Kafu was a Japanese aristocrat, who spent time studying in America before returning home to Tokyo. He was enamored by the city’s seedier sides- the theater district, the Geisha houses, tea houses, playhouses, and brothels. This novel is set deep within this unwholesome milieu. The story follows a young woman, Komayo, who has returned to life as a geisha, following her husband’s untimely death. “Had she chosen to live out her days in the quiet backwater of Akita, she would never have known this kind of joy—a thought that made her grateful for all the trials she had endured and made her wonder at the strange turns of human destiny. She felt as though she were understanding for the first time what it truly meant to be a geisha, all the sorrow and the joy. It was odd though: she’d been a geisha yesterday, too, and yet somehow everything was different now.” Komayo has to learn to re-navigate this world full of ceremony, ritual, performance, and patronage. “Eda discreetly took stock of Komayo’s costume, her accessories, and her way of conducting herself in front of guests. None of this, of course, concerned him directly. But since he was in the habit of amusing himself in the company of such women without partaking of the erotic possibilities, he was determined this evening, for Yoshioka’s sake, to make an accurate assessment of Komayo’s worth as a geisha through the eyes of an impartial observer. Every woman in the quarter bore the title of “Shimbashi geisha,” but he knew that they represented a wide range of quality.” The novel details the politics, power dynamics, and honest love affairs that develop in the world inhabited by the geishas. And, of course, the bitter rivalries too. “Now that she’s got such a fine patron, all she has to do is take a lover—an actor, perhaps, like Kikugoro or Kichiemon—and she can have her cake and it too.”
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