Without trying to sound ignorant or insensitive, Memoirs of a Geisha, while a relatively common and well-known book, is not one I ever felt a strong desire to read. I ignorantly deemed it to be material I would not enjoy, and I could kick my past self for falling victim to this ludicrous idea.
One of my good friends loaned me her copy and told me she really thought I would enjoy it. Not wanting to offend her, or raise her suspicions that I would not enjoy this text, I reluctantly agreed and decided to give it a fair shot.
I won’t lie, it did sit on my bookshelf for longer than I anticipated, but I did eventually muster up the willpower to open it and begin reading.
Much to my surprise, I really enjoyed reading Memoirs of a Geisha. It is a relatively dense read, and depending on the copy you grab, the print is rather small and can be tricky to make sense of if your eyesight isn’t terribly savvy. But, assuming you don’t need strong lenses or manage to get hold of a copy with a bigger font, you should be able to make sense of it.
This is one of the most educational texts I have ever read, and I found it to be positively fascinating. This memoir familiarizes the reader with the life of a Geisha in Japan in the 1930s, and it drew my attention to a tremendous component of Japanese history I arguably would not have known about otherwise. It’s emotional, heartbreaking, fascinating and wildly educational, and I strongly believe it is a book everyone should read. It opened my eyes to a culture I would have remained ignorant of had I not decided to hunker down and read it, and I absolutely recommend it you’re a fan of history to any extent.
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