Memoirs of a Geisha

This was one of the first audio books that I received from Audible.com. I joined Audible when it first appeared and have been a member ever since. I have always loved audio books and had a large collection of books on tape. Before Audible came along I struggled with other music players, even a hard disc player that was as big as a portable cd player. The hardware was klunky, and the software even klunkier. But then Audible came along, and then the iPod and everything changed.

 I had purchased my first audible player for some absurd price - it had 64 Mb of RAM. Memoirs of a Geisha came in 3 parts, each over 100 Mb, so the player could only hold part of each file. I thought I was near the end when we went on holidays to Tasmania. We decided to visit Maria Island and I was happily listening when the file reached it's end - but the book was far from over. I was so angry at the cruddy technology of the day. Later I bought my first iPod, was amazed by how advanced it was compared to all my other mp3 players, other hard disk players and cd players. I have been an Apple devotee ever since.

My first iPod was a generation 2 hard disk unit. As I said, this iPod was fantastic, and I have been sold on iPods ever since. I was amazed by people's skepticism about ipods when I showed them mine.

I had this for about 2 years when I bought my second (an iPod mini) that I got as part of a telephone deal with Telstra. This became my portable device and the first one was confined to the bedroom! I eventually tossed it when the screen became so faint I couldn't read it, but mechanically it was fine.

After about another 2 years I bought a iPod nano which I lost on my China trip. I also bought an iPod Classic for the car which I still have.

Then the second revolution with my first iPod Touch 8 Gb (which I later sold to Marie). I used this when in Western Australia. I then upgraded to a 64 Gb iTouch generation 2, then a 64 Gb iTouch v3 with camera, which was later replaced under warranty.

But back to the film. Once more the book is so much more complete than the film, and the reviews when it irst came out reflected this, so I didn't go and see it. Now that I have seen it on DVD I can say that it is a good film, maybe a pretty good film, but not a great film.

What the film can do that the book can't is bring all those lovely kimono to life, and old Kyoto. The sumo, the dancing, the playing are all done remarkable well. I really enjoyed the movie, despite having read the book first. The movie does leave large chunks of the story out, but does a reasonable job in retelling the story.