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Title: Absolutely captivating, controversy aside
Review: Whether or not Golden's novel is fully based on the facts of one Geisha's life is of little consequence once you get swept up in the unfolding story of "Memoirs of a Geisha". Iwasaki's claim that the novel is a distortion of her life story did little to diminish my attention span as I read this book. I simply could not put it down. In fact, I used the People magazine article about her as a bookmark.Anyway, I thought this novel would be all about feet-binding and sex, but it's actually very tastefully written and focuses more on the intense competitiveness between Geisha than on their sexual lives--competition for security in the form of a wealthy danna, or sponsor. This novel was much better than I'd expected. I think the author did a great job considering he was writing in a woman's voice and dealing with such a mysterious and private world.
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