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Title: Gives the illusion of being deep, but ultimately shallow
Review: I expected to be enthralled. But if you strip away all the cultural details and an occasionally lovely description, this becomes a book about a basically simple-minded woman who spends a lot of time talking about clothes, hair, makeup, and boys. I find it hard to believe that a real geisha, who is trained as an artist and conversationalist, would be this banal. The other characters were also nothing more than skin-deep depictions. Since the book was set in this century, the author had an opportunity to explore any number of interesting juxtapositions: the impact that modern Western culture and technology had on Japan, the way the Japanese were emotionally affected by WWII, ANYTHING that would have caused this book to operate on more than the most superficial level. The book screams "made-for-TV-movie."
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