East, West: Stories

Written by Salman Rushdie

Narrated by Sunil Malhotra and Steven Crossley

A rickshaw driver dreams of being a Bombay movie star; Indian diplomats, who as childhood friends hatched Star Trek fantasies, must boldly go into a hidden universe of conspiracy and violence; and Hamlet's jester is caught up in murderous intrigues. In Rushdie's hybrid world, an Indian guru can be a redheaded Welshman, while Christopher Columbus is an immigrant, dreaming of Western glory. Rushdie allows himself, like his characters, to be pulled now in one direction, then in another. Yet he remains a writer who insists on our cultural complexity; who, rising beyond ideology, refuses to choose between East and West and embraces the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781501925023

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie (Bombay, 1947), es autor de numerosos libros, de entre los que destacan Hijos de la medianoche -que ganó el premio Booker en 1981, el «Booker de los Booker» en 1993 y, en 2008, «el Mejor de los Booker»-, Los versos satánicos, El último suspiro del moro, Joseph Anton y Quijote. Ha sido galardonado con el Grinzane Cavour y el Premio Nacional de las Artes de Estados Unidos, además de otros muchos premios. En 2007, Salman Rushdie fue nombrado Caballero del Imperio Británico por su contribución a la literatura. Miembro de la Royal Society of Literature y Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, y abanderado en la lucha por la libertad de expresión, en 2022 sobrevivió a un ataque sufrido mientras dictaba una conferencia en el estado de Nueva York.

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of nine stories - three set in the East, three in the West, and three that cross the borders of the two by involving Eastern characters in a Western setting. Of the nine, six were published elsewhere first, and you can feel it - meaning that the collection feels a bit like the theme was made to fit the stories and not the other way around. There are some great tales in here, and a few that didn't quite work for me; but they all carry Rushdie's voice, and the volume as a whole is certainly worth reading.

[pallandavid · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nine short stories about human interactions. Some happen in the East (India) and others in the West (England). The only story I really couldn't get with was Yorick. Yorick is a sideways retelling of Hamlet... too sideways for me, although I did read the whole thing, it was painful.
All the others were wonderful!!

[saroz_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rushdie is an author I've always wanted to read more of than I have. I'm mostly familiar with him through his children's novel, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," as well as at least one novel that I read in herky-jerky bits and pieces during my 20s. I think it's entirely fair to say that Rushdie is one of those writers I always feel, snobbishly, like I *should* have read, and I've enjoyed seeing him interviewed and talking about other books and films. It finally dawned on me, then, that a short story collection like "East, West" might be my "way in" to a fuller appreciation of his work.

It's a challenging set of stories. What is immediately apparent is the mastery Rushdie has with the English language, because even the stories I didn't enjoy, content-wise, had a real flow that made them like music to read. I found myself wondering if Rushdie ever reads his own work aloud for audiences; in many cases, I felt like these would be even more of a joy to hear performed by the author. As stories, though, they were sometimes a little beyond me (hard as that is to admit). The collection is split into three sections - "East," "West," and "East, West" - with three stories in each. You can guess the thematic separation between these sections ("East" largely indicating India and "West" Britain). To be perfectly fair, most of the first six left me feeling a little distant, with probably "The Prophet's Hair" - which is rather like a mournful, bad-luck Indian fairy tale - the most engaging of the lot. However, I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed all three stories of the final section, each of them playing on themes as varied as infidelity, loyalty, and a shared love of the original "Star Trek" to find an interesting shared space between Indian upbringing and British culture. Those stories made my reading of the volume completely worthwhile.

Would I recommend the collection? Contrary to my original theory, I think these might come off better if you are already familiar with Rushdie's longer work. His stories are dense and literate, and I think if you know the patterns of his writing, they might be a little easier to engage. That said, I'm certainly glad I made the attempt. Reading "East, West" has made me want to move back toward Rushdie novels and give them a more determined try. This time, I'll be better prepared for the density, and I always like to read beautiful music.

[vermilious-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

East, West is good book, appropriate if you’re looking to fill a hole in your love of Rushdie, but for me, it will depend on how much I want to reread any of these stories six months onwards. And without that perspective, I’m not sure I can unequivocally recommend all of it. Check the book out of the library, read the second story in each section, and see of how you feel.
It was good, but not as good as other Salman Rushdie. Ultimately, I think it was just a little too ordinary. All of Rushdie’s excellent books have this intrusion of religion, or otherworldliness, that manages to seep through the texts. Whether it’s Machiavelli’s memory palace, Shalimar’s ability to walk on air, or Gibreel’s angelic status. Or even Haroun’s ability to tell stories, from a literal place of tales. Those miracles don’t come in to East, West, simply because of the length of the stories. Sometimes, some of them come close, but there’s no sense that the magic is actually intrusive, unexpected.
Take “The Auction of the Ruby Slippers”, one of the West tales in the saga. In it, the world begins to collapse in on itself, around the Ruby Slippers. Some want to buy them to go back to another time and place, one lost. Some people want to use them to escape, because time machines are space machines, and the slippers might even offer release from life itself. But none of that is emergent. It’s just the way that the world of the auction happens to go.
The largest exception to this comes in “The Prophet’s Hair”, the last of the East stories in the volume, where the miraculous discovery of a hair from the prophet Muhammad causes a great deal of changes in a single family, a confession of all sorts of sins and a total upending of the household order, a move from the western to the most strictly religious household that Rushdie has ever written. And in doing so, Rushdie actually manages to instill this magic again, transforming the story from a tale of morality into a tale of tales, an appropriate homage to his own work and the giants on whose shoulders he stands.
Not that the volume doesn’t deserve praise. Three stories were written for this piece exclusively, and one of them, “Chekov and Zulu” might be one of the best things I have ever read about the relationship of western popular culture to Indian livelihood. Chekov, you see, is a character on Star Trek. As is Sulu. But Zulu, that’s just a mispronunciation, taken by a boy, and his friend, as they all took on the personas, real and imagined, of Star Trek characters. They didn’t have the episodes to watch, just the ephemera, and seeing the effect of that on their lives is a sight to behold.

[anyotherbizniz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating curate's egg of a collection.

The first three "East" stories are disarmingly charming. My favourite story in the book is the first story "Good Advice Is Rarer Than Rubies", which is brilliantly simple, beautiful, romantic and unsurprisingly surprising; the very image of the principal character, on whom I think I have a bit of a crush. The following two stories are distinctly, charmingly, but very differently eastern - first "The Free radio" a modern parable with the bones of the dark side of India poking through and then "The Prophet’s Hair" which has that whole One Thousand and One Nights thing going on.

The second three "West" stories are, in sharp contrast, everything I dislike about smart-arsed english story telling in the knowing post magic realism world. They read like bad pastiches of Julian Barnes meets Tom Stoppard, ie "Yorick"; or of David Mitchell, ie " At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers" or Julian Barnes dumoing Stoppard for my mum ", ie "Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship". All three were to me as bad as the first three were good. Did Rushdie write them partcularly badly to make some point about western literature?

But the last three "East meets West" are really the whole point of the book for me. All three explore the interaction of modern Western culture with ancient Eastern culture. All happen within the UK and within a very British society which is far more than just the backdrop - it is almost a character in the stories. I agree with the other reviewer that these three stories really do show Rushdie’s mastery of the language and are filled with wonderful prose. All that and a there is a sexy Mauritian in the book too.

If it hadn't been for the disappointing middle section I would be saying this is the best book of short stories I have read for some years.

[cloggiedownunder · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

East, West is the first collection of short stories by Salman Rushdie. There are nine stories, six of which have been published previously in magazines. In the East section: Good Advice Is Rarer Than Rubies, where a woman seeking a permit to London gets some good advice from an advice wallah, but uses it is a way he doesn’t expect; The Free Radio, where a rickshaw driver maintains his faith in a government reward from the sterilisation clinic; and The Prophet’s Hair, where we learn that crime, especially in the form of theft of a holy relic, definitely does not pay. These have a decidedly eastern flavour. In the West section: Yorick, an interesting prologue to Hamlet that Shakespeare scholars might well enjoy; At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers, a speculation on what might be auctioned in an alternate world; Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship, a speculation of what Columbus endured at the Spanish court. Finally, in the East, West section: The Harmony of Spheres, which explores a friend with schizophrenia, and has quite a twist in the tail; Chekov and Zulu, which looks at Indian diplomats in Britain during the time of Indira Ghandi’s assassination and has very much the flavour of the Satanic Verses; and The Courter, a delightful tale of romance, cartoons and chess in the elderly, which has a slightly sinister edge to it. Rushdie’s mastery of the language means these are filled with wonderful prose. His mock-Shakespearean and mimic-Indian are particularly entertaining. If there was not an autobiographical touch in The Harmony of Spheres and especially in The Courter, then these are certainly written from close experience, and are definitely my favourites.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My last book of the year was another good buy from the library sale shelf.

Nine very different short stories - three about the East, three about the West, and three about what happens when East meets West. My favourites were "At the Auction of the Ruby Slipper", with its futuristic setting, and the Tristram Shandy pastiche, "Yorick".

[tdfangirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have to admit that I haven't read the entire collection of stories yet, but this is worth it for "The Prophet's Hair" alone. I love Rushdie's writing style.

[p_s_patrick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a collection of stories split into 3 sections, East, West, and East West. The stories are written in a variety of styles, one is an alternative version of Hamlet, packed with puns and wit, while some of the other stories are more serious, and convey a moral message. One of these, titled the Auction of the Ruby Slippers, or something like that, is a surreal story, with a thinly veiled warning against consumerism. Another story shows the difficulty foreigners have in identifying with two conflicting cultures, while others deal with diverse themes including the strange relationship between Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain, and another is concerned the supernatural effects of the theft of a prophets hair. There are only 9 stories in this short (211p) book, some longer than others, but they are all poingant. It will be worth rereading these stories again, in the future, as there is probably hidden meaning in some of them, and they are well written. It would have been nice if the book were a bit longer, but those wanting something more substantial can look to one of his novels for that. This is something a bit different, and should be found refreshing for Rushdie fans who have only read his novels so far.

[bexaplex · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

East, West is organized into three chapters: three stories in "East" include a play on the business of fake passports, one young man's loss of faith in the government and their sterility program, and the curse of the Prophet Muhammad's hair. Three stories in "West" include a play on Hamlet, a futuristic auction of Dorothy's ruby slippers, and a historical imagining of Columbus's bizarre love affair with Isabella. "East, West"'s stories feature pairs of characters from England and India.

The connection to the characters was stronger for me in stories like "Good Advice is Rarer than Rubies" where Rushdie wasn't mining literary characters or historical/religious figures for material. Although I loved "Chekov and Zulu" because, well, Star Trek.

[pingobarg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

either ya love the guy, or ya don't. i love the guy.