Pretty nice story, but should be read only as such; it's a work of fiction, or to be less judicious, fabricated history. Most books don't force one of the sources to sue the author for breach of contract and slander for portraying an entire profession and culture as prostitutes. This one did.

I read this book expecting to hate it, being as it is an account of Taisho Era Japan about the lives of Japanese women in an insular, secretive society written in English by a white American guy in th... (show more)

Pretty nice story, but should be read only as such; it's a work of fiction, or to be less judicious, fabricated history. Most books don't force one of the sources to sue the author for breach of contract and slander for portraying an entire profession and culture as prostitutes. This one did.

I read this book expecting to hate it, being as it is an account of Taisho Era Japan about the lives of Japanese women in an insular, secretive society written in English by a white American guy in the present (which spawned a movie starring Chinese actresses speaking [poor] English) - but I didn't hate it. It just irritated me, because I know the net effect will be more hardening of the idea that "geisha=prostitute" in the popular consciousness, which leads inevitably to the fetishism of "Japanese woman=prostitute". I'm sick enough already of this tripe, which is just a carryover from American GIs who spent time in Japan during the Occupation mistaking their ordinary prostitutes (and often women forced into prostitution through starvation) for geisha. They weren't prostitutes any more than they are called "GEESHA GIRLS". (show less)