Resumo de The Geisha - Arthur Golden

The beginning of the 30s was the heyday of the geishas in Japan. There was such a high demand that young girls from the country were sold to towns in order to become geishas there. This also happens to the little girl Chiyo and her sister. They are sold to Kyoto and there they are separated. Chiyo is sold to an Okiya, a geisha house, and is supposed to become a geisha herself one day. But how is she to find her way in this new and completely strange world? The only world of Japan which is ruled by women. There is Hatsumomo who hates Chiyo. A trained geisha who secures the survival of all the inhabitants of the Okiya with her income. Chiyo is sent to geisha school, but she can't put up with the thought of never seeing her sister again. She tries to escape, but her escape fails. Now her sister is gone forever, both her parents are dead. All that remains are the women of the Okiya, her family. Hatsumomo, however, does not tolerate a girl next to her, whose eyes might endager her. Out of sheer jealousy she makes Chiyo destroy a highly valuable Kimono. Following that incident she is condemned to work as a servant for the Okiya until her debts are paid for by the ruling mistress of the Okiya. Only a few years later Chiyo meets the director at a celebration in a tea house. When she was a little girl she had met him in the streets of Kyoto and has never forgotten him. After this meeting her fate suddenly improves. She gets a guardian angel in form of the great geisha Mameha and is to become a geisha after all. Hatsumomo is, however, not to be defeated so easily and she is not the only enemy. The world of the geishas is threatened by war. When it breaks out Chiyo has to take refuge. She spends the years of the war far away from Kyoto. One day, however, she will return and conjure up the world of the geishas once more for her beloved director. Arthur Golden does not primarily tell us about Chiyo's love for her director. What is much more important is the world into which she has got. This novel deals with a mysterious world, dominated by women who are admired because of their beauty and their smartness. They fight like women with cunning and intrigue. A world in which everything is hidden behind beauty and perfection, which is, however, like any other world also driven by love, jealousy, envy, greed, fear and hope. This novel tells about the strenght of these women in a difficult world, about their secrets and their worries. A beautiful novel which gives us a unique and sensitive view into the world of the geishas.

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