East, West by Salman Rushdie

Genre: Short stories
Sum up: Stories set in the title-implied geographic locations
Target readers: Literature students and language critics
Number of pages: 211

East, West is an anthology of short stories, comprising of three sections: East, West and East, West. Who better than Rushdie to talk about the two latitudinal extremities of the globe, and mystifying amalgamation of both? However, I would advise that each story be dealt with separately and not as a book as such, for then the residual taste of uniqueness in language for each story might be lost. This man is a warehouse of imagination; he uses random words in incongruent places, yet they don’t seem to be out of place. More than any of his stories or plots, what amazes me is the way in which English gloriously suffers in his hands, while he whips and whacks his way through the readers.

East consists of three stories. If the author’s name is kept a secret to anyone who reads Good advice is rarer than rubies, he would plainly mistrust you when you disclose the name. This story which has already appeared in the New Yorker is a complete let-down. The free radio has a cynical touch throughout, a tried-and-tested field for the novelist, and he carries it off in precisely his trademark way making it my best in the East. The prophet’s hair is a thriller-ride with a lot of carnage, too wild and ghastly for my liking, but it is sure to titillate blood in most young veins and gain vigorous nods of approval. The "thief of thieves" provides his children a life-long source of high income by crippling them at birth… amusing, but I shuddered.

The three stories in West bear a pure Rushdian-stamp at heart. Yorrick is my personal favorite in the book, though I could not make any sense out of the first page of the story. In the first person narration of Hamlet’s jester Yorrick, the author deliberately wanders away garrulously with the reader trailing behind hoping against hopes that he would find a full stop somewhere to take a breath. At the auction of the ruby slippers, makes a complete mockery of the whole process, royally butchering the egos of the auctioneers who go running from one sale to another, of items ranging from false teeth to used lingerie. I felt Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain consummate their relationship, which has also been published earlier in New Yorker, is fabulous in neither plot nor prose, and is worth a skip.

All the three stories in East, West are out in print for the first time, and are brilliant. The harmony of the spheres, appropriately named in the first place, narrates the tale of two friends and their flames. It has a very O.Henrical ending, though in a darker fashion. Chekov and Zulu are fancy Star Trek inspired code names for Indian Diplomats in England. What they face as a consequence of the assassination of Indira Gandhi, culminating in the bomb blast of Rajiv Gandhi's, is an ingenious portrayal of one of the least-exposed professions. It might not be an easy read for non-Indians, given the implicit implications of the two deaths and the conversation with the thickly accented Mrs. Zulu, and could prove to be a yawn. The courter is probably the sweetest Rushdie can get with his stories, and notwithstanding, his sweeter side is sweet enough. The love story between the sixty-year old ayah Certainly-Mary and her porter-cum-courter Mixed-up, as seen through the eyes of a teenaged rich-kid, is truly touching. This story holds the honour of being the lengthiest, earthliest and gentlest of all.

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