The title East, West suggests that the book should be viewed in its parts, East and West (books one and two of the stories), but the collection includes a third book: East, West. This combination of two opposite words is meaningful, because in this case, it points to the fact that although there are serious differences between western and eastern ways of thinking about life and the universe, at the end of the day, all humans have the same fate.
Fate is a central issue in many of the stories. For instance, there is the story about two spies investigating Gandhi's fateful assassination. The collection even begins with a woman cleverly avoiding her fate by messing up her interview. This is no accident—this story's position as the first story helps to set the tone for the rest of the stories. Perhaps the most genius story is Yorick which explores fate a different way, by showing the Hamlet as a happy child instead of a grumpy adolescent, and it shows Yorick alive. This is a picture of fate, because it obviously serves as the prologue to the famous scene where Hamlet holds Yorick's skull aloft and cries out about the human fate of death. To show Hamlet happy and Yorick alive, Rushie underscores their fated reunion.
At the end of the day, though, it seems Rushdie views humanity as mostly similar, no matter where the person is from. This happens most clearly in the Harmony of the Spheres, an unnamed speaker's story about the suicide of his schizophrenic friend. The point is that regardless of where on earth one lives, the challenges of life are universal.
