- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Books USA (Jan 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679757899
- ISBN-13: 978-0679757894
- Product Dimensions: 13 x 1.5 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,743,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
"One of the decade's great literary triumphs: magical, compassionate, wise, beautiful, and so very entertaining." --"The Toronto Star
"Richly imaginative...The characters are memorable, the language swift, and the reader is touched by desire, friendship and love." --"The Globe and Mail
"A pleasure to read...The stories in East, West have the careful precision of ivory miniatures. And all of them, beneath their infectiously playful surfaces ponder the imponderables of human fate." --"Macleans's
"Richly imaginative...The characters are memorable, the language swift, and the reader is touched by desire, friendship and love." --"The Globe and Mail
"A pleasure to read...The stories in East, West have the careful precision of ivory miniatures. And all of them, beneath their infectiously playful surfaces ponder the imponderables of human fate." --"Macleans's
"From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Book Description
A brilliant collection of short stories from the Booker prize winning author
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rushdie highlights the similarities and differences between the cultures of the Eastern and Western Worlds delightfully. Many of the stories provide a refreshing message of hope and the endings usually brought a broad, satisfied grin to my face.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The question of identity; both in a geographical, cultural and personal sense, has always been at the heart of Rushdie's works, and nowhere more so, than in 'East, West'. Containing nine short stories (three from 'East', three from 'West' and three from 'East, West'), this is a book which deals with everything from immigration and religious fanaticism, to the identity of Shakespeare's Yorick, and Neil Sedaka songs; with the results ranging from sublime, to decent. The 'East' stories are of a more straightforward nature than their 'West' counterparts, but are also more successful - bringing together superb imagery, musings on tradition and religion, and creating some memorable characters; whereas the tales of 'West', whilst interesting to analyse and dissect, trip over themselves in a manner slightly too self-conscious and convoluted. That said, they still provide an interesting counterpart to the other two sections, and are far from being without merit, in and of themselves.
The final of the book's three sections, 'East, West', is definitely the book's best; especially 'The Courter', the final and longest tale, which deals primarily with the unspoken love between the brain-damaged 'Mixed-Up', and the Indian migrant 'Certainly Mary', as well as it's narrator's own teenage heartbreaks, set to a soundtrack of Sam Cooke singles and Roy Orbison's soulful vocals. Fans of Rushdie will undoubtedly find much to like in 'East, West', even if it understandably lacks some of the epicly powerful scope and oustanding characterisation seen in longer texts, such as 'Midnight's Children' and 'Shalimar the Clown'. For the uninitiated, this is also a good place to begin with Rushdie's works, a book that is readable, thought-provoking, and characteristic of Rushdie's idiosyncratic style.
The final of the book's three sections, 'East, West', is definitely the book's best; especially 'The Courter', the final and longest tale, which deals primarily with the unspoken love between the brain-damaged 'Mixed-Up', and the Indian migrant 'Certainly Mary', as well as it's narrator's own teenage heartbreaks, set to a soundtrack of Sam Cooke singles and Roy Orbison's soulful vocals. Fans of Rushdie will undoubtedly find much to like in 'East, West', even if it understandably lacks some of the epicly powerful scope and oustanding characterisation seen in longer texts, such as 'Midnight's Children' and 'Shalimar the Clown'. For the uninitiated, this is also a good place to begin with Rushdie's works, a book that is readable, thought-provoking, and characteristic of Rushdie's idiosyncratic style.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
East West is a short collection of short stories by Salman Rushdie. But there is nothing small or even limited about the themes they cover, nor anything bland about the palette Rushdie uses to colour his ideas. They were published in the mid-1990s, when the writer was deep into the confines of the fatwa that threatened his life. It is thus refreshing to reflect on the wide and poignant use of humour trough the collection.
The stories are enigmatically arranged in three groups entitled East, West and East-West. They thus form a kind of triptych. In East we visit territory well known to readers of Rushdie. He is in the sub-continent, addressing notions of tradition and culture, notions that are interpreted and reinterpreted by change, personal ambition and by familial and religious associations.
In West, Salman Rushdie presents Yorick's view of Hamlet and an encounter between Catholic Isabella and her hired man, Christopher Columbus. One is fiction superimposed on fact, while the other approaches the reader from the opposite direction. Both stories turn in on themselves, reverse roles and blur the distinctions between fact and fiction.
In East-West we find people in new contexts, away from home, inhabiting places unfamiliar to them. We meet people who impose private, personal structures on a wider experience that others share. Misunderstandings create their own new language, and fiction expresses and interprets a shared reality.
But what is continually astounding about these stories is the literary style that Salman Rushdie brings to almost every sentence. The pictures he draws are surreal, even hyper-real and yet utterly mundane, even prosaic at the same time. A change encounter with a particular object can evoke memory, visual allusion, lyrics from pop culture and tastes of what grandma used to cook. Then, in the next sentence, he can sustain the effect by unloading another bus-load of metaphors. The writing is arresting, but also beautifully fluid and entertainingly readable.
For anyone who has tried Salman Rushdie's novels and recoiled at the challenge of their density, I would recommend these stories as a taster in miniature of what the bigger experience can sustain. Once you are used to the style, it flows easily.
The stories are enigmatically arranged in three groups entitled East, West and East-West. They thus form a kind of triptych. In East we visit territory well known to readers of Rushdie. He is in the sub-continent, addressing notions of tradition and culture, notions that are interpreted and reinterpreted by change, personal ambition and by familial and religious associations.
In West, Salman Rushdie presents Yorick's view of Hamlet and an encounter between Catholic Isabella and her hired man, Christopher Columbus. One is fiction superimposed on fact, while the other approaches the reader from the opposite direction. Both stories turn in on themselves, reverse roles and blur the distinctions between fact and fiction.
In East-West we find people in new contexts, away from home, inhabiting places unfamiliar to them. We meet people who impose private, personal structures on a wider experience that others share. Misunderstandings create their own new language, and fiction expresses and interprets a shared reality.
But what is continually astounding about these stories is the literary style that Salman Rushdie brings to almost every sentence. The pictures he draws are surreal, even hyper-real and yet utterly mundane, even prosaic at the same time. A change encounter with a particular object can evoke memory, visual allusion, lyrics from pop culture and tastes of what grandma used to cook. Then, in the next sentence, he can sustain the effect by unloading another bus-load of metaphors. The writing is arresting, but also beautifully fluid and entertainingly readable.
For anyone who has tried Salman Rushdie's novels and recoiled at the challenge of their density, I would recommend these stories as a taster in miniature of what the bigger experience can sustain. Once you are used to the style, it flows easily.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
a good taste of classic Rushdie
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. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Cloggie Downunder
One of the best of all time
Quite simply, Salman Rushdie is one of the best writers of our time, and perhaps of all time. His stories are pure beauty on a page. Read more
Published on 5 Nov 2009 by A. Nota
Hit And Miss
An interesting collection of Short Stories which start in Rushdie's East, migrate to the West and end in a mix of the two. Read more
Published on 2 Feb 2009 by Gannon
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