Memoirs of Reading
- lalitkrishna
- Oct 29, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 6, 2020
Till Chapter 5 (28/10/20)
It seems I have bounced back from book-block. The annoying intervals in my life where my brain just refuses to register any text. I wish it was like a switch, and turned off at once. But it fades, like an incomplete sleep. Maybe still thankfully, because now I am writing this and not consumed by the book. Besides the ‘little’ hurdle, I had another hurdle, laziness. The problem of not falling asleep with the book flat on my face. Because in bed, I must turn off the lights to be able to sleep. My body strangely does not have the same problem at a library. Hence, I downloaded the same book as an e-book for my iPad.
(Un)fortunately reading on a screen was not as difficult. Sure, I confused between pages more than once, for digitally, they all look the same. But no deal-breaking problems yet. I was looking forward on using the press-and-hold-for-the-meaning. And now this brings me to the book. The book is just not that difficult to read. No difficult words, but simple words weaved to form images. Beautiful, beautiful images. It is a clichéd thing to say, but it is true. The book narrates not Chiyo’s thoughts, but what her eyes see.
It dawned on me, or rather like an itch on your back you cannot reach, I realized, I often use pompous words in my articles. Infact most people do mistake the importance of words when writing. Like when someone asks you, what color do you like? Yes, people can like a pink sky or grey sheets, but not simply pink and grey. So, it is really about the sentences, and not words. Then my mind, always at a loss when arguing with itself, reminds me of the book Karma Cola by Gita Mehta (Sister of our dear Naveen Patnaik I had no clue about until recently). It had the most ‘razzle dazzle’ of words which all made perfect sense and the sarcastic tone made it all fly by blazingly. It was no less beautiful, even if not as visual.
I want to say the memoir takes a very Japanese way of literature, rather literary aesthetics of the country. Uncensored but delicate and casually intuitive. But I might be stereotyping, given I have never made any eager searches about Japan. And my experience with the country has been through Vogue fashion shoots (which are racist), Murakami, and my apathetic searches to make a zine, quite predictably themed ‘Japan’. I am thankful it never worked out, because it would have been racist. But really, it is a line you will never know when you crossed, or didn’t. I wish there was a manual.
Either way, now I get to the book again. I will continue this memoir as I read the other.
Till Chapter 12 (29/10/20)
“…I awoke, while my mind was still soft and impressionable…”
“…whenever she came upon someone very drunk-a geisha, or a maid, or even a man visiting Gion, it didn’t matter-she whispered the story about Hatsuoki in such a way that the next day the person who’d heard it didn’t remember that Hatsumomo had been the source.”
“And when I snapped my fan shut later in the dance, this was when I told him that nothing in life mattered more to me than pleasing him”
A couple of life hacks and impregnated sentences stayed with me. Like getting pulled away, unwantedly, from the depth of an ocean, holding onto whatever strings of letters I could find. I am sure I lost many on my way, yanked back to the surface. The first hack has been seemingly used and abused by my mom on several instances. Once when my sister awoke, her mind still soft and impressionable, my mother told her to find a job as she did not put her through college to stay back at home. A morning I might be welcomed into, in a couple of months. As for abuse, she accused me of ignoring my family for not going to Puri with them for the hundredth time. But of course, Chiyo uses that time to memorize her lessons. She even practices music instruments in her head as she does menial tasks. And it works for her, as the next time she plays it with the real instrument, she has gotten much better.
The second hack is quite sinister, and hence much more inviting. Sadly there are not enough occasions to run into drunk people right now. But when I can, I assure you I will be trying that left right and centre. Maybe I should start practising it in my head as Chiyo does with her music.
The third point, the last line I read from the book, thankfully this article back to being about the book. Chiyo is now older, enough to have men latching their eyes on her. And she has come in term with her past now, because instead of hovering, she can now dart to the point that she was sold into slavery. It also seems as the character grew older, she gives in to her thoughts rather than what she sees. In contrary to what I had written in the last post. No longer you would find her hoping Mr Tanaka, her sister or even Hatsumomo to come to save her. After accepting her past, she has taken upon herself to find her future, which is becoming a Geisha. Because hoping for Chiyo to connive her way out from becoming one, is something which will work in books written now.
Till the end (30/10/20)
The writer has been leaving behind small clues, which seem obscure. These clues, pass off as gaps in Sayuri's (aka Chiyo) thoughts. They come back later to either save her or bite her. As a simple nod gave enough information to Hatsumomo, Sayuri has been nodding all along to realize them much later.
Remember how Sayuri wanted to tell the Chairman with her dancing that she wanted to please him, and nothing else. Well, I assumed she was trying to be extremely convincing through her dancing, given she wanted to be a Geisha. To be so skilled that she will be able to make a man believe anything. Well, she did become as skillful, but her desire to impress the chairman was not a elaborate deceit. Instead it was real and like one would expect from a perfect novel written earlier, the chairman turns out to be in love with her all along. Note that my choice to use word 'love' is also a deceit, because I have no clue what the hell was going on between them. My gut did not take the cosmos-like ending very well. It is not because Sayuri's and the Chairman's affection for each other was quite circumstantial, aka something you will only see in movies or read in books. This incident turned away the book from it's initial uneasiness. Because in the last few chapters everything became fine. To put it plainly, the happy ending seemed too ideal.
Anyway, if it wasn't clear, in a 'Live Review' we review a book as we read it. This is enjoyed best if you are reading along with us. Comment below what do you want us to read next, together. 😀
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