Books: Find. Compare. Buy.

(*)

Arthur Golden:
Memoirs of a Geisha (Vintage Contemporaries) - Paperback

2005, ISBN: 0679781587

[SR: 390460], Paperback, [EAN: 9780679781585], Vintage, Vintage, Book, [PU: Vintage], 2005-07-31, Vintage, 433pp , in English , ABOUT THE AUTHOR :: Arthur Golden (born December 6, 1956 ) is an American writer. He is the author of the bestselling novel Memoirs of a Geisha (1997 ) . Gold is a member of the Ochs - Sulzberger family (owners of The New York). His mother , Ruth Holmberg, is the daughter of long-term Arthur Hays Sulzberger Times editor and granddaughter owner and publisher Adolph Ochs Times of . Gold was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee , grew up in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and attended Lookout Mountain Elementary School in Lookout Mountain , Tennessee. He spent his middle and junior high school at Baylor College (then a school -boys for day and boarding students ) in Chattanooga, where he graduated in 1974. He attended Harvard University and graduated in Art History specializing in Japanese art . In 1980 , he earned an MA in Japanese history at Columbia University , and also learned Mandarin Chinese. After a summer at Peking University in Beijing , China , worked in Tokyo. When he returned to the United States , earned a master's degree in English at Boston University . Currently lives in Brookline , Massachusetts. He has a son (Hays Golden ) and a daughter ( Tess de Oro) . After his release in 1997 , Memoirs of a Geisha spent two years in the New York Times bestseller list . It has sold over four million copies in English and has been translated into thirty-two languages around the world. The novel Memoirs of a Geisha was written over a period of six years during which Gold rewrote the entire novel three times , changing the view before finally settling at the point of first person view of Sayuri . Interviews with a number of geisha, including Mineko Iwasaki , provided background information on the world of the geisha . After the Japanese edition of Memoirs of a Geisha was published , Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation by Iwasaki . The complainant alleged that Golden had agreed to protect their anonymity , if she told him about her life a, According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first novel, the word "geisha" does not mean "prostitute," as Westerners ignorantly assume--it means "artisan" or "artist." To capture the geisha experience in the art of fiction, Golden trained as long and hard as any geisha who must master the arts of music, dance, clever conversation, crafty battle with rival beauties and cunning seduction of wealthy patrons. After earning degrees in Japanese art and history from Harvard and Columbia--and an M.A. in English--he met a man in Tokyo who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman and a geisha. This meeting inspired Golden to spend 10 years researching every detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on the geisha Mineko Iwasaki, who spent years charming the very rich and famous. The result is a novel with the broad social canvas (and love of coincidence) of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen's intense attention to the nuances of erotic maneuvering. Readers experience the entire life of a geisha, from her origins as an orphaned fishing-village girl in 1929 to her triumphant auction of her mizuage (virginity) for a record price as a teenager to her reminiscent old age as the distinguished mistress of the powerful patron of her dreams. We discover that a geisha is more analogous to a Western "trophy wife" than to a prostitute--and, as in Austen, flat-out prostitution and early death is a woman's alternative to the repressive, arcane system of courtship. In simple, elegant prose, Golden puts us right in the tearoom with the geisha; we are there as she gracefully fights for her life in a social situation where careers are made or destroyed by a witticism, a too-revealing (or not revealing enough) glimpse of flesh under the kimono, or a vicious rumour spread by a rival "as cruel as a spider." Golden's web is finely woven, but his book has a serious flaw: the geisha's true romance rings hollow--the love of her life is a symbol, not a character. Her villainous geisha nemesis is sharply drawn, but she would be more so if we got a deeper peek into the cause of her motiveless malignity--the plight all geisha share. Still, Golden has won the triple crown of fiction: he has created a plausible female protagonist in a vivid, now-vanished world and he gloriously captures Japanese culture by expressing his thoughts in authentic Eastern metaphors., 10790401, Historical, 62, Fiction, 1025612, Subjects, 266239, Books, 590934, Literary Fiction, 62, Fiction, 1025612, Subjects, 266239, Books

(*)

Golden, Arthur:
memoirs of a geisha a novel - Paperback

2005, ISBN: 9780679781585

ID: 999251572

New York: Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books A Division of Random House, Inc. Light Creasing on Front, Rear Covers, Spine; Front, Rear Covers, Spine Lightly Chipped; Spine Moderately Cocked; Edges Lightly Soiled; Moderate Yellowing Due to Age. NATIONAL BESTSELLER. COVER DESIGN: Barbara de Wilde. BOOK DESIGN BY: Iris Weinstein. MOVIE TIE-IN: This novel was the basis of the 2005 feature film of the same name. SYNOPSIS: #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER. OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST. A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel presents with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha. 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. Arthur Golden was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and was educated at Harvard College, where he received a degree in art history, specializing in Japanese art. In 1980 he earned an M.A. in Japanese history from Columbia University, where he also learned Mandarin Chinese. Following a summer at Beijing University, he worked in Tokyo, and, after returning to the United States, earned an M.A. in English from Boston University.. First Thus 5th Printing. Trade Paperback. Good. Illus. by AKG, London. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall., Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books A Division of Random House, Inc.

(*)

Golden, Arthur:
Memoirs of a Geisha - new book

ISBN: 9780679781585

ID: 192081

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read 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 fictionat once romantic, erotic, suspensefuland completely unforgettable. Fiction Fiction eBook, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

(*)

Golden, Arthur:
Memoirs of a Geisha - used book

ISBN: 9780679781585

ID: 2486931

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, 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." Memoirs of a Geisha Golden, Arthur, Vintage Books USA

(*)

Golden, Arthur:
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA: A NOVEL - Paperback

1999, ISBN: 9780679781585

ID: 436878135

Vintage, 1999. Paperback. Good. According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first novel, the word "geisha" does not mean "prostitute," as Westerners ignorantly assume--it means "artisan" or "artist." To capture the geisha experience in the art of fiction, Golden trained as long and hard as any geisha who must master the arts of music, dance, clever conversation, crafty battle with rival beauties, and cunning seduction of wealthy patrons. After earning degrees in Japanese art and his tory from Harvard and Columbia--and an M.A. in English--he met a man in Tok yo who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman and a geish a. This meeting inspired Golden to spend 10 years researching every detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on the geisha Mineko Iwasaki, who spent years charming the very rich and famous., Vintage, 1999