Customer Reviews

Travels with Herodotus

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a young reporter in Poland in the 1950's, Ryszard Kapuscinski wondered what it would be like to cross the border. For someone living in a totalitarian society this would be a privelege. His goals were modest: he simply wanted to cross the border and come right back. He asked his editor at the Polish News Agency for permission to go to Czechoslavakia, instead they sent him to India with a clothbound copy of " The Histories" by Herodotus. The book fired his imagination and became a standard for his own travels. Although Herodotus live 2,500 years earlier, they shared many passions, the central one being an insatiable curiousity about foreign lands and peoples. During the course of his life and travels, Kapuscinski would experience 27 coups and revolutions, and be sentenced to death 4 times.

Kapuscinski has written some remarkable books, most of which have been translated into English. He reported from Tehran after the fall of the Shah, he chronicled the life of Haile Selassie, and he was in Angola when Portuguese colonists pulled up stakes and left the country, beautifully described in "Another Day of Life."

"Travels with Herodotus" is more personal and introspective than his earlier works. Some critics have questioned his purported use of Herodotus as a lifelong guide when he was never mentioned before in his 30 year career as a journalist. Jack Shafer of "Slate" has written an essay entitled "The Lies of Ryszard Kapuscinski," arguing that a sharp line must be drawn between journalism and fiction. In Kapuscinski's reporting the line is never clearcut. Many of his admirers claim that he has earned his poetic license and is therefore entitled to embellish a little. It is as if Kapucinski anticipated this criticism in advance by choosing Herodotus as his role model in his final book. Herodotus famously tended to fabricate when facts were not available.

Since Kapuscinski's death other damaging information has come to light. It has been revealed from Polish state archives that he was a communist collaborator. How else could he have been allowed to travel abroad all those years? And how else could he have known so well the nature of totalitarian regimes and how they coopted their citizens?

The truth here is never straight forward, it is not journalism as Jack Shafer would define it. Nevertheless, the work under review is a beautifully written memoir from which it is easy to see why Kapuscinski was one of the world's most highly regarded literary journalists. The truth that shines through is reminiscent of the magical realism of Latin American writers, but it would not pass muster in a journalism class.

I would recommend this book so one can decide for oneself whether Kapuscinski is more like Herodotus the "father of history" or Herodotus the "father of lies."

I've read most of Kapuscinski's books and I have to say that this is among the best, simply because this text gives readers even more insights into the man. Kapuscinski had an erudition you rarely find in reportage and what's more, he had what so many journalists these days lack: limitless curiosity.

In our age of 24/7/365 media coverage of everything under the sun, most journalists are simply out there looking to create stories where there really aren't any or follow what other agencies are reporting on. Kapuscinski, on the other hand, follows his own instincts and digs beyond surface appearances around him -- whether at home, in Africa or in the Far East -- to give his readers details that are at the heart of cultures other than his own.

Kapuscinski, perhaps because of his youth spent in post-War eastern Europe, had a great eye for irony and the tendency for history to repeat itself, often with devastating effects. But in spite of his witnessing of the absurb, the violent and the wasteful, Kapuscinski never stops digging for truth, never stops pushing himself beyond the familiar, just as his forebearer Herodotus did centuries before.

Kapuscinski's final book is equal parts travel diary and meditation on Herodotus' Histories, apt because the Herodotus RK celebrates shares much the same virtues as RK: an unmistakable humanity and literacy that shines through in their reportage. Having received a copy of Herodotus' great work from an editor as a suggested travel companion early in his career, RK came back to the work again and again during his own travels, and this book is the story of how his love for Herodotus illumined his own travels.

A very fitting final word from, without a doubt, the finest journalist of the 20th century, and a very beautiful book, befitting the best of RK.

TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS has two aspects: first, a reader's guide to Herodotus and "The Histories", and second, a sort of memoir, which, by virtue of the fact that Kapuscinski made his career as a global journalist, is basically a travel memoir. The book has been very favorably received by Amazon reviewers, but I don't understand what all the hullabaloo is about. TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS pales in comparison with the one other book of Kapuscinski's that I have read, "The Shadow of the Sun." Maybe people are more favorably inclined towards the book because it was published posthumously, after Kapuscinski succumbed to a fast and virulent cancer, but the truth of the matter is that it is at best an average book. (The childhood tale of the emperor's new clothes comes to mind.)

My biggest problem with TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS is Kapuscinski's style. Basically, he talks down to his readers; it's as if the book were written for his grandchildren or adolescent schoolchildren. There are isolated passages that approach the "literate reportage" that Kapuscinski is noted for from his other works, but there is far too much drivel, such as the following two examples:

"Herodotus is silent on this subject, but it is an important moment to consider--one cannot live in the desert without water; deprived of it, a human being succumbs quickly to dehydration."

"What sort of child is Herodotus? Does he smile at everyone and willingly extend his hand, or does he sulk and hide in the folds of his mother's garments? Is he an eternal crybaby and whiner, giving his tormented mother at times to sigh: Gods, why did I give birth to such a child! Or is he cheerful, spreading joy all around? Is he obedient and polite, or does he torture everyone with questions: Where does the sun come from? Why is it so high up that no one can reach it? Why does it hide beneath the sea? Isn't it afraid of drowning?"

If you like extended paragraphs of exclusively, or predominantly, speculative and rhetorical questions such as these, you may like this book better than I do, because it contains dozens of such paragraphs.

As the two examples also typify, much of TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS consists of "Kapuscinski on Herodotus and The Histories: A Reader's Guide." Kapuscinski was introduced to Herodotus just out of college, as a fledgling reporter, after a Polish translation of "The Histories" was belatedly published in the wake of Stalin's death. Kapuscinski took "The Histories" with him around the world on his journalistic travels and, apparently, read it multiple times. Herodotus was his muse, and no doubt he at times fancied himself a modern-day Herodotus. So he shares with us some of his obsession with Herodotus, including not only speculation about biographical matters, but also pages of paraphrase, exegesis, and conjecture about "The Histories," including about 30 pages (cumulatively) of direct quotations from the 1998 English translation by Robin Waterfield. It is almost as if Kapuscinski owned the sole copy of "The Histories" (maybe back in the Poland of the Stalin years) and is benignantly sharing it with his deprived fellow humans, whereas of course in at least the English-speaking world "The Histories" is widely available in many editions. Me, I would rather read and speculate about Herodotus and his work directly from one of those editions.

As for the portion of TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS that is sort of travel memoir, that, unfortunately, is too skimpy. We are given snippets of Kapuscinski's experiences and impressions from trips to India, China, Africa, and Iran, but those extracts comprise only about half the book, and within that half, the percentage of trenchant observation or commentary is much lower than it was in "The Shadow of the Sun." Still, there are enough incisive observations -- such as the one about all dictatorships taking advantage of the "idle magma" of "superfluous people" to be their unpaid eyes and ears (in effect, an ad hoc secret police) -- that I can give the book, despite its major weaknesses, three stars.

A book for all aspiring foreign correspondents. The author interweaves tales from his early career as a journalist, assigned by his Polish employer to cover various third-world countries, with the ancient historian Herodotus' similar restless quest for information on the other.

A very polished literary effort by a wise person, now sadly dead.

I didn't know Kapuscinski before reading this book, so I cannot comment on the man's journalistic reputation. This book is really an amalgam of two books. One part is made of commented passages from The Histories of Herodotus. The other is the actual travelling of Mr Kapuscinski around the world as a journalist. The title is misleading because the places where the author travels are work assignments from Communist Poland, not a free journey that he planned in order to retrace the steps for Herodotus. Except for a brief visit to Persepolis and Egypt, they have no connection whatsoever with the Greek historian. He is first sent to India and Afghanistan, then China, Congo, Ethiopia, Algeria and Senegal. So don't expect it to be a voyage of discovery of the ancient world. It's not.

The writing style, well the English translation at least, is engaging, gripping even. On the other hand, I was displeased with the author's poor knowledge of the places he visited. He doesn't understand the difference between Hindu (the religion), Hindi (a modern language), Indic (an ancient language and script) and Indian (general term) and talks about 'Hindu script' and 'Hindi writing system', or Buddhism being a 'Hindu ideology'. He talks about Chinese hieroglyphs and alphabet instead of pictograms or ideograms or just characters (hanzi, as they are known in Mandarin). He describes Kwangtung province (now spelt 'Guangdong') simply as "a place infested with crocodiles" - a rather distorted and limited view when we know it is, and has long been, the richest Chinese province in every sense of the term (economically, culturally, linguistically, ethnically).

In the last chapters about Senegal, Kapuscinski expresses his aberrant opinion that Africa would be a more developed place today if the Europeans had not taken by force their strongest and most capable men to make them work as slaves in the Americas. Doesn't he know that African tribes enslaved each others and chieftains sold excess slaves to Europeans for profit ? If anything it only made these African chieftains richer. However you look at it I don't see how the lack of European interaction with Africa could have made it a more developed place now. Besides, the slave trade with the Americas only concerned a small stretch of coast in western Africa, a tiny part of the continent. Mr Kapuscinski also believes that the Senegalese descend from the ancient Egyptians.

When commenting on the Greco-Persian wars, he keeps reminding the reader that it is a war between Europe and Asia, rather than just between Greece and Persia. I do not understand this standpoint considering that both the Greeks and the Persians were Indo-Europeans in language and culture, and that there were many important Greek settlements in Asia minor, including Herodotus' home town, Halicarnassus. Greece is not Europe, and Persia certainly does not represent all Asia (go tell the Chinese that they are Persians !)

Apart from such weird commentaries the book is well written and enjoyable. I preferred the part taken from Herodotus. I made me want to purchase The Histories, which I think I would enjoy more because it is four time the size of this book and not tainted with someone else's opinion.

This is my first book I have read by Kapuscinski. So I had no idea what I was getting into but when I see Herodotus it always gets my attention. Kapuscinski carries you along on his personal global journies and ties in his experiences and that of his life long mentor, Herodotus. Although, the experiences Kapuscinski had during his post WW2 travels are interesting, his tie in to the similiar difficulties he and Herodotus had 2500 years ago in compiling from both their travels, who he met, what he saw, and what he heard from 1000's of contacts is fascinating and entertaining.
His interpretation of Herodotus writings (The Histories) and insight into the man is informative, believable, and enjoyable. I will always use this book as a companion and reference to futyure readings of Herodotus writings.
Bob Hislop

RK's big dream as a young man and aspiring journalist in post-war newly communist Poland was 'to cross the border', by which he meant in first place Czechoslovakia (which, as some may know, does not exist any more). He got what he wanted and then some. His paper sent him to India, in the mid 50s. He was totally overwhelmed and understood next to nothing. Next came China - even worse: the great wall of the language being insurmountable. His exposures to India and China were failures for his world view, but they taught him humility.

I wish every journalist and world traveller would be intelligent enough to react the same way to cultural divides. This humility defines RK as a great reporter and as a decent human being.
He diverted his attention to more accessible places, as far as understanding was concerned.
He travelled 'with Herodotus', but not in the sense of trying to follow his steps. He seems to have carried the Histories with him on most of his trips and he seems to have learned how to investigate, ask questions, listen, report.

The result is a lovely mixture of memoir, travel snippets, and reading experiences summarized from Herodotus. The big question in the book in the book, ie in the Histories, is: why is there the big conflict between East and West? Herodotus is full of allusions, and RK makes full use of them. The Polish translation of the Histories, the edition that RK carried with him, was ready for publication in 51, but no publisher dared bringing it out before 55, for fear of Stalin's censors. After all, are those stories of antique tyrants not possibly meant to be hidden anti-communist propaganda?
RK speculates about the man Herodotus, trying to make deductions about the man from his methods. He criticizes the usual book title: it should not be 'Histories', but 'Investigations'.

Two chapters have special meaning for me:
one is his visit to Algeria during the coup in the mid 60s, when independance hero Ben Bella was deposed by Boumedienne. For RK it was a pivotal time: he began to understand H's way of investigation and began to try and work like him.
For me, the chapter has an illuminating reflection on Islam: RK distinguishes 'desert Islam' from 'sea Islam', ie the fundamentalist version that goes back to the times of the origin in the Arabian peninsula, vs the modernized, open, flexible version that lives on the Mediterranian shores and tries to adjust to times.

Another chapter that rings a chord with me is his visit to the Congo in civil war times, in the footsteps of his great compatriot Korzeniowski.
It was scary in the heart of darkness, and RK found true loneliness fce to face with absolute violent power. Scary.

This Polish journalist spent a lifetime bringing Africa to his readers. His books are personal, sharing his own particular observations and point of view with his readers. His voice is unique, episodic in nature, its rhythms and interpretations drawing me in and introducing me to a world view that I never even knew existed. I first became acquainted with his work when I read and reviewed The Shadow of the Sun in 2002 but this book goes a lot further into his own philosophies.

Travels with Herodotus is his last work, completed in 2007, just before his death at the age of 74. In it, he combines his love of reporting and revisits his memories of his early travels to India and Africa with a copy of Herodotus' The Histories in his knapsack, weaving the tales of the ancient world into his own travel experiences. The result is almost magical and totally captured my imagination.

On one hand, he describes his own exotic world, one that I'm a bit familiar with as it spans the past fifty years or so. But then he contrasts it with Herodotus' words from antiquity, putting his own particular spin on them by raising questions about the feelings of the people who Herodotus writes about. For example, he wonders aloud what it must have been like for the men of Babylon who knew they had to fight the Persian invaders to the death and needed to conserve food. They therefore were ordered to choose one woman in their families to act as a cook and were ordered to strangle all the other women with the exception of their mothers. This scenario as well other images of horrific battles, tortures and sacrifices are brought to life. The people of the ancient empires are made real and their constant raging of war an allegory for our own times.

The book can be thought of as a series of personal essays. It put me right into the author's mind and I was right there with him though both ancient and modern battles. Once I got into it, it was hard to put it down. It gave me a unique perspective on the world and has enriched my understanding of human nature throughout the centuries. I loved the book and give it one of my highest recommendations. But be forewarned. It will be much too brutal for most readers.

As a devoted fan of Kapuscinski, I especially enjoyed these musings, which traveled (as he did) in many directions, both in the geographically-defined world, and the intellectual one. I have always looked forward to Kapuscinski's next book, regardless of what his subject might be; I truly miss him already.