East, West

Stories

By: Salman Rushdie

Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Steven Crossley

A rickshaw driver dreams of being a Bombay movie star; Indian diplomats, who as childhood friends hatched Star Trek fantasies, must boldly go into a hidden universe of conspiracy and violence; and Hamlet's jester is caught up in murderous intrigues.

In Rushdie's hybrid world, an Indian guru can be a redheaded Welshman, while Christopher Columbus is an immigrant, dreaming of Western glory. Rushdie allows himself, like his characters, to be pulled now in one direction, then in another. Yet he remains a writer who insists on our cultural complexity; who, rising beyond ideology, refuses to choose between East and West and embraces the world.

©1994 Salman Rushdie (P)2016 Recorded Books

Why I Read Rushdie

#Dorie’s Diary

Why I read Rushdie

His writing is often over embellished and where one word would suffice, he uses two. Then, hidden in all that wordiness is a sharp little gem.

Tonight I learned this - in Asian and Mid-East cultures antimony was used to brighten and strengthen the eyes. Antimony is an element and its major use is to strengthen metals and alloys. It can be toxic to humans. It is often used in automotive brakes and clutches.

Rushdie is subtle. In the opening chapter of “East-West”, a young woman comes into a town on a bus spewing fumes and dust. You can almost hear the clutch and brake.

Then he says, “Miss Rehanna’s eyes were large and black and bright enough not to need the help of antimony.”

What a world! I found references to its use to strengthen metal, and strengthen automotive parts but it took some digging to find out antimony’s relationship to the eyes.

I’m only one page into the narrative and the serve is called. Reading Rushdie makes me feel like a smart person and reading Rushdie makes me feel like a dumb person and I always promise I’m never going to read anything of his again but I do.

He slyly took me to a dusty eye burning road in India and let me hear the sound of a bus braking to let off its passengers. Then “BAM!” he basically said, “But this girl has eyes that don’t need the strength of a metal alloy or eye drops to help them see.”

And he said it with one word

“Antimony.”

Wow!!

Great stories & great performance/reading. Loved the deep nuances the performers brought to life. You will not be disappointed.