I was completely in Japan throughout my reading, I hardly would have been surprised to meet a geisha after work .... I was even so in hsitoire I thought all along that it was an autobiographical story, the beginning of the book explains it as such. Sometimes I also wonder how the heroine could remember such details so old, I ended up thinking that the Japanese are much more perceptive than we French. So I was very surprised at the end to read everything in this story was conceived by still based on the realities of geisha life. In short it is a very successful story, I read décourvrir real life of a geisha, I am delighted to be informed, it is perfectly well written, calm, sweet, smooth and precise, can be as the character of Japanese. If the topic interests you, you can not be disappointed. (I searched all over the internet pictures of this beautiful geisha with blue eyes dating from there 50 years or more and I could not find anything, of course, since it does not exist! Sometimes we are too thoroughly in our books ....)