Rating: 
Summary: America as an Alligator Pit
Review: East Is East had been billed to me as one of the finer books by one of the finer writers in America today. I have a great weakness for stories about writers, and as this book featured a writers' colony as its center stage, I chose it over some of T.C. Boyle's better known novels and collections of short stories.At it's heart, this story proposes the anti-American dream as reality. A young man, Hiro Tanaka, jumps ship off a Japanese steamer and swims ashore on an island off the coast of Georgia. Instead of discovering a land where people reach out to embrace him, he discovers a land where he is a wanted fugitive and the only people who reach out to help are really trying to help themselves. As a "half-breed" born of a Japanese mother and an American father, Hiro had always seen America as the City of Brotherly Love where no one would care what kind of blood he had flowing through his veins. But in very little time he learns that America can be as vicious and unwelcoming as its inhabitants, and that the American Dream is nothing short of a sham. At times, Boyle is so wrapped up in setting off literary fireworks that he seems to get sidetracked from his plot; however, the fireworks can be amazing at times, so it's hard to hold this against him. His characterizations are wonderful, and the story hardly ever loses its pace. I wouldn't call this the greatest contemporary American novel I've come across, but it's a damn good one.
Rating:
Summary: America as an Alligator Pit
Review: East Is East had been billed to me as one of the finer books by one of the finer writers in America today. I have a great weakness for stories about writers, and as this book featured a writers' colony as its center stage, I chose it over some of T.C. Boyle's better known novels and collections of short stories. At it's heart, this story proposes the anti-American dream as reality. A young man, Hiro Tanaka, jumps ship off a Japanese steamer and swims ashore on an island off the coast of Georgia. Instead of discovering a land where people reach out to embrace him, he discovers a land where he is a wanted fugitive and the only people who reach out to help are really trying to help themselves. As a "half-breed" born of a Japanese mother and an American father, Hiro had always seen America as the City of Brotherly Love where no one would care what kind of blood he had flowing through his veins. But in very little time he learns that America can be as vicious and unwelcoming as its inhabitants, and that the American Dream is nothing short of a sham. At times, Boyle is so wrapped up in setting off literary fireworks that he seems to get sidetracked from his plot; however, the fireworks can be amazing at times, so it's hard to hold this against him. His characterizations are wonderful, and the story hardly ever loses its pace. I wouldn't call this the greatest contemporary American novel I've come across, but it's a damn good one.
Rating: 
Summary: Unfunny Cartoon
Review: Has American literature really come to this? T.C. Boyle thinks that he is a latter day Swift. No way. He is merely a bigot who has created an unfunny cartoon.
Rating:
Summary: Unfunny Cartoon
Review: I have now read all of Boyle's work, except "Riven Rock," which is next on my list. "World's End" was so great, I didn't think another of his books would be able to equal it. Yet, "East Is East" does. It's great, simpler than "World's End," and just as interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Enthralling and hilarious
Review: Quite simply, one of the finest examples of character writing there is. Boyle takes an absurd situation (a native Japanese man washed ashore in a Georgian swamp) and turns it into a compulsive page-turner. His dialogue, use of characters and acerbic wit are an absolute joy. The scene in the shop with the Japanese 'hero' showing a commendable grasp of the English language (seemingly gained entirely from Clint Eastwood movies) had me crying with laughter (and got me some strange looks from other folks on the London Underground at the time). Although the lunacy of the situation is reminicent of Boyle's short stories, readers familiar with his novels will recognise the style and attention to detail he pays his characters. This book should be required reading for anybody interested in writing their own fiction. You won't find a better example of modern storytelling anywhere.
Rating:
Summary: Tragedy + Improbability + Boyle = Comedy!
Review: T.C. Boyle, or whatever name he chooses to attach to his writing, is more fun to read than any other American author I can think of. His prose is not for those who seek an author who is economical with his writing, rather, every word, every sentence, is an adventure to be savored. Beneath all the literary pyrotechnics however, Boyle raises real issues in all of his work. In this book, as in many others, he paints a savage portrait of America and the American dream. IN East is East, its America as perceived by a Japanese half-breed seaman who jumps ship and lands smack dab in a swamp (both literally and figuratively) of American excess and shallowness. THe book alternates between its portrayal of the poor seaman and the colony of artists he lands in, where he is mistaken for all sorts of figures, including an artist and an arsonist/murderer. WE follow his misadventures as one of the writer/artists hides him from the law that seeks him while she also tries desperately to find the fame, fortune and recogniton she feels she is so entitled too. One misunderstanding and one funny scene after another builds up to a tragedy and farce of epic proportions as Boyle rips apart every misconception Americans and foreigners have of one another, what they do, and how they live. AS in some of the author's other books, especially Tortilla Curtain, his dual structure alternates between the two main characters. In East is East, its the Japenese seaman and the hack female writer in residence at the artists colony who winds up using him (in more than one way!) to write a story. The danger in any dual structure is that we will be more sympathetic to one story over the other. Boyle hints at where his sympathies lie by naming the seaman Hiro (Hero?), but I was not swayed. The weakness of Boyle's farce is that he so lambasts all the characters that he ends up denying any dignity to any of them. But still, of all of BOyle's books, this one is the most fun to read, but should probably not be taken as seriously as some of his other work. Just enjoy the author's unparalled use of the English language and the brilliant ways he skewers nearly everyone in the book. Can't wait for the next one, due out in September 2000!
Rating: 
Summary: Not nearly as good as the reviews led me to believe
Review: The story revolves around a young Japanese/American "half breed" who flees from Japan to find himself in America. He's hoping to find acceptance in the great melting pot of America. Unfortunately he lands in redneck Georgia and is met with contempt and racism from the minute he washes ashore.
It's all down hill from there for Hiro in his attempts to make it to the city of brotherly love.
This book was given to me by a friend with assurances that I would love it. How wrong he was. I found the writing to be tedious and over done. Much of the time I spent reading I was thinking "who cares?". While the characters were well developed much of the book was spent on details that didn't seem to matter to the story.
I would have just stopped reading it about 1/2 way through if I didn't have a hang up on not finishing a book I start. My recommendations on this book are to spend your money elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Not nearly as good as the reviews led me to believe
Review: The story revolves around a young Japanese/American "half breed" who flees from Japan to find himself in America. He's hoping to find acceptance in the great melting pot of America. Unfortunately he lands in redneck Georgia and is met with contempt and racism from the minute he washes ashore.
It's all down hill from there for Hiro in his attempts to make it to the city of brotherly love.
This book was given to me by a friend with assurances that I would love it. How wrong he was. I found the writing to be tedious and over done. Much of the time I spent reading I was thinking "who cares?". While the characters were well developed much of the book was spent on details that didn't seem to matter to the story.
I would have just stopped reading it about 1/2 way through if I didn't have a hang up on not finishing a book I start. My recommendations on this book are to spend your money elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: A thought-provoking read
Review: There are some highly comedic scenes in this novel of a young seaman of Japanese-American parentage who finds himself in the midst of a Georgia swamp after jumping ship, but the reader is soon aware that it is the aura of impending doom which makes this story compelling. The tension increases chapter by chapter as we watch helplessly as ironic misunderstandings and prejudices bring about an inevitable tragic ending. The prejudice goes both ways; the Japanese-American seaman has as many skewed views of the Americans he finds on the Georgia Island as they do of him. This is really two stories in one as the writers' colony and the shallow, self-important people who inhabit it are a story unto themselves. The author's vivid descriptions of the Georgia swamplands are actually uncomfortable to read; one starts scratching at imaginary bug-bites while turning pages. The sad fact is that young Hiro Tanaka is not at home anywhere; as a gaijin, or half-breed, he has no place in Japanese society, and the welcome he thought he would find in America - the melting pot - is far from what he had dreamed. Boyle is a gifted writer, and East is East is as good as anything else he has written.
Rating:
Summary: Master of Fiction
Review: There is no doubt in my mind that TC Boyle reigns as the master of fiction. Here he sets up a unique story of a young japanese seaman who jumps ship and lands square in the muck of a Georgia swamp. He has no idea where he is and the people he meets has no idea what he is. But, everyone gets very excited and the story takes off in many directions at once. His experiences on the run are delightful and tragic. No one can put it together like Mr. Boyle. His books have yet to let me down.
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