Geisha
A Kyoto geisha describes her initiation into an okiya at the age of four, the intricate training that made up most of her education, her successful career, and the traditions surrounding the geisha culture.
Geisha of Gion
The extraordinary, bestselling memoir from Japan's foremost geisha. 'A glimpse into the exotic, mysterious, tinged-with-eroticism world of the almost mythical geisha' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail '[An] eloquent and innovative memoir' The Times 'I can identify the exact moment when things began to change. It was a cold winter afternoon. I had just turned three.' Emerging shyly from her hiding place, Mineko encounters Madam Oima, the formidable proprietress of a prolific geisha house in Gion. Madam Oima is mesmerised by the child's black hair and black eyes: she has found her successor. And so Mineko is gently, but firmly, prised away from her parents to embark on an extraordinary profession, of which she will become the best. But even if you are exquisitely beautiful and the darling of the okiya, the life of a geisha is one of gruelling demands. And Mineko must first contend with her bitterly jealous sister who is determined to sabotage her success . . . Captivating and poignant, Geisha of Gion tells of Mineko's ascendancy to fame and her ultimate decision to leave the profession she found so constricting. After centuries of mystery Mineko is the only geisha to speak out. This is the true story she has long wanted to tell and the one that the West has long wanted to hear.
Geisha of Gion
Mineko Iwasaki is the first Japanese geisha to shed light on the fascinating & arcane geisha tradition. Captivating & poignant, her book captures her earliest memoires, beginning with her move to the geisha house at the tender age of four & her initiation into the profession that she would perfect. As we follow Mineko's gradual blossoming over the years, we learn all about the intricate training & rigid education system by which girls become geishas, the specific duties & performances required of the women, & the extraordinarily vast foundation of wealth upon which geisha culture rests. Filled with moments of great strength & delicate beauty, this is a brave & luminous revelation. Honest & authentic & entirely believable.Ó Color & black & white photos.
Life of Geisha
This book of Geisha culture and history features beautiful antique photographs and a wealth of information. Geisha have the odd distinction of being both legendary and real, and this book helps clarify those differences. Myth by nature is monolithic, transcending history and individuals, whereas the reality is a variety of geisha communities in different areas of Japan, Status hierarchies among communities in the same city, and of course differences among individual geisha. The Life of Geisha illustrates the fascinating world of Japan's powerful and seductive geishas, a fading yet beautiful world that has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. This striking book contains full-color woodblock prints made during Japan's famous Edo Period, historic and contemporary photographs of geisha life, and images of the "floating world," Japan's mysterious artistic subculture. The accompanying text includes evocative Japanese poems and haikus. All celebrate the beauty and creativity of the geisha, who with her exquisitely detailed costume, elaborate makeup and hairstyle, and artfully ritualized behavior, chastely beguiles and entertains Japan's most powerful men.
Four Eternal Women
Toni Wolff was at first the patient, and later the friend, mistress for a time, long-term colleague and personal analyst of Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung. In addition to her work as the founder, leader and teacher for the Psychological Society in Z rich which led to the establishment of the world-renowned C.G. Jung Institute in Z rich/K snacht, she published a seminal but little known work called "Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche" ("Der Psychologie," Berne, 1951). This treatise, certainly one of the first studies in Analytical Psychology, has been the subject of the authors' investigation, attention, research and study for the past twelve years. Toni Wolff's original outline of her four archetypes barely filled fifteen pages of the journal, and was written in the academic style of professional publications of that period, sans illustration or commentary. While Wolff's work has been mentioned in short form in the work of several writers, Four Eternal Women is the first full and serious archetypal delineation of her original thesis, and examines each of her four feminine archetypes from several perspectives: Wolff's Own Words; An Overview of History and Myth; Familiar Characteristics; Lesser-Known (Shadow) Possibilities; Career Inclinations; Relationships to Men; Relationships to Children; Relationships to Each of the Other Types; The tension of the opposites set up by Wolff's own diagrammatic representation of these archetypes provided an additional dynamic to this study. Those who have followed Jung's individuation path will recognize aspects of Jung's 'Transcendent Function.' All readers may well become personally sensitized to discover their own type preferences, and how some aspects of shadow may be present in their 'opposite' partner.
