Doreen did not like this book. It made her feel ill, and angry. She found it fascinating ‘in a repulsive way’ and thought it was horrible and written in a very voyeuristic and also non-critical way. ‘It makes you loathe and detest Japanese men’.
The men portrayed in the book are repulsive - while always polite. The book is written in the first person by a girl who is sold into geisha-dom. All the women in the town where the story is based are either geishas or part of the support structure for the geishas. The book starts in the 1920s and goes through to the war.
Gill felt that men, as well as women, were oppressed by these traditions. The book helped her to understand the Japanese culture and the expectations it places on men. Geishas are seen as respectable women and have some status in society.
Doreen 11/4/99