Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

I saw the movie of The Memoirs of a Geisha and then read the book, and now just recently saw the movie again and read the book once more throughout the past weeks. Re-reading a book of so much emotion, the tales of raw seduction in Imperial Japan before the influence of the American soldiers that came after the war, and the bombings, has made me understand the importance of reading twice. When you first read a book, everything mesmerises you and you simply want to keep reading, to see what is going to happen, to see what insane thing is going to proceed the terrible event that just happened, or the  happy event, you want to know if it will be crushed. When you read the book a second time you see that you were actually missing out a lot, inferred statements, opinions that had a double meaning, moments that seemed trivial, unimportant, but in fact you were missing out on the entire weight of it altogether.

Chiyo's (who later becomes Sayuri, her geisha name) journey was the journey of many women throughout Japan that had the same fate, a beauty since she was a girl, she had the pressure of perfection thrust upon her after being sold by her own poverty stricken family, put into a job that required beauty, that required to be delicate, to learn from the women you would compete against, because you were competing for attention, for cravings, you would have to compete against the girl that was your friend as you grew up, and would need to be fine with her trying to ruin your reputation, to be better than her was the priority. 

I believe that each other character in the book represents a piece of Chiyo's character, split into pieces. Her mentor, Mameha, is Chiyo's kindness, her femininity, and the person that makes her find herself in the game of being a geisha. As her mentor, Mameha also became her mother, and therefore the missing feminine figure throughout Chiyo's childhood. Hatsumomo, the geisha that later becomes her greatest rival, the most jealous woman, and also the one that wants to ruin Chiyo, is the hate within Chiyo, the hate that could develop, but never does thankfully. Hatsumomo also represents Chiyo's pain, the pain of being separated from her sister, the competition between women, the sadness of not being able to be with the Chairman. The Chairman represents all that is good in Chiyo, her love, her beauty, her happiness, all that makes her the exquisite girl she is. 

The book is exquisite, and must be read by everyone, even men, due to the fact that they can learn a few things about the pressure of being perfect and how important it is to be beautiful, and the challenges women have to go through for men.