As mentioned in my previous post, I shall be talking about Satsu next. I am reading the Vintage Contemporaries version of Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.

Satsu Sakamoto is the older sister of Chiyo. She is said to be more passive given that her element is wood. Unlike Chiyo, Satsu is the less active and less beautiful girl. She was simply normal and obedient.

At the age of 15, she had a romantic relationship with a local boy named Sugi (starts at page 18). I'd like to say that it is a romantic relationship even if Chiyo didn't say that it was. He was rather "hands on" with Satsu. (I think I just made a pun which may be understood if your read pages 18 to 19.)

Satsu's life in Gion has been explained in both the book and the movie -- being sent to the red light district and working there as a prostitute. (Is this a spoiler? I'll mark this post as a spoiler nonetheless.) The book had more description on how is Satsu and other prostitutes are different from the geisha but the viewer can easily pick up the difference. How Chiyo is desperately looking for Satsu isn't as highlighted as much in the movie. (Then again, that whole part was chucked out of the movie. I'll talk about that in later posts.)

So, how did Satsu exit Chiyo's life? Just like in the movie, she ran away on her own. (A few chapters later, it was mentioned that Satsu has carefully planned to run away without Chiyo by consulting an almanac.) However, the book tells the readers what happened after she runs away. (Spoiler tag is up anyway.) She goes back to Yoroido and runs away with Sugi. Romantic, isn't it?

I have nothing much to say about Satsu. As far as page 280 goes, I haven't read anything about her or if there is news about her. I couldn't really say that she was selfish to not look for Chiyo -- not after what has happened to her overall. She had the harder life but I don't sympathize with her. Am I that heartless? Haha.

So far, there are a few more characters that aren't in the movie. I do understand that they have to make it fit and remove what is deemed unnecessary to the whole jist. We'll just see how this goes.

Still swimming in the pages,

Anj

This is the second Book vs Movie post by Breathing Pages (Anj) for Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (ISBN 0-679-78158-7), Vintage Contemporaries version. In the second post, I would like to talk about a character who apparently plays somewhat a big role in Chiyo's life: Mr. Tanaka Ichiro.

In the movie, Mr. Tanaka was barely shown. We can hear his voice in the first act. He speaks with Chiyo's and Satsu's father in Japanese and takes the girls away from their house. He is also in the railway scene, giving the girls in the care of Mr. Bekku.

But in the book, Mr. Tanaka has a deeper connection to Chiyo. She saw him as an easy way out in the life of a poor fisherman's daughter given that he is the owner of the Japan Coastal Seafood Corporation. He also helps Chiyo in small ways like giving Chinese herbs for her mother (p19) and letting her and Satsu say at his house with his own daughter (starts at p21).

His instrumentality in Chiyo and Satsu being sent to Kyoto has been given more description in the novel such as going to a woman, Mrs. Fidget who checked the girls' bodies (p24) but unlike in the movie, Chiyo and Satsu were told to see Mr. Tanaka in the village. The movie showed Chiyo and Satsu being taken away, as if it is done by force.

In my opinion, I think the movie showed us what happened in the first three chapters concisely, as if it's done in bullet points. I appreciated the details because the first chapters contained a lot of foreshadowing and had a lot of colorful details about Chiyo's and Satsu's life before Gion. 

I shall talk about Satsu next.

Still reading on, 

Anj

This is the first Book vs Movie post by Breathing Pages (Anj). Yay! I am currently reading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (ISBN 0-679-78158-7). I have the Vintage Contemporaries version and not the movie tie-up version. 

On page 14 of this novel, Sayuri, the narrator, says, "All at once he caught sight of my gray eyes..." 

Sayuri, in the movie version, has light blue eyes. Whoa..?

*Note: Image is from MoviePosters.com. Not mine.

Here's my two cents on the change in color. Her eyes are said be representative of her element, water. The color gray is associated more with metal rather than water. So, I think (no, it's not confirmed; it is my opinion) that they made it blue because blue is the color of water. 

When I first saw the movie, I honestly found it weird that she has blue eyes since she's Japanese. It looked so unnatural on Chiyo. I thought her mother must've been from a different country because her eyes were blue. She got everything from her father minus the eyes. (Hi Harry Potter!) Now that I read up until this part, I still don't know if the grayness of her eyes really matter in the novel so I can't really say that it would've been better if it were gray. 

What do you guys think? :)

Still reading on,

Anj

I started reading Memoirs of a Geisha sometime last month but only continued reading today. I got this wait-a-minute moment and said that "Hey, that's not what was shown in the movie!" (Just so you know, I love the movie. I watch it every now and then. I don't get tired of it because of my love for Japan and its story.)

After that moment, I had an impulse to blog about it here in BookLikes. I thought that it would be nice to share what elements were different from the movie. Of course, there are books-turned-movies that had their plot lines rearranged and/or shortened into the two to three hour time frame for a movie. I would write about random differences like, how in the book, it started with the author talking to Sayuri in America while in the movie, it started with Satsu and Chiyo being sent away from Yoroido. 

Of course, I would filter out things that would spoil either the movie or the novel. I would only share random differences and my opinions (nope, not facts) about the difference. Oh boy, this ought to be fun! 

So I'm starting with Memoirs of a Geisha. If you wish to track down the progress, you may check the "Book vs Movie" page on my blog. It will redirect you to this link. :D 

Love,

Anj