"Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden

The memoir of a fictional Japanese geisha written by white guy who went to Harvard... what could go wrong? This week we read "Memoirs of a Geisha" and just in time for Christmas. Happy Holidays everyone and thank you so much for the support this year!
 
Mean Book Club is four ladies (UCB, BuzzFeed, College Humor, Impractical Jokers) who read, discuss and whine about NYT bestselling books that have questionable literary merit. It's fun. It's cathartic. It's perfect for your commute. New podcast (almost) every Tuesday! 
Here’s the Season 18 reading list: 1. Fourth Wing by Yarros 2. Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance 3. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden 4. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg 5. A Court of Thrones and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 6. The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes 7. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden 8. While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams
Send any future book suggestions to [e-mail]! Follow us on the socials @meanbookclub! Rate, like, subscribe, and check out our Patreon page at patreon.com/meanbookclub to become a true patron of the mean arts.
CREDITS: Hosted by Sarah Burton, Clara Morris, Johnna Scrabis, & Sabrina B. Jordan. This episode was produced and edited by Sarah Burton and Blake Opper. Special thanks to FSM Team for our theme song, "Parkour Introvert." Thanks to Godgrafix for "Japanese." You can get both songs here: https://www.free-stock-music.com



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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I felt as sore as a rock must feel when
the waterfall has pounded on it all day long.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Which is insane. I don't think a rock the rock
is sore. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
I myself am just average looking, but people are saying
I'm the most beautiful geisha that's like ever lived.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
That's like the first time she was like, I'm going
to take my life into my hands and I'm going
to sleep with a gross man so that I don't
have to sleep with a different gross man.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
But again, she's fourteen fifteen at most, and as these
adult men in their forties are falling in love with.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Her, there was a creepy doctor who buys her virginity
and he's kind of like a serial killer. But for
killing that.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Book, what an ironic title, Little life, you know, waste
it on this huge book.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Mean Book Club. This week
we read Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur golden Well.
I can't.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
You got it?

Speaker 1 (01:05):
I no, no, no. I feel I feel like like
usually we do go ooo yay or something, but it
just felt it felt wrong. It felt like I don't know,
I didn't have the energy for it.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's a nice punctuating silence that works.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Okay, great, great, great, As always, we are your hosts.
I'm Sarah Burton.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Hello, this is Clara Morris.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
And I'm Jonas Crabis. And I said, and I'm to
indicate I'm the last person here because we are minus
one Sabrina today.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, which you know obviously kind of bullshit. Yes, it's
of course bullshit, and we will miss her very much.
But regardless, skip the biggest book. She definitely looked she
definitely looked into that. But mean book club, we read
New York Times bestsellers that you are listeners, tell us

(01:58):
to read because you did it for book club and
you were, like Jesus Christmas.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
And I have to quit my book club people.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
So thank you, thank you. So who did recommend this book? Clara?
Where are we reading?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
We got re received an email from JC who said,
in all caps, please review Memoirs of a Geisha, a
book that was on the New York Times bestseller list
for fifty eight weeks.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
That's a lot of Is that a year?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I think it's more than a week. Yeah, it's more
than a week. The white male author interviewed a Geisha,
who agreed on the condition of anonymity, which he then
broke by citing her as a reference.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yes, okay, we will talk more about that.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah. So that was our intro and we were like,
we gotta do it. We don't care that it's a
seventeen hour audiobook.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I don't. I feel like I didn't really did. I
not realize it was a seventeen hour because there's like,
there isn't a bridged version, and I'm afraid that, like
I looked and thought the abridged version was.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
I had read the bridge.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yes, I don't think we'd be missing anything. I'm certain
that this big chunky hardback was the real cool thing.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
So how did you guys read this one? I mean,
I see a big chunky hardback Johnna, So I'm assuming that.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Well, that's how we tried to start. And the issue
was I was also reading a Court of missed a
curiate at the same time, and obviously I was going
to choose to read that every single night instead of
this piece of trash. So we got down to today
and I had to switch to an audio book. There
is one online, and I do want to say I

(03:47):
think it's funny because it's was stolen. The audiobook that
is up is a stolen audiobook from someone else, and
it feels like every step along the way that people
that have been stealing have been white, which just feels
correct for this story because it is a story supposedly

(04:08):
from the first person perspective of a Japanese woman, and
there is very little woman or Japanese person involved in
the telling of this story or the reading of the audiobook.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I did audiobook, Cold Time Library.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
I did audiobook, I did audible. But I also was
I the only one who had read this in high school.
I read this before.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Your taste in high school were interesting.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
I mean, it was a very popular book. That's true.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
High taste at the time have since been proven to
be questionable.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Your mind wasn't fully formed yet, that is true. You're
feeding feeding it things to help it grow.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I know I still was like I did like it then,
and I'm like, okay, I remember why I like But
I also, you know, I think I was still a
virgin at the time, and you know, my a very
different outlook on things.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
And so you were also thinking a lot about your
cave and the first eel that would.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Die in to it and would I sell my virginity too?

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, so I felt like it was it hits different,
hits different when you're.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Thinking of those things in your own life.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah. I do have a confession to make, which is
I started reading this and I got like seventy eighty
pages in and I was like, man, I love this.
This is amazing. I can't believe it's a real memoir.
Oh this is so like it's just it's well written.
And I was like, I'm just gonna who is the
off Arthur Gold doesn't sound like a woman, but maybe

(05:48):
he's Japanese. I don't want to assume, Okay not. And
that's when I realized why we were reading it, and
I got excited about doing the cast again.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Sort of a different lens to read it through.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
So different.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
I watch a lot of Ninety Day Fiance and I
was like, oh, I know the kind of person Arthur is.
He's one of the men, one of the white American
men on ninety Day Fiance that it's really interested in
carrying in culture.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
You're gonna lovely about the author section when we get there.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
I'm excited.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
I just have a little surprise, Okay, it's not that good.
I've built it up too much.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
But first it's time for Clara classes it up with
a summary.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
I forgot to write the summary head. Okay, so what
we're gonna do face cough for sympathy, and then what
we're gonna do is we're just going to go off
the dome here and see what happens. Okay, all right, okay,
Memoirs of a Geisha a summary. We start in small Japan,

(07:01):
so small town that the years later, when the geisha
says she's from there, everyone's like, no, you're not, but
you're funny. That's a good joke. Uh, And she's her
it's all sadness. The mom dies, she gets sold into
what she doesn't know is geishaus school, but she doesn't
know what's going on at any point. I hate this

(07:21):
kind of thing child horror stories, and her and her
sister is shipped off.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Oh the mom dies of cancer. By the way, if
you want to be sadder, Also, is.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
It implied that it's no, it's not. It's never right.
I thought I was going to be I was going
to talk about the war, but that happens in the book,
so never mind. Okay, So then yeah, there's a war.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Look out, it's a war.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Let me get the character's names up because it's hard
to do it from memory. Okay, So our main character
character is called Sakamoto in the beginning, and she has
a sister who's older somehow but maybe has brand damage
because she seems like she's in charge. But I swear
they said the sister was fifteen. Yeah, but our character's

(08:12):
in charge, I guess because she's so great anyway. She
lives in this weird geisha training thing. Everyone is cruel
to her. Her job is to be the maid that
everyone is mean too. There's several people there. Our villain
is Hotsumomo excuse my pronunci Moto. Is it Momo Moto?

(08:34):
I think it's probably Mototsu Moto. She's the villain. She's
already at geisha and she's like in charge of geisha's
and she gets to pick who it's going to be,
and someone for some reason who's named Pumpkin.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Because it's fun, like you going, I like this.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Also trying to be a geisha and she's kind of
sabotaging our made character and she's going to get picked
to be the next geisha and that's what's happening until
our main character like tries to escape his stuff and
gets in trouble. She's begging on the side of the
road as a kid, and a man gives her a
lot of money so she can be a gaige go

(09:14):
back to geisha school or something, and.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
She's like, great, y, I'm saved. I got all this money.
I can just go.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Back to I think it was my money to buy
a treat. I think it was just my But she's.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Yeah, it's enough money that she says she could leave
this whole life behind that she donates it to a
church and goes back to work.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Okay, well, he made a really big impression on her
with a small amount of money, apparently, and she made
a big impression on him even though she's a kid.
His name is the.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Later. This happens a lot and.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Then, if I'm correct this, the chairman, the man who
gave her the treat money, then tells another professional geisha
named Mammaha Maha Maha Mayha to secretly help her. Our
main character who has a new name, Sayuri Sayuri.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
So you're falling along so far right because she.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Has a new name. Okay, so this professional geisha has
been paid by the pedophile Chairman to make our main
character into the best geisha.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
And also just that's a reveal that happens at the end,
that's an exciting reveal of it that we're supposed to
be happy about.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
That the Chairman's been behind it. So she throughout the
book just thinks this gaisha picked her because she has
gray eyes. That comes up a lot, really special gay eyes.
That feels pretty. I said, gay eyes, really special gray
eyes seems a bit western, westernized way of looking at things.

(10:54):
There is another guy who falls in love with her, Oh,
falls in love with yeah, wants to sleep with her again.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
She's fourteen fifteen at most, and as these adult men
in their forties are falling in love with her.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
His name is Nobo and he loves surgeons, as does
the Chairman, and he's nicer than the chairman. But she
picks the chairman.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Chairman why because No Boo has a disfigured face. That's
pretty much the only reason.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
And it's unclear if geisha's or prostitutes. The Internet says
they're not, but I okay, it wasn't sure from this book.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Thank you for saying that I felt like an idiot
the whole time because.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
At the beginning of those I don't see how solve
that problem.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah, no it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah no I don't. Yeah, it's confusing because feels like
she's being sold into prostitution. And yeah, like I guess
she does other things.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
But the Internet's like, it's not prostitution at all. It's
just dancing and tea service. I mean, for sure, if
a geisha falls on hard times, yes, perhaps, yeah, and
they're like and.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yes, sometimes they do like some you know, be their
daughter or whatever. But it does seem like a like weird,
like a really high class prostitute. Yeah, it doesn't have
sex that it's more about the flirtation.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
And but yeah they get the internet did feel really
guessing when it was like, it's not a prostitute, it's
just someone who giggles around men.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
It's like, yeah, I mean, I guess a lawyer could
become a prostitute if they fall on hard times, just
the same as a geisha could. But like, well, but
in this book, it seemed like she's sold in. I
mean at first, you're like, she's getting sold into sex trafficking.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
This is horrible.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yeah, and then you're confused because it's like, oh, I
guess she's just like going to school and she's going
to be a maze ye learning to play music, and yeah,
like okay, maybe things are okay, but then her virginity
gets sold, so you're like, okay, that's definitely prostitute.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
But yeah, you in jail.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah mm hmmm, so.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
You go back and forth?

Speaker 3 (13:24):
What the fuck is going on? Are we still in
the summary?

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Sorry, we're done now the Geisha the end? Okay, I
think that was pretty good. I don't think I could
have written a better one.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
No, certainly, go ahead, Jay, Yeah, you want to do
your wine Johanna's joke, Well I do, I do.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Give me one second talk amongst yours?

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Okay, great, great, great, okay, good?

Speaker 2 (13:49):
How are you?

Speaker 1 (13:50):
No? I'm so good.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
I've been strained without Johanna, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (13:56):
I know.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
It's it's like, do you think they can feel the tension? Okay,
they got a hand.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Okay, I'm back.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Okay, we were normal while you were going.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, we're always normal. Hmmm, we're really cute. We're really cute.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, so my wine selection, uh, Jonna's jugs butt up
up up. It's Johnna's jugs. Thank you to our sponsored Jana. Okay,
so here's what's up all right today? Our jug? Is
this a really fancy bottle of wine? Okay, look at
how fancy it is. It's wrapped in a golden string.

(14:36):
They spent extra money to wrap the bottle up in
a fancy gold string. Okay, it's called Palazzio del conde.
Oh so like maybe conde nast wine.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Sorry, interesting anyway that you picked that when where it's
a book set in Japan, that you would pick such
an Italian sounded wine.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Okay, well, here's what's up. Look how fancy the bottle is?
It looks out of the fifteen bottles of wine that
I got from the Wall Street Journal Wine trial, this
one looked the most like a geisha to.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Okay, and I you could have just said, Zak, you
could have got Gaily given us Asak.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Maybe no, But see I got fifteen bottles of wine
from the Wall Street Journal. Oh yeah, I'm not going
to buy a different bottle of alcohol, and I have
fifteen bottles to get through. But can I tell you
about this little deal? I think you're gonna like it,
especially Sarah.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Are they sponsoring us. Is that why we're going?

Speaker 3 (15:32):
And they're sponsoring my wine through at least February? Oh
my god? Okay, okay, So here's what's up for sixty
nine to ninety nine, which then becomes when you finally
check out, ninety seven dollars.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
It doesn't seem like a great I don't, I'm not.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Okay, one hundred dollars for fifteen bottles of wine. For
one hundred dollars for fifteen bottles of wine, Okay, I
actually think it's fourteen bottle of wine and two wine glasses,
but we'll call it fifteen bottles of wine.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Okay. I couldn't get that many from Trader Joe's though, But.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
These are good bottles of wine, okay. And all you
have to do is sign up for a free trial.
They come, they ship them to your door.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Is it a wine club or a trial?

Speaker 3 (16:16):
It's a wine club. It's a wine club. But then
they want you to keep going and pay three hundred
dollars but you don't.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Here's what you do.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
You say, I'd like to try your wines. That sounds
really nice. Thank you. I am wealthy and I do
have a refined palate.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
You got the box.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
As soon as you get the box, go quick click,
click online cancel. You just got fourteen bottles of wine
for one hundred bucks.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
All right, that is good? All right, I thought you
would like. That's good. That's good. Okay is it?

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Do you have to get a newspaper subscription or no?

Speaker 3 (16:47):
But you have now that I'm a Wall Street Journal
wine club member, I do have digital access to the
Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Wow. Something else they throw and it really.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Makes you feel good about the state of journalism.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, they got me.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
I'm a subscriber. Well I was for like two days
and then I canceled it because I'm not paying that
much money to be part of their wine club. But
isn't that a good little deal?

Speaker 1 (17:11):
I like it? I like it. Thanks for thanks for
letting us know. Hey, Claire, Claire, do you want to

(17:33):
tell us about the author of.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
The book, whatever I do, Okay, I'm gonna start with
he comes from money. His grandfather was the New York
Times publisher author Hayes Hayes Sulzberger, and his great grandfather
was the New York Times owner and publisher before that,

(17:56):
Interesting Oaks. Our friend Arthur went to Harvard and got
a degree in history with a focus on Japanese art,
but another website said he got a degree in art history,
so I'm not really sure which one.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Sounds like the same thing to me.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Get him Clara, and.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
He went to Colombia and got an MA in Japanese history.
Then he spent some time in both China and Japan
and got an MA. And then he came back and
got an MA in English from.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Buk Save some college for the rest of us.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Okay, I tried really hard to find out if his
wife was white or Asian. She looks white.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Okay, that's shocking.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yes, they met in a studying Chinese I believe probably
one of the colleges.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Oh god, that's probably his worst nightmare, like to meet
and fall in love with a white woman while studying.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, I mean, I'm only here for one reason, and
i'd yeah, it was hard to find out. There weren't
that many pictures for there's a couple, and she's pretty,
seemed blonde and white. I looked up her parents' obituaries
because you were really suspicious they seem to be white

(19:27):
as well. It's hard to tell from names and pictures of.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
You yourself half Indian, would be tough for someone to
tell at times, so I understand why you did a
very deep dive.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
But they seem it seems like he married a white
woman and kids with her, and which is really weird
compared because of what we all thought would be the case.
I can only assume that every Asian woman rejected him.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
I think I might just does it square up?

Speaker 1 (19:58):
I think a little higher than than you guys do
like you, I mean, I feel like you know, do
I have issues with the book? Yes, But I mean
there is a lot of stuff about like Japanese history
and art and stuff that I fucking would have taken
a lot of research, and it makes sense to me

(20:18):
that he uh had that has studied it for so
long and went there and everything.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Because I was like, would you have assumed his wife
was Asian?

Speaker 1 (20:31):
I would assume maybe he has doesn't have a wife,
you know. Maybe. Oh I was gonna say gay, but
I'm fine, we can go.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
It's it's not just the content of the book first
person narration from the perspective of a Japanese gay shop,
but like it's also the way he writes the character,
which is almost like even though it's from her perspective,
it is somehow through the male gaze through the entire book,
like she's just like even when we're inside her head,
she's just like very demure, and she's just like I

(21:02):
just want to please people, like I just want to help,
oh God, like I just want to make sure that
I look pretty and nice. And it's like there's you
understand if that's what the impression is outwardly, this is
still a complex human being as a variety of emotions.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
There's there's some one scene where she's being assaulted and
but like she doesn't want to look, but then she
keeps looking in the mirror just so she can like
describe what her body looks like. I thought that one
was like, okay, buddy, this is this is this is
one of the most obvious parts. But okay, sorry, keep

(21:41):
going clear though. What about him? Okay did he write
did he write any other books? Or what's his deal?
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Wikipedia didn't say that he han't.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Oh I why do you write this one?

Speaker 3 (21:51):
What else do you need? Few weeks on the list?

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I mean, let me get into the the book a
bit that might shed some light on what, you know,
the effort involved in this book, So yes, fifty eight
weeks on the bestseller list. It was written over a
six year period. He has he rewrote it entirely three

(22:15):
different times. Each time was from a different perspective. So
I don't know what those other perspectives are. The best
version was all right, I mean the little girl, the
little girl.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
All right, what could the other perspective?

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I mean the chairman that yeah, we we don't know
anything about that character, which is also really funny for
being the like male love interest. How little he's featured
in the book is very funny to me. But okay,
uh wow, okay, So but you know, perspective, I still

(22:57):
think is that her name? For obviously there's all the
male gaze and a white man writing as a Japanese geisha.
But I do find the like history and culture that's
introduced in it interesting, and I know that's probably that's
why it was popular, because it was like, here, white people,
here's an easy palatable way to learn about.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Japanese culture, to feel like, yeah, feel cultured really quick,
but you're not really, don't worry, white man.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Well let's get into how he got that culture into
the book, though, because it's a little oh yeah, scandalous.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
It's kind of.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Fun it so source for the book was a former
geisha named Maneko. It was Saki, and he was supposed
to keep her anonymous. That was the agreement. I'll help
you if you don't say my name. But he put
her in the acknowledgments, and that fucked up her life.
She got death threats and criticism. There's a code of

(23:57):
silence among the geishas, which is perhaps the geisha community,
which is perhaps why the Internet doesn't make any sense.
When you ask if estion, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And
I just want to say sorry interrupt.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
But in case you're like, oh, he put her name
in the acknowledgments, like buried in there somewhere. Can I
just read the first sentence, yeah, acknowledgments. Memoirs of a
Geisha is my own invention. The historical facts, however, are
based on extensive research. I am indebted to one individual
above all others. Mineko Ywasaki, one of gian Kobu's top

(24:33):
geishas during the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. And then
he goes on for a full three hundred words about
her involvement, and then the next paragraph it starts with
how who introduced him to her. There's another person under
the book.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
You don't need that in the acknowledgments.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
You's just yeah, so yeah, it's not like buried in there.
It's the very first thing and it was.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Saki sued him for breaking the agreement and they settled
out of court, and she was pissed also because she
felt he didn't have a very accurate depiction. She said,
the book is all about sex. Golden wrote that book
on the theme of women selling their bodies. It was

(25:23):
not that way at all. So he didn't even listen
to her.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, she has.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
She has also since written her own books, and it
seems like so this book, the perspective is she's impoverished.
She's like forced into this, not a sex trade according
to the Internet, and in her books she actually is like,
I grew up wealthy, I like got a wonderful education

(25:51):
and basically like it seems like loved her experience and
it empowered her and made her rich, and she like,
I think, bought the gaisha house she lived in and
then shut it down. It's it's definitely a very different perspective.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
I was also reading the good reads of her own
book and it sounded like, I will say, in Arthur's defense,
it sounded like some of the stuff that she was
pissed about was like super nitpicky. It was like we
wouldn't have worn this type of dress to a funeral,
or like that river's too shallow to paddle board on.

(26:30):
And it was like, oh, okay, well, maybe she don't
really think that like those things.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
I'm like, well, I don't know, it sound like, yeah,
that seems petty, but maybe she was mad about the
other So the petty stuff.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Came in, and I do wonder about because I know
she said that, but like apparently Arthur Golden said that
he had her on tapes talking about selling the virginity
thing and she even though she claimed that wasn't true.
So I kind of like, hmm, interesting me. I don't know,
I've never heard the tapes. That could be.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
But if it's his word against hers, I'm going with
her just because because he comes from money, So I don't.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Like it sounds like they both did him.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
It's not him more.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
He comes from my dad in New York, my New
York Times. Yeah yeah yeah, which Harvard also apparently why
she trusted him or like whatever, because she was like, oh,
this is guy's legit. He's New York Times, you know,
related air or whatever. But yeah, I would say I

(27:40):
would read her book, but I'm probably not. I'm not
going to read her book.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
I'm not going to maybe this shorter.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
This is a funny detail. Sorry.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Because his parents divorced, Arthur Golden's parents divorced, and so
because his father was absent for his childhood, he says
he struggled to make the character of the chairman U
relatable and make their relationship relatable. Yeah, it should make
a relatable relationship, though.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
I mean it's just like there was a fourteen year
old child.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah, and it shouldn't be based on a father child relationship.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Such so disturbing every time, so disturbing. I want to
talk about the movie again. I'm assuming neither of you
saw the.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Movie, sadly, but I would watch it.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
I think it's I mean, we'll talk about the book.
I do think it is not is pretty panned compared
the book, but or like not as.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
It got three Academy Awards.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
For like art something like. I don't think they were
like not a real Academy you know those. I mean
it was first yeah, anyway, but the funny thing you haven't, Claire,
you say it, it's really funny. Oh.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yes. It got criticized because it was mostly shot in California,
not Japan, and the three main leads were Chinese not Jeff.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Oh my god, I'm so it's so funny to be like,
we've got this book that's a white white man perpective,
Like instead of being like, let's try to like tie
the loose ends or like, let's, you know, we can
see that this is an issue, like let's, you know,
try our best to combat it by doing more research

(29:35):
or trying to be more authentic or whatever. Uh, they
just they made the least Chinese is so funny. Oh
my god, hey you three you there? Oh, white people
can't tell. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
The defense the director was just like I give the
best parts to the best actors.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
It's definitely a time before it's.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Just like, yeah, I'm actually like a big fan of
color blind casting and like, but it's like you can't
do it when the whole premise of the movie is like,
this is a Japanese woman's story.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Doesn't seem like color blind casting.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
It seems like no, like color blur. Yeah, like We're like,
we can't tell the difference.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
You're basically the same color coming here.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, very funny.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
That's a fun detail, Claire good find thank you.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Also, doesn't this book wait you don't have it here,
but this book was written? What's this book written ninety seven?
Ninety It feels like it doesn't It seem like it
was something that came out like in the sixties, or
like it feels like I'm older. Yeah, like, oh, I'm
like ninety seven. My god, I'm so surprised. Yeah, that's

(30:57):
the most surprising part of it all to me. Like,
I mean, I know it's a period piece, but it
just like it gives hump I think it's because it
gives such uh lolita vibes. Yeah, it just feels like, oh,
this is the Japanese Lolita. Somebody wrote it the way later.
I don't know. Let's go into it, okay.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Our characters Sakamoto slash Sieri, sayury Sary, Yeah, sirey Siary
main character. She has a sister, who am I right
in my memory that she's supposed to be like fifteen.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
No, you're fully she's older. And her breasts were described
as oh wait, wait, hold on, I want to say
it the right way. Okay, we don't have to. Her
breasts were every bit as unruly as her hair. What
amazed me most was that their unruliness appeared to be
the very thing the suki boy found fascinating about them.

(32:03):
He jiggled them with his hand and pushed them to
one side to watch them swing back and settle against
her chest. I'm sorry, it's just like, what the fuck?
What are those? Aren't boobs? No, those are not Those
are not anybody's boobs, not not a like fourteen or thirteen.

(32:24):
That's the thing.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, maybe after you've had a couple of kids and
maybe like the wrath of that has been inflicted on
your body, not a.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Born that way?

Speaker 1 (32:34):
Is she.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Happening?

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, and it's certainly not how like nine year old
would see describe what's going on?

Speaker 1 (32:45):
God, I hate it. I hate them. We just yeah, okay, but.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
You're not talking about that bodies as children like when
they're first serving to slavery or whatever it is, and
they're checking their it's like, ye, so gross, yeah, horrible.
I had to like stop reading for a while after that.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, it was like it's gonna be one of those books.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
It also like there's i mean, within the first I
don't know, fifty one hundred pages, it's like, okay, these
people are dirt poor, they're sold into child sex trafficking.
Their mom is dying, not even dead, dead would be better.
It's like she is dying in front of them. Their
dad hates them.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Also their dad had a family before this one. That
whole family also dead died at the same time. Just
just like a series of like oh my god, I
can't oh.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
And also like the guy who sells her in is
she like thinks is going to adopt them. That's like, oh,
it's so sad. It's like no, no, no, oh you
thought you saw you as a daughter. No no, no, no, sweetie,
he saw you as an object. He's sold very disturbed.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Oh, and then we learned once they get sold to
the Geisha brothel, which is not a brothel, they have
to they have to pay back the money that the
the house paid for them. So it's like they get
sold and then they now have that debt on their

(34:23):
card that they have to repay along with their schooling,
their clothes, you know, if they break a tea cup,
I mean it's just like depression City. And when you
know it's not a real memoir, that's when that stuff
really starts to piss me off, because it's like, Okay,
it doesn't have to be the saddest thing you could
never stop.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is that.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
I don't I don't like those.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Well we read them sometimes.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yes, and I would have never in my life have
been exposed to and I feel.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
Stay away from a book called A Little Life. We're
never going to read it for this podcast because it's
like twelve hundred pages long, but it is the most
sorrow porn book I have ever read.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
All right, thank you, get it away from me. What
an ironic title, Little Life going to waste it on?
This huge book got them so.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
But I think Sayuri's sister with the big swinging boobs,
she actually gets becomes like a processed who gets sold
outright to like actual brothel. Whereas obviously because she's what
are her good traits, Saori, She's she's got the gray eyes,

(35:47):
she's I guess, skinny enough, and she's very colorful in
her descriptions and stuff, and so that's supposed to be
like a real plus I guess if you have to
entertain people to be able to be witty and funny,
is should be a plus.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, but that seemed like such. It seemed like bullshit,
like the pedophile would uh, the series of pedophilic men
who are choosing her for this would have found her
childish comments to be witty regardless of certainly. And also
it was weird because it was like we've been in

(36:23):
her head and she's been giving these pretty dull descriptions
of things, Like she didn't call it a tipsy house
to us. She just said the house is falling down.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
And they put the sorry somebody, somebody who like Sophia
in one of the good Reads review did a really
good job of putting like literally all the similes down
that are in the book. Like I felt as a
damn must feel when it's holding back an entire river.
I felt as sore as a rock must feel when
the waterfall has pounded on it all day long.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
Which is insane.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
I don't think of water falling on a rock. The
rock is sore. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
It's so like there's so many and you're like, wait
when you see them all together, You're like, this is insane.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
The author also manages to create yet another character who's like,
I myself am just average looking, but yet all of
these men, different men are in love with me, and
actually I'm I mean a lot of people are saying
I'm the most beautiful geisha that's like ever lived, and
like a lot of people are saying that there's this

(37:34):
one famous picture of a painting of a geisha and
it's like, actually inspired by me, It's of me. So
if you've ever seen a painting of a geisha, it's
like probably the one that was of me. It's like,
it's amazing that even in this book, this like this
sorrow porn book, they the author managed to find that
character who's just like, I don't know, I guess, just

(37:56):
like I'm my guys girl, but really beautiful.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
I mean, they're all trying to be guys girls in
this well, they're all so dependent on all the men
for I guess obviously they're well being and getting money
and buying the virginity and what.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
It's yeah, so sad. It's so sad.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
It is. It is very sad, and I kind.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Of wish it was a real thing that didn't have
any sex at all. It's like, this is just a
house of charming women want to come in and laugh.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Pumpkin's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Huh, Pumpkin was funny, Pumpkin Pumpkin. At the I didn't
know she was funny, but then later when they introduced
her after she had you know, I was like, Okay,
this is funny. These these are pretty funny stories where
she's act where she's saying crazy, she's just saying crazy
shit and it was funny anyway. Pumpkin is the other

(38:58):
She's like around the same ages Sayuri and is there
at the same time, but she's got a round face
and SyRI so clever calls her a pumpkin, so that
becomes her name Hotsu Moto. But now I'm like, is
it hot momo? Why can't And now I want a
double check.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Momo seems wrong?

Speaker 1 (39:17):
It does, but I don't remember for sure what the
fuck her name was.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Yeah, she's the bad woman.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
That Yeah, what's her name? Uh, hotzi momo? No it
is hot momo, hots momo. Maybe it's just just okay,
hot momo. She's like, you know, she's a tough bitch.
She hates immediately fucking hates Sayuri. I don't remember why,

(39:47):
why does she hate her? Just for no reason? I
can't remember.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
It seemed like implied jealousy, kind of.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Of a nine year old implied Joe a nine year
old though, Like that's insane, that's an insane place to start.
But she's like totally ruining her life and like claiming
she stole from room, so Sayuri has to like pay
more money and all this stuff. Event she does it in.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Really sneaky ways too. Like one of the things is
she steals a kimono and then she makes Saiyori get
ink on it, and Sayuri's like I have to say yes.
I don't know why she wants me to put ink
on it, but I have to say yes and do it.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
And then.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
She starts screaming that, like, Sayori put ink on this kimono.
She's so crazy. She ruled my kimono, shows me ten
thousand dollars, and it's like that's pretty Like that's pretty sneaky. Yeah,
I would be as an adult, I would find it
hard to believe that like another adult framed a child.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, But in that way, she's kind of fun because
she doesn't let up she keeps it up and even later.
Most the most fun the book had, I thought was
during the part where like Hao is training Pumpkin or
like big sister little sister to like become a geisha.
And then Sayuri has uh memma god jam damn it

(41:12):
mam mamamihr her.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Big sister, her big sister, and it's like they're not
her real life big sister, her mentor her mental.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, they call themselves big sister, little sister.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Though, yeah, and they are just competing and has just
really trying to fund up her chances and that's just
kind of funny to see all that happening. But the
whole time series like no idea what's going on. It's
all like really between Hatsumomo and her big sister, uh mummy, mom,

(41:44):
mummy ha, Like Sirih's like I don't know why I'm
doing this, but I just did it because she told me.
That's like the worst part of the main character is
how passive she is, Like she just I because the
stories essentially her being extremely passive until the very end
where she takes action in doing a crazy thing, which

(42:05):
is sleeping with a like gross man. That's like the
first time, she was like, I'm going to take my
life into my hands and I'm going to sleep with
a gross man so that I don't have to sleep
with a different gross man. It's like, okay, really hard
to support.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Compromise, like all women, mate, really.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Just kidding.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
I saw the opportunity to make the joke.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, yeah, but it's it's really good. No, it's true.
But yeah, so that's that like part is fun whether
I feel like trying to one up each other and
blah blah blah and being underhanded and stuff, but then
it's like, oh, and also, now we're going to sell
your virginity and then it's like, oh, now it's disturbing again.
Got disturbing again.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, it was a fun little well I didn't really
think it was that fun, but.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
That was the best fun I had in my life.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Yes, haven't you been to Disney like seven times this year?

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Gotta go to Disney Tokyo, Gotta go. I bet that's
gotta go, gotta go.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
I would do that. Did you guys know Sarah's a
Disney adult?

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Are you asking our people.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
Are because I know, yeah, yeah, no, I'm asking.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
I guess I don't care.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Did you guys know, Sarah's a Disney adult.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Disney you might have Well, he's a Disney adult too.
He might be against if he goes by force. I
don't know if he's he's like if he's a Disney adult.
It's only because he has a Stockholm syndrome a situation.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
But it is like the greatest thing in the world.
It gives me the most joy and I have no
I have no shame around it.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
So is it the rides or the characters?

Speaker 1 (44:04):
I mean, it's the it's the atmosphere. It's the rides.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Another amusement park. Do you like other amusement parks?

Speaker 1 (44:13):
I mean, I know, to them, I'm I mean like, no,
I enjoyed, like you are you talking about Universal? No,
it's just like a regular No, No, I mean I'll go.
I'll go like a Hershey Park we're talking about. Yeah,
I'll go. And that's like the caliber is not it's
so far away. It's a completely different experience. It's like Universal.

(44:34):
Is that Universal is more comparable? It is it is
not as good, but it is they are like in
the same echelon, I would say, but like it's different
than like a six Flags. It's like that what the hell.
That's something completely different. That's something where you're gonna get in.
There's gonna be a teenager that's gonna spit, and the
spit's gonna fly back and hit you when you're on

(44:56):
the loop do loop? You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
It's not that doesn't happen.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
That's not that doesn't happen to Disney. That doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
I don't, Okay, I didn't see a huge difference between
my experiences.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
That's a crazy thing to say, Clara, is the.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Only time you've ever been to Disney for Sarah's bachelorette party?

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Or yes, okay, that could also be a little bit
my fault, and we all understand why.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Just for a tiny bit of context, I think this
story will explain it all. We arrived at the park
we had is it three different parks? Yeah, three different
parks we had to go to. We arrived and I
remember turning to my friend Ashley, and I said, Wow,
it's so nice to be at an amusement park as
an adult. I've never done this. Like, we're just gonna

(45:43):
be able to walk around and enjoy the day. And Sarah,
from one hundred feet ahead, already turned around and screamed
at us to keep up, and then gestured towards someone
in a wheelchair. I was like, get around that person.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
And we had to.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
And we had to run. We'd run the whole day.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
She made us everywhere get ride the rollercoasters as singles
because the singles line moved fast or so we couldn't.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Sit next to each other. There's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
We had to ask at a certain point if we
could stop for a quick lunch, like if we could
just like grab something to eat as we walked.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Look, it's not about the food for me. I know
there are some people that are ideas about the food,
but it's not about the food for me.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
There was no lunch break. I don't know if you
guys got lunch. I ate lunch by myself when you
guys were on a ride that was too scary.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
For me and by two scary Clara means we did
all get on the ride. We strapped in, we sat
down on the ride. I was about to start Clara
to leave the ride that way.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
It was terror by the way, because.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Anyway, yes, okay, it was really bad. I was near
ready to lose my mind. My blood was turning cold
and I still care.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
You know, I will say clarity, rides are not bad.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
I don't think you understand that. Throughout the day, I
didn't go on another ride, so I had a lot
of time to myself, and you know what, I saw
a lot of kids.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Crying and a lot of teenage sped I bet, I.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Bet, I bet. I'm sure it is different going as
a parent with two kids, but it's magical in a
completely different way. But I do, I do have had
to learn to go very slow and not and not
have the goal of going on every ride and have
to give up all that. Okay, I'm an adult. Now
I'm a mom. Okay, you know, I've learned my scrifices,

(47:38):
you know, and it's all right because I get to
enjoy the magic through my children's eyes, So it's okay. Anyway,

(47:58):
this book, so there was a creepy doctor who buys
her virginity and he's kind of like a serial killer,
but for killing that pussy because he oh, he's not

(48:18):
a real person. Okay, Okay, does that make it better?
Yeah it does for me. But he he's like a
creepy doctor who like keeps buying virginities and then like
saving the bloody towel underneath and like puts them in
like little what was he putting them in? He just

(48:39):
like bile files and labels them. It was like, yeah,
it was very serial, but she seemed fine with it
in the end.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
I guess, well, as fine as a fourteen year old
child can be with something like that.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
I don't think she had a whole lot of ability
to Oh yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Don't she like it felt like the she disliked the
other the baron, like who the baron previously had taken
her clothes off and then pretty much masturbated behind her,
and that was seemed to be more upsetting to her.
I think this one, the doctor just made her laugh.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
She just like laughed as he which again just makes
you really doubt the author.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
Fair totally fair, But yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Can't stop thinking about her father, who agreed to let
the kids be taken. It was like, what was he thinking?

Speaker 1 (49:36):
It's awful?

Speaker 2 (49:37):
What was he thinking? One of them's fifteen, she's almost eighteen.
She doesn't have to go anywhere. Well he was out
tough it out. Doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
You know, men, men can't raise kids. They can't They
don't know how.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
He was a fisherman. He was going to be on
the sea most of the day.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Let the fifteen year old raise the little one.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
It seems we know the year old can't do that.
I think it's described early on that she can't even
make a cup of tea, which is like, look, I
don't cook, okay, but I could make a cup of
tea to say my life she did.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
The fifteen year old, though, did have kind of like
the best story, and that she escaped pretty quickly from
her like the brothel where she was sitting and then
ran back and like married the boy from the village. Right,
that's was her story. We don't we never see her again.
But it seemed like, oh, good for.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Her again she fucked a different kind of gross man
somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Well good. It seems like maybe she had more going
on than she let on.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Yeah, and then this story I don't know the word,
and then World War two happens and that's all like
surprising because they're like, oh, but nobody we were untouched.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
That's the because we're access okay.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, yeah, you guys are the bad guys. That was
like the funniest part I thought. Also you were like, oh,
and this is an American white man writing this because
he was like very much so like barely mentioned the
bombings and like the mat millions murdered, and then was
just like, well, the American soldiers came. They threw candy
at the kids, and that was I was kind of like, oh,

(51:23):
they're they're funny. They're playing now, we're playing games with them,
and we don't even speak the same language.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
It was just like, okay, but wait, this was World
War after World War two. Yeah, right, this is World
War two. Okay, you're right, you're right, you're right.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Yeah, but yeah, but people died. She was able, Nobu
was able to help her. Uh, even though Nobu was
not her donna. That there was some other military man
who became her donna, which just is like, I mean,
I want to say boyfriend, or I made a paid mistress,

(51:58):
makes her a paid mistress. So she was a paid
mistress for a while. He could not save her, though,
and Nobu was able to get her a job making parachutes, right, yeah,
and that was good because you know, other girls were
like dying from in other factories, so.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
She had to go to a good kind of.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Yeah, lately, because they Yeah, they closed down all the
geisha houses or whatever. Yeah, so then the war happened,
she got to go back to being a geisha. Nobo,
I actually like Nobu. Can I say this? I mean,
okay minus okay, if you don't, if you like, if

(52:44):
you just conveniently forget the fact that he has been
creepily trying to have sex with a girl from fourteen on.
That he least was very consistent and like seemed to
care about honor and also was like very curmudgeonly in

(53:07):
a fun way. So I think like out of all
the characters, I probably liked Nobou the best. I don't
know anybody else feel this way. Just me hanging out
on my own island.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
I think he comes in too late in the book
for me to enjoy anything. Like maybe if I hadn't
been like so pissed off and annoyed with the what
did we call it? Sorrow? Porn of it all, I
just was like in no mood to be like give any.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
No woo's okay.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
Yeah, the character, I guess I don't mind as much
as Pumpkin. I Clara seems like she really hates Pumpkin,
like mad at her. I think Pumpkin is just a
victim of circumstance and also a child.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
I don't really mean to the main character. It's like
Jesus Christ can just be.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
Oh yeah at the very end, but like, okay, yes
that was before then for just a little innocent tossed
by the waves of this narrative.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
I mean, there's like thirty at this point too, so
you know, but uh, content of bad life, concient of
bad life. But she was just so fucking funny. She
was just like she was. I don't give a shit.
She was saying crazy things. She's talking about fish talking
speaking Russian. I don't know, I was. I was like, wow,

(54:31):
I like her.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
I like, you know who, I really love the fish
shop owner that sells them initially into the sex slavery,
like the Mary.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Something.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
He's so cool.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Never came back. I thought he would come back. I mean,
I guess I didn't remember, but I just thought like, oh,
this guy's gonna come back. Nope, wait, wait did talk.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
We did talk about the coolest moment the book. I
guess it's like the it's like a stick with you
kind of moment. I maybe you guys skimp past it.
But so in the house where Siori lives, there are
three female guardians basically that are like maybe former Geisha.
Now they just live in the house. They're called Anti,

(55:19):
Mother and Granny. They have no relation, no real familiar
relation with each other, but that's that represents sort of
their ages. Anyway, the Granny like this awful character. And
one day our main character comes home and she smells
something in Granny's room and she sees her legs, but

(55:41):
the legs aren't moving, and turns out Granny has died.
And the way that Granny died is Granny is obsessed
with having a space heater running as soon as September hits.
She loves the space heater. It's the most precious thing
in the world. And she wraps the quarter on the
back of the space heater. And I guess one day,

(56:03):
finally the space heater heated through the cord. So when
Granny turned on her beloved space heater, she electrocuted herself.
But then she fell forward into the space heater and
it melted her face. So I guess even though it
electrocuted her, it still turned on and became a space heater.

(56:24):
And I do believe this melted her face.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
The space heaters were also the same brand, were like
made by the hero the company that is the Chairman's company.
I believe. Also that was referred so he.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Killed her greatest enemy for her, and we appreciate that
because Granny was awful. We don't warn her loss. I'm sorry,
but we do not.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
Yeah. And also just like this whole book, she keeps
talking about the Chairman, but like she's talked. She's like
spoken like three words to the chairman the chairman like
nobu is the Chairman's like I guess, but like the
Chairman's like giving her eyes. It's kind of it's just
weird how into the chairman she is. I think I'd say,

(57:06):
there's nothing about the chairman. He was nice to you
once when you were a child. But it seems like
really weird to be.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Of everyone being mean so meaner, Yeah, one person being nice.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Really see it's sticking with her, But it still seemed
like why you really do you think this guy's you're
gonna end up with this guy?

Speaker 3 (57:29):
I mean, do you ever end up with the person
that gets a nickname? Also, that's the stuff like that's
in college, that's what your friends call that person. If
that person has a nickname like that. I'm sorry, but
it's not gonna be the person married. You're not marrying
the Lumberjack, You're not marrying Captain Hook, You're not marrying
the Chairman.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Well, anyway, it gets to the point where Noboo is
gonna ask to be her donna, I guess, and she's
like realizing that if she becomes Noboo's, you're like stress,
there's gonna definitely be no chance at the Chairman because
they're like buddies and you can't like, yeah, broked, you
can't like do your bros girls. So she in her

(58:12):
first like active thing that she does, She's like, Oh,
I'm going what I'm going to do. I've got this
great plan and I'm gonna fuck this crazy somebody else gross,
and then I'm gonna make Nobou walk in on us
because Nobu hates this guy's guts, and then he'll he
won't want me anymore, which is very empowering, I would say,

(58:39):
very empowering choice.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
I made that same call.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
And of course, then like Pumpkin who again, I just
I like to forget this part of Pumpkin because it
just didn't make sense. But Pumpkin instead of bringing Nobu
brings the Chairman, and the chairman walks in on her,
so she's like, ah, and the Pumpkin's like, well, fuck
you you. I was supposed to be the daughter and uh,
I'm not gonna I don't trust you, and blah blah blah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
I mean it's not Sayori's fault, but she does ruin Pumpkins,
so like some of Pumpkin's anger is valid, Like Pumpkin
was supposed to live forever with the horrible ladies that
own the house that takes these girls in and then
unfortunately she's not as pretty as the main character, so
she can't live there forever. So I mean, her life

(59:28):
is ruined by the gray eyes of our main character
because it's the only thing that we know about her
that's beautiful. By the way, she has gray eyes.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
I mean, what else, what else do you use?

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Know?

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Uh? Yeah, anyway, but for some reason it ends up
working out in the end, because I don't know. Then Nobu,
yeah he did get he did find out about it
was turned off, and the chairman was turned on by
it because he was like, oh this is and this
is really romantic what he says. He says like, oh,
there was a guy like electrician who worked for somebody,

(01:00:03):
a company we contracted with, and he was very good.
And then he quit his job and he came to
me and I was like, Okay, I'll hire you now.
And I realized that, oh, he knew I wouldn't hire
him away from you know, the contractor, that he had
to quit his job in order for me to hire him.
And so that's what the chairman says, that you did,
so now he can he can fuck her till the

(01:00:27):
end of her days. And that's what happens. It's really romantic.
They don't get married. They he just buys her and
eventually they moved to New York City because America is
so great and they both think so. They don't worry,
but don't worry about World War two or anything. They
just think America's great. And eventually she moves to New
York City and they die, and it kind of is

(01:00:47):
a blow. It's kind of like a of an ending
to be real. But yeah, I feel like we got
through the book. That was it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
There we go, We did it, yep, And but it
was very long.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
It was a it was long, it was slow, it
moved slow. There was so many similes. You know, it
really slowed it down with all those.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
Yeah, I am gonna say this, it's beautifully written. I
have to, like, I guess just speak to the elephant
in the room.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
It's I don't know what about those similis Sarah was
saying those were stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
I mean, they were long with it. I think it
was because he was obviously going for it to feel
like authentic or I'm sure like it was. I think
it was over the top, but he was. He was
going for a vibe, and I would say he did
hit the vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Mhm with that, I guess because it's it's so tange.
I wish that maybe I had read it a little
bit thinking it was a real memoir or something. But
like reading those the similes in the sort of like
cultural edge he tried to put on it like just

(01:02:05):
felt so I don't know, it felt too much like
I'm playing in his you know, I'm participating in his
fantasy where he's yeah, I can see that out tending
to be something.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Well, well, let me say this too.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Along that note is like the book opens with a
translator's note before chapter one starts, and the translator's note
is the indication being like, so this was written originally
in Japanese by this woman, and then I, a Westerner,
did this work translating this book. And it's about like

(01:02:41):
that Siori should have risen to prominence was largely a
matter of chance, which brings us to the central question
why did she want her story told? So there's this
whole weird like couple pages again to sort of like
establish like this is a memoir. Yeah, it almost makes
you think initially he liked under a pen name or
something like, and at some point it was like you,

(01:03:05):
we have to say that it was by you, Arthur translator.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
No, they won't ask, nobody needs ask. Oh my god,
Yeah I wish. I wish i'd like listened to some
interview with him, Arthur, so.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
You could defend him more.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Yeah, I would love to defend him. Or just like
what is I don't know, I just like, what's going
on in your head? Do you? I mean, I even
like something more recent? Does he like look back and
be like, yeah, I shouldn't have done that?

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
Or like I don't know. I don't know though, but
like shouldn't he have done it? It's I don't know.
No one else wrote this book. It's a it's a
it's an interesting book.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
I don't know. I think. I do also think that
prior to this, there was like again the Geisha, it's
like very secretive. People didn't know about it, and there's
just this like kind of stereotype that all are like
very demure and like self spoken and blah blah blah,
whereas like this and not. I'm not saying it's a

(01:04:07):
correct portrayal or whatever, but he at least portrayed them
with like I guess, like a lot more color, Like
they were a lot more interesting. There was rivals, there's
like drama going on, and they're not just like they're
they're doing things, they're tricking them in, They're not just
like always I guess going along with it. Even though

(01:04:30):
I'm saying that, I'm like, well, it's still felt like that.
But I do think it like at least in the
Western imagination has like completely changed and affected what like
we think Geishas are for better or for worse, which
I think is you know your call, because I don't, Yeah,

(01:04:54):
I don't know, I don't, I don't know I've made
It would have been nice if we could have had
a nice an expert of some sort, non white, an
actual Japanese expert, to come talk to us about this.
But you know, we didn't do this. We're mean book club. No,
it's it's not our role.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
We're thinking of it now an hour into this episode,
so you can see why it would have been difficult
for us to get someone at this short notice.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Yes, I texted a few people know it was available, okay,
just now, an effort.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
We always make the effort, of course. Yeah, I don't know,
but like it, something kept me going weirdly.

Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
I don't know why. There's something in me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
That wanted to give this book a chance. I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
I guess maybe the it's very different. You know, there's
a lot of formulaic stuff we read for this. It's different,
the only fake memoir. We've never read a fake more before.
The only thing that kept me going was you guys, Wow,
hero I wanted to stop.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Yeah, this was certainly like a two time speed audiobook.
I mean, I'm sure three point five. Had she been here,
I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
Sabrina would have been like, wait, who's Pumpkin? I don't
we would have been like she's like throughout the book
she's in like every chapter.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
That's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Okay, Well she's never gonna listen to this, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Don't worry about it. We can say the meanest things
about it, but we wouldness.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
Everybody say one thing same time. I couldn't think of anything, Sabrina.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Do you guys want to do five stars? Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
Yeah, I didn't get any I did.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
I did this, I did it. So here's from This
is from Chloe. She said, absolutely stunning and flawless. Promoted
to one of my all time favorite books. I have
no clue how the author wrote this, being that he's
not a geisha, not Japanese, not a woman, not from
the World War two era, but it is incredible five stars. Yeah,

(01:07:29):
you pointed out some of the issues. I also don't.
He's not from World War two eras fun, how can
you write about it? He wasn't alive though. Yeah. This
is another one by someone Ken dare Blake, She says.
So some have issues with this book, even the former
geisha who consulted on it. There was some cultural kerfuffle. Whatever,

(01:07:55):
it's good. I liked it. Sure, it's no handbook to feminism,
but the title Memoirs of a Geisha, not memoirs of
a subversive warrior lady light years ahead of her time.
So she was up fine holiday fun holiday. She wrote

(01:08:16):
that I don't know what it was most fun to you.
I don't know what made it holiday either. Was this
like a Christmas? This is like a series? Is this
a Christmas book?

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
Maybe she thinks you can only read at.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
On a holiday. Maybe she came. Maybe she's British.

Speaker 3 (01:08:36):
British she met like weekends, vacations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
but the fun credit that she deserves. Yeah, but but again,
if she's British, fun might have a different meaning. It
might be like it might mean depression.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny. Did people I'm like, we're people
were upset? This wasn't I mean, it's no handbook to feminism.
I don't know. It's like, okay, it feels like that's.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Like a misunderstanding of why people are It is a
man to write it. Yeah, you guys ready for hate rates?

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Yea, let's do.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
A lot of people are appearing in the background of
Sarah's screen. That makes me think she's definitely ready for
hate rates. Some of those people don't have clothes on.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Some children have appeared and they're not leaving hold on.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
None of those things she's doing or saying, work in
my house.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
No, me, neither.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
Weird, so weird. Devin just laughs really hard when I say, no,
that's a liquor bottle. That's dangerous. That's something that only
belongs to mommy. She laughs. She grabs it again as
she laughs.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Yeah, you're some funny so it's worth it. It's worth it.
You get to feel fun.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
Sure, Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
All right, guys. Anyway, what are our hate rates?

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
I'm zero five for me, and honestly that's mostly a
reaction to the length. It was so long and I
don't have this kind of time to be wasting like this.
Hurry up and tell the story the end five As
zero five.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
I'm going to give it a three out of five
because if I, like, just hold my hand over the
cover where it says Arthur Golden, pretend he did write it,
it like makes it so much better. And I do
like like historic but then again, I'm like, I do
like historical fiction. That is a genre I like. And yeah, there,

(01:10:57):
I understand why this was a mean book club read, Like,
there's there's a lot in this that's like real fucked
up problematic. I feel differently about it now than I
did when I read it when I was fifteen or whatever.
But I mean, yeah, overall, I feel like there's there's
value in it. You just need to like take stuff

(01:11:17):
with a grain of salt and be aware of its shortcomings,
which are many.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
And you liked No Boo and I like No Boo.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
I did, I did so was in love with I'm
a big No Boo fan. She really did No Boo
dirty and you know justice for.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Here's my issue is that I hate sorrow porn, and
I especially hate sorrow porn connected with cancer. Just such a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Easy and say it was folks shorthand, but.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
I mean it did start with that, it had and
it always pisses me off be more creative than that,
so that it's this big old zero. But then I
actually like the book is well written. I didn't hate
reading it. I wanted to know what happened. In the
world of mean book club books, this is definitely way

(01:12:07):
high up there in terms of the quality of the writing.
I mean, I didn't read it and go like, hey,
you made a time jump. That makes no sense at all.
Literally an editor should have told you that. But they're
all afraid of you, Like somebody edited this book and
in fact, Arthur apparently rewrote it three times. So I'm

(01:12:29):
gonna go ahead and give it a four.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
I just didn't inspire rage the way how in the
Cerulean seed it?

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Because it's so long. You just succumbed to it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
What happened to me?

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
You're right, I got lollied into a false sense of four.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
All right, it happens, Okay, so should we do m Also,
this is just a side a bit of a side thought.
Should we change this segment from Little Fucker? And I
bring that up as a mother with a three year

(01:13:18):
old who repeats a lot of things now, And I'm like, oh,
maybe I shouldn't play that song that curses, that says fuck.
And I'm like, where's the clean version of the song?
Is there a clean version of this song? And then
I'm like, is anybody trying to listen to this podcast
and their kids are around? Then they're like can we

(01:13:39):
They can't. I don't know, but we probably curse elsewhere,
so it's might not be saligible for us anyway, but
just just food for food for.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
I think let's give it thought okay, and for now,
I for now we'll do little fucker. And I do
want to just remind you guys, in the very beginning,
we tried to bleep out the curse words and we're like, well,
this is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Oh yeah, it's mostly because I could never get the
ball and they were so we're.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
So loud to be talking to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
But just that sheds a light onto how much cursing
might be in the beginning of the cash. Yeah, I
think little might be.

Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
There are parts of this too that I think almost
our worst discussion point.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
I guess maybe you shouldn't listen. You know, three year
old shouldn't listen to this, not this episode in general.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
I'm gonna go ahead and name Sarah little fucker, just
for even daring to bring this up to make us
seem that uncool. I mean, it's humianing you and I'm
at our side, and I love I love being a
cool young person that says fuck fuck all the time. Okay,

(01:14:58):
so that's you know who my votes for.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
Yeah, I'm piggybacking off that I'm also gonna vote for
Sarah for the same thing. It's like a little bit disturbing,
even like how much how soft Sarah's But come, I know,
I know what the Hills said.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
I know I have memories I actually legitimately can't even
share on this podcast, think Sarah said, I wouldn't reflect
well on it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
No, go ahead share them. No no, no, I feel
like I said, certainly said.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Me and Johenna were just like so cool about shutting
you down too. We did it so gently. But I
guess that's because we have a segment where we can
mean about it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
But it's it's like, you know, actually, I would say
a couple of episodes, I was like, is little fucker dead?
Like in a sense that I'm having trouble sometimes thinking
of whom my little fucker is gonna be. Sometimes I
go outside the episode and like almost this actually like
really reinfigranted me, like really brought new life. And I
like having this outlet that I can use because when

(01:16:06):
you need it, you need it, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
Yeah, that's what Sarah was gonna bring up. But I
don't really need it anymore, because before she started talking,
I was like, it's neither of you.

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
I don't exactly I was probably gonna be like, I
think you're right. I think a little Fucker is dead,
and I think we could probably like replace the segma
something new, and for me, it has like at least
another season of life.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
Just because I thought maybe we should change it, call
it little efforts, a little whole asshole or something even asshole.
It just it feels better to me than fucker for
my child. I feel like if I hear him say asshole,
I'll be like, well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
I could have gotten that anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
Everyone knows this segment. All right, I'm tired of about
myself because you know I knew I was. I felt
embarrassed bringing up that's good and yeah, so you guys
got me, Jim, can.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
We please the princess really quick?

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
Free princess?

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Okay, so yeah, I guess again this is I missed
one episode in eighteen seasons, and in that episode they
decided that they would also do pretty Pretty Princess or
some ship and only the three of them can vote, and.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
All only the pole.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
I'm left out of this, even though my goddamn name
means princess. I could never be the pretty pretty Princess.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
I'm so glad we made her little fucker too.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
So yeah, I guess my pretty Princess is going to
be Clara. I feel like I brought up a concern
that I had here at the end when I said
I was concerned about Sarah's Clara like really backed me up,
and I felt supported and I felt hurt, and I
felt unafraid to say if something was bothering me. And
so I Sarah Clara, not Sarah, the opposite of Clara.

(01:18:16):
You are my pretty pretty prince.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
I really, Johnna, this one didn't I.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
And Johnny, You're my pick for pretty pretty princess because
I really like the way that you jumped down stairs's throat.
And I also liked that I got a text from
you first thing in the morning being like, I haven't finished.
It is so hard to finish, because that made me
feel better about not having finished yet early in the morning. Yeah,

(01:18:42):
it was like take some fresh minute.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
Okay, so you both voted for each other. That cancels
each other out. There's no pretty time, it's pretty episode.
What are we reading? We're reading.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
Stacy A braw Wild just sleeps. It is our season
finale and it is like a thriller, right, it's a
thriller or something to find out?

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
So I just don't before us. I just I was
just scared. It was like a legal the Secret or
something like that. It was going to be really hard
for me. I'm but I in my I haven't started it.
I'm going to be going to the belief move forward
that it's a thriller.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
Yeah, I need a nice, fast moving thriller.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:19:25):
Yeah. And while I'm waiting for a court of to
become available three to become available, I will have to
subsist on whatever grovel the library can feed me.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
That's what I library loves to have books referred to
as grovel. We are on Patreon. Please become a patron.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
Please please.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
You can get commercial for your episodes. But also, hey guys,
if you haven't already, please go iTunes whatever. Write a
review of the cast. Really, you can be really I
mean about the review. As long as you give us
five stars. That's all that we fucking ask because we
want people to find us. You know, five stars.

Speaker 3 (01:20:06):
They're fucking nasty, they're dumb.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
Go ahead, We're okay with it. I'm okay with that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
Okay, And then you can say, Astras Clara is actually
awesome that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
I wrote it for you. Done, do it, go copy
and paste, put it up there all right, all right,
we'll see you guys next episode. Bye bye already bye