Rating: 
Summary: A Good Intro to Rushdie
Review: I really enjoyed this collection of stories, and think that the book is a good introduction to Rushdie. I think my favorites in the collection were "The Prophet's Hair," and "The Courter." In fact, I think "The Prophet's Hair," was the story which truly reminded me that Rushdie knows how to turn a phrase. While at times there is a certain ambivalence in some stories, I think that is understandable in point of view of Rushdie's own background. It is an attitude that comes from being a product of two cultures and wanting to have claims to both, not just one or the other, as Rushdie so elegantly proclaims at the end of "The Courter."
Rating: 
Summary: Not all he's cracked up to be.
Review: I'm afraid that the stories in East, West, though occasionally interesting, really didn't do that much for me. It seems to me that the main reason for Rushdie being hailed as a great Eastern writer is that he is one of the very few currently well known ones, due to the publicity he got when clashing with Khomeini. I know he tried to write about life, to record on paper the lives of modern Indians in a modern age, except it doesn't feel very real. The dialogues are often bulky, sometimes clumsy. Maybe that's because of Indian conventions of speech translated into English. But it doesn't really seem like any of his characters could be real, breathing people, which is sort of the purpose of writing "about life". Maybe that's because these are short stories and the characters don't have enough space to be fleshed out. But then again, many famous writers of short stories managed to record whole lives very accurately in a few pages (Chekhov, anyone?).That's not to say these are necessarily terrible. They're interesting enough, and most come with twists at the end that will genuinely surprise you. "The Prophet's Hair" is a nice Arabian Nights-like diversion, "The Courter" is kinda poignant, "At the Auction..." is kinda reflective and philosophical. But it's really not a book that I would _buy_, to keep on my shelf and come back to over and over. After reading it, I have utterly no desire to return to it. High point of the book: "The Prophet's Hair" or "The Courter." They come the closest to making an impression. Low point of the book: Definitely "Yorick," yet another bad modern bastardization of Hamlet which tries to be "witty" and "literate." That story alone cost the book's rating a star.
Rating: 
Summary: Fine work! Possibly the most accessible route to Rushdie.
Review: In the constant furor over Rushdie's novels, some may doubt
that a great writer lies behind the cause celebre. This
book of stories should set those doubts to rest. As the
title suggests, the stories draw from India, the West, and
the confluence of the two. They also reflect Rushdie's
characteristic interests in high and low culture, from
Shakespeare to Star Trek. When I want to introduce friends
to Rushdie the writer, this is the book I give them.
Rating:
Summary: Fine work! Possibly the most accessible route to Rushdie.
Review: In the constant furor over Rushdie's novels, some may doubtthat a great writer lies behind the cause celebre. Thisbook of stories should set those doubts to rest. As the title suggests, the stories draw from India, the West, and the confluence of the two. They also reflect Rushdie's characteristic interests in high and low culture, from Shakespeare to Star Trek. When I want to introduce friends to Rushdie the writer, this is the book I give them.
Rating:
Summary: An apologetic confusion
Review: Rushdie attempts at trying to reconcile his origins and his present state. Like the Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul, Rushdie asks the cultural Darwinism questions: How do displaced
individuals evolve in different cultures? How do they survive? Rushdie's answers however, are less than convincing, and perhaps even a little cloying. In trying to resolve the Occidental and
Orientals worlds, Rushdie has fallen into the mould of most of his contemporaries: to wax lyrical about the mysterious and mystical East when it is convenient, and to attack with biting
venom it's backwardness at other times. The thing that really gets my goat about this is that among those expatriate South Asian writers (with the exception of Naipaul and Nirad
Chaudahri) who write of their homelands and their expatriate experiences, he seems to be the most ambivalent and yet most judgemental. When he judges the East, he uses the West's
standards; when he judges the West, he uses Eastern standards. That's works for fiction, but not for apologies.
Rating:
Summary: Rushdie Wins Again
Review: Rushdie succeeds where he produces scenes with minimum description: the sparely constructed conclusion of "Good Advice Is Rarer Than Rubies" brought tears to my eyes. Where he is overly verbose, as in "Yorick," he still has fun with language (though *his* fun may be tedious for *us* sometimes).
Rating:
Summary: Rushdie Wins Again
Review: Rushdie succeeds where he produces scenes with minimum description: the sparely constructed conclusion of "Good Advice Is Rarer Than Rubies" brought tears to my eyes. Where he is overly verbose, as in "Yorick," he still has fun with language (though *his* fun may be tedious for *us* sometimes).
Rating:
Summary: --Nine Rushdie tales. =East, West, East/West.
Review: Rushdie's writing contains the joyous confusions of being claimed by two cultures. I love when Rushdie digresses a bit and lets loose a curious flood of details, such as when describing a case of noxious bad breath, or, delivering a feast of images as he does in "At The Auction of the Ruby Slippers." The stories are rewardingly short--you can enjoy an 11-minute vacation and come back with something to think about.
Rating: 
Summary: Stories for Bedtime
Review: Salman Rushdie is an excellent writer in general. He likes to write fantastical stories based on common everyday things. This book brings together stories from the East and stories from the West. My personal favorite is "the Prophet's Hair" about a family that sets out to find a professional theif to steal the latest addition to their father's collection and, hopefully, restore the family back to normal. There's only one story that seems to not fit and tends to be confusing: it's a rewriting of Shakespeare's Hamlet. I think you'll enjoy all the rest, though.
Rating:
Summary: East West, this is not Rushdie's best!
Review: Sure, there's imagination in this book, but the language used to put it across is not worth talking about. It was a major disappointment after I'd read Midnight's Children and the Moor's Last Sigh. It's not a book worth buying and I'd only advise borrowing it if you're really bored (or curious, I suppose).
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