East, West
March 8th, 2003by Salman Rushdie
ISBN: 0679757899
This collection of nine stories was my introduction to Rushie’s work. He is one of those author’s I’ve always meant to read, but somehow never got around to his books. I started with this one for two reasons: I’ve been on a short story kick lately, and it was already in the house.
The book is divided into three sections of three stories each: East, West, and East, West. The first three are all set in India, and each features a twist toward the end, with “Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies” having more than one.
The middle three stories are also twisted, but more overtly. “Yorick” is probably funny and clever if you really know or really like Hamlet, but since I don’t, it did nothing for me. “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers” is biting, bitter, funny, and true:
We, the public, are easily, lethally offended. We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral highground. From this high ground, we can shoot down at our enemies and inflict heavy fatalities. We take pride in our short fuses. Our anger elevates, transcends.
I think the third section contained the strongest stories, and I liked “The Harmony of the Spheres” best of all, because that was the story I could feel the emotional connections with/in.
I haven’t really talked about some of the East versus or and West issues going on here. They are there, in the settings, choices of subject matter, and the tensions of in-between spaces, becoming explicit in the last story, in which the narrator refuses to choose between being pulled between East and West.
I liked this collection enough want to read more Rushdie, but am unsure where to start.
