Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star: A Woman, Sex, and Morality in Modern Japan (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture) | 
 enlarge | Author: William Johnston
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $36.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 810019
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 6.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 023113052X
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.15230952135
EAN: 9780231130523
ASIN: 023113052X
Publication Date: October 20, 2004
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Product Description
In 1936, Abe Sada committed the most notorious crime in twentieth-century Japan -- the murder and emasculation of her lover. This detailed account of Sada's personal history, the events leading up to the crime, and its aftermath steps beyond the simplistic view of Abe Sada as a sexual deviate or hysterical woman to reveal a survivor.
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An Amazing Crime January 8, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Once you get over reading the name "Abe Sada" as though it were "Abe Lincoln," you'll have a whale of a time reading Dr. Johnston's account of a famous modern Japanese geisha and killer. He is a professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, but don't let his distinguished credentials put you off, he is also a tip top storyteller. Many of us in the West heard about this case first from the shocking "art film" directed by Oshima called, IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES, and many guys who saw this movie back in the day will still not uncross their legs.
Johnston has won access to the original testimony and court transcriptions of Sada's arrest and trial. He quotes from memoirs of Sada provided by the man who interrogated her directly after the crime. "What really left an impression," said Adachi Umezo, "was when I asked her, 'Why did you cut him?' Immediately she became excited and her eyes sparkled in a strange way. At the time people were saying thaat she had cut off Ishida's thing because it was larger than average. But in reality, Ishida's was just average." Johnston asks the question, how did Udezo know rhat Ishida's penis was just average. Who can say, but as Johnston proves, Udezo must have seen a lot of men's genitals to make such a judgement.
As an appendix, the historian wins out over the storyteller, and Johnston's narrative voice slips discreetly away and we hear Abe Sada's own account of what happened, the way she saw it. For the first time, we see the whole murder slash castration story from the point of view of the woman who committed it, and we see that a society, like pre-war Japan, that had driven women to the point of insanity, their backs against the wall, monitored and legislated through rape and coerced brothel activity, might expect plenty more from any woman brave enough to strike back. If Abe Sada was a star, as Johnston foregrounds in his title, she became a star in much the same way that Valerie Solanas did, for political and economic reasons, however badly understood by both perpetrator and victim.
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