janhicks's review
4.0
Lesley Downer has brought Sada Kawakami to life through the pages of this book. Known as Yakko during her geisha career and Sadayakko during her acting career, Sada had been largely forgotten after her death. When she was remembered, it was in disparaging terms. But Sadayakko was a ground breaking woman. She was the first Japanese woman to work as an actress. She established a training academy for other women who wanted to act. With her husband Otojiro she changed the nature of drama in Japan and introduced aspects of Japanese culture to the West. She performed across America, in Paris, Vienna, Berlin and London. She inspired Puccini when he was adapting the play Madame Butterfly for his opera. Sadayakko knew Sarah Bernhardt and Ellen Terry, and worked with Isadora Duncan. But in Japan, to be an actress was seen as something shameful, and at the end of the Meiji era to step out from behind your husband was anathema. Downer's research into contemporary accounts of Sadayakko's career and her conversations with Sadayakko's family provides the basis for an engaging and entertaining biography. Sadayakko knew key figures in Japanese society following the Meiji Restoration, and their inclusion in this biography provides a more human angle to Japanese political history. As a young geisha, her first danna was Prime Minister and later Prince Ito. Her first love Momosuke married into the Fukuzawa family and had become an important businessman by the time Sadayakko re-encountered him. Sadayakko certainly had a rich and varied life. I was immersed in this biography, and didn't really want it to end. The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is because Downer describes many photographs throughout the book, but not one is reproduced other than the cover photograph. I don't know whether that's only true of the Kindle version, but I wish the photos had been included.
lostinabookbrb's review
3.0
Madame Sadayakko by Lesley Downer is about a geisha who turned actress in the early 1900's. It's an interesting book in that I learned about Japan's attitude toward the west in that time frame and how actors/actresses were treated in that time. Lesley Downer does provide citations to support her theories on some of the events in Sadayakko's life but I felt like I was reading more from a fan's perspective than from an objective source. While having a somewhat subjective tone in a nonfiction is not a horrible thing (in fact, at times it adds to the work), if you're more into an objective standpoint, this may not be the book for you.
This is a good book to read if you're wondering more about how girls became geisha and what geisha actually do. There's also information regarding how works like "Madame Butterfly" gave a misrepresentation of geisha back in those times.
Overall, it was an enjoyable read.
This is a good book to read if you're wondering more about how girls became geisha and what geisha actually do. There's also information regarding how works like "Madame Butterfly" gave a misrepresentation of geisha back in those times.
Overall, it was an enjoyable read.
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