Travels with Herodotus
Customer Review: The Histories in the Modern World
This is an unusual book, a memoir of an extraordinary life on the cusp of world events, interwoven with the fabric of Herodotus’s Histories, a book given to the author early in his journalistic career. Kapuscinski has provided some of the most perceptive observations on the history of the second half of the 20th century and this beautifully written document provides us with an insight into his development from a young naive reporter in Poland to the alert instinctive scribe of his international reporting career. It seems that Herodotus, his constant companion, played a formative role in this progression. Herodotus’s Histories are written in an intriguing style in which many interleaving strands come to their natural conclusions at the end of each section and in which no seemingly insignificant detail is too slight to mention. Kapuscinski in some ways follows this stylistic approach with what appear frequently to be digressions from the main text demonstrating their profundity as you conclude the chapter. The descriptions of ordinary and extraordinary events in Kapuscinski’s life, Louis Armstrongs’s concert in Khartoum, being fleeced by a secret policeman in Cairo and his arrival at the epicentre of a coup in Algiers reflect the humanity of the writer at the centre of frequently appaling events. However, the perspective of Herodotus in placing man’s inhumanity in context is never far away from the centre of the narrative. Several themes predominate in his musings on the Histories. Firstly, the inability of great leaders to take good advice as frequently reflected in adverse decisions made by Persian emporors Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes in their attempts at world domination. Secondly, random events of outrageous cruelty perhaps best exemplified by the mutilation of Xerxes sister in law by his jealous wife and by Xerxes’s subsequent killing of his brother and his family. Thirdly, the seemingly random events on which the course of history depends - a hare darts out as the Scythian warriors prepare to defend their land from the Persians; the Scythians ignore the Persian army to chase the hare, spooking the Persians completely, so that they retreat. The requirement for slaves in the creation of this ancient world would of course have resonance for the writer of Imperium, which details at an early stage the forced deportations of so-called dissidents including his former school teacher from Poland. As this is Kapuscinski’s last work, it is tempting to speculate that perhaps the unstated message is that nothing has changed since The Histories and that he is subliminally tieing a thread between recent events in the world and the events detailed by Herodotus. This is a wonderful book, at one level deceptively easy to read but ultimately profoundly stimulating, provocative and immensely human, a cultural mirror in which much of the modern world is reflected.
Customer Review: A lovely final work
Ryszard Kapinscinski was made Poland’s journalist of the century in 1999 and judging by his writing must have been truly deserved. He wrote thrillingly of his travels as a foreign correspondant in the worlds toughest countries. Sadly ‘Travels’ is his final book due to his death in January this year.
Having recently read Shadow of the Sun I was eager to seek out more of his writing and was therefore delighted that this publication from 2004 has been translated. It does not disappoint.
This non fiction book covers three areas. His youth in post war Poland, his travels as a reporter for PAP in the 50s and early 60s and through out the book it is bulked up by his musings on the travels of the 3rd Century BC Greek Herodotus. All of this make fascinating and gripping reading.
RK always writes with humility and understanding of the hardship and bleak poverty he encounters. His empathy clearly stems from his childhood in Poland and he relates a moving story about himself at 10 years old with no shoes trying to fund a new pair for the cold winter by selling green home made soap door to door with very little luck. His stoicism in these harsh circumstances must have helped to give him his unique and intrepid personality. He goes forth with a sort of naive bravado setting foot in countries where there is civil war, disease and unbearable climate and in the begining at least unable to speak any language but Polish and Russian.
The stories of Herodotus are interspersed thorughout and are not always obviously relevant. Nevertheless it has made me want to read more about the Greek and I will be seeking a copy soon.
RK has perfected a simplicity of writing which is always interesting. He give the reader gold nuggets of information and insights into other worlds. His slightly gullible nature often leads to near misses including a close shave after being lured to the top of a ramshackle disused minaret in Egypt by a dodgy character.
This is a lovely final work by a great journalist.
From his thought of Herodotus - ‘His most important discovery and that one must learn about them, because these other worlds, these other cultures are mirrors in which we can see ourselves. Thanks to which we understand ourselves better - for we cannot define our own identity until having confronted that of others as comparison’.
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