then they won't complete it and it won't take. They won't even finish the first one.
Anyway, before this comment itself grows to novel length, let me just recommend some great — but decidedly not difficult — novels I've recently read.
REAMDE by Neal Stephenson, who often does write difficult novels, but this one is like his version of a supermarket paperback (and still good). Seveneves likewise.
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, probably my favorite novel of the past few years (published in 2005 but I didn't find it until years later). Hugo winner.
December 6, by Martin Cruz Smith, a well-known but (in my view) pretty hit-or-miss author, who nevertheless has written a few great novels (Gorky Park being the most famous, but not as good as December 6).
Ancillary Justice, the debut novel from Ann Leckie. It was great, although I didn't find the rest of the trilogy had much to add to it. Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke award, though, holy shit right?
City of Thieves by David Benioff.
Memoirs of a Geisha, the unbelievably awesome debut novel from Arthur Golden, from which an unbelievably horrible move was somehow extracted (this story is the kind that cannot be told in a movie, and is a great proof of why we need novels).
- The trilogy of Neuromancer, Burning Chrome, and Mona Lisa Overdrive is still my favorite work of fiction, and also, to my mind, exemplifies the kind of taut, awesome writing that I would want to do if I wrote novels. It the only series of 3 books I have read more than once.
I caught these books at just the right time in my life (age 13 or 14), leading my high-school fascination with Japan and rekindled interest in computing, and probably played an inordinately large role in me ending up as a programmer who lives in Tokyo, two decades later.
I like great sci fi best, but I think most of it is crap, including virtually all of the old pulp sci fi and Asimov I grew up reading (which was basically all of it), Star Wars/Trek, etc.
Other than Gibson's stuff, some of the truly spectacular sci fi I have read is the very-dense-and-not-at-all-thriller-ish Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars), and the fast-paced-and-awesome Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. That led me to read all of Wilson's books, many of which are also good. Also Haldeman is an author worth reading, though not all of his books hit their mark.
Great sci fi is my favorite fiction, but IMO most of it is broken by being fundamentally implausible. Other fiction I consider great in other genres include Memoirs of a Geisha, Cold Mountain, REAMDE, The Son, The Road, the lighter but still version of that post-apocalyptic concept The Dog Stars, City of Thieves, and All the Pretty Horses and its sequels.
It's probably symptomatic of a major flaw in my character that despite also buying dozens of nonfiction works (Lincoln, On China, and so forth) over the past few years, I haven't finished any of them.
- Would you consider 'Memoirs of a Geisha' (by Arthur Golden, who was never a geisha) to be 'truly original'?
- 39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
- EDIT3: If we're going to go with fiction, this looks like a good list to pick from:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6.Best_Books_of_the_20th_...
Personally, I've read almost none of these!
1) How can you have read none of these? Get started already! And don't wait for others to tell you which books to read!
2) That list is very suspect... I don't know how they compiled it, but it's a bit strange that it does contain some good books but then simultaneously allocates several positions to enjoyable but trashy books such as Harry Potter. Also gives several position to LotR (one is warranted, no more!), including one for the Silmarillion (wtf? I enjoyed it, but "best book of the 20th century"? no way!) Memoirs of a Geisha is also nice but hardly a thought leader. And it seems to be completely missing immortal masterpieces such as Narziss & Goldmund (Herman Hesse), Joseph and his Brothers (Thomas Mann), The Trial (Kafka), and many others.
An "OK" starting point, but not even the shadow of a definitive list.
