Young reporter travels with ancient Greek as guide

By Ryszard Kapuscinski

Knopf. 288 pp. $25

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Reviewed by Scott Esposito

Ryszard Kapuscinski died earlier this year at 74, but the globe-trotting Polish journalist's influence is likely to grow. His beats read like a list of places no sensible person wants to visit, but every sensible person needs to understand: revolutionary Iran; war-torn parts of Latin America; chaotic, post-colonial Africa.

To his fans, Kapuscinski was a fearless journalist who ventured where few white men dared and told the stories of formerly subjugated peoples. Kapuscinski's detractors paint him as a fabulist who played fast and loose with the facts and whose work can only be considered journalism if we're being generous. Both agree that he was a savvy adventurer.

But not in the newly translated Travels With Herodotus (published in Polish in 2003). Although the young, naïve Kapuscinski on display here bears slight resemblance to the man he would later become, this is Kapuscinski as few have seen him. At the start of this strange memoir that is also an homage to Herodotus, the young reporter has never left his homeland but is enraptured with the idea of "crossing the border."

He soon gets his wish, traveling to India by way of Italy. The latter provides his first glimpse of capitalism ("the stores were full of merchandise, were actually brimming with it"), the former his first encounter with the non-Western cultures that would become his life's focus: "In time I grew convinced of the depressing hopelessness of what I had undertaken. . . . India was so immense. How can one describe something that is - and so it seemed to me - without boundaries or end?"

Kapuscinski's implicit answer to this question is, "By emulating Herodotus." The ancient Greek tackled a huge task - telling the history of Western civilization as it then existed - by talking with as many people as possible and writing the history one story at a time. Throughout his journeys, Kapuscinski symbolically travels with Herodotus, who he says feels more real to him than many of the people he meets. He also literally travels with Herodotus, taking his copy of The Histories wherever he goes.

Kapuscinski praises Herodotus as "the first globalist," a visionary who was the first to realize that "far from being one story, human history in its aggregate resembles a great cauldron." The young journalist seems to have been deeply touched by this idea, making it his life's mission to become something akin to a latter-day version of the great historian.

Calling Herodotus the first globalist is interesting, and offers insight into both Herodotus and Kapuscinski himself, but is it enough to carry an entire book? Perhaps not. To make his case, Kapuscinski dedicates large swaths of Travels With Herodotus to a retelling of The Histories. This is ably done, but why read Kapuscinski's retelling when the original is readily available?

Kapuscinski does infuse The Histories with a psychological acuity the classic lacks. After recounting how, before a great siege, the Babylonians slaughtered their women "to conserve supplies," Kapuscinski wonders, "Did Babylon's nights terrify its men from that moment onward? Did they wake in panic? Did nightmares haunt them?" On this, Herodotus is silent.

Kapuscinski also ponders the man himself, imagining why and how Herodotus traveled. We know precious little about the historical Herodotus, and Kapuscinski's detractors will likely view this as more of his baseless fictionalizing. The more open-minded reader, however, will view these speculations not as a fraudulent biography but rather as a purposely subjective window onto Kapuscinski's personal ideas about an author he loved.

For the most part, Kapuscinski's psychological speculations are thoughtful and provocative. He is less exciting when he reads The Histories as a clash between East and West. For one thing, his point can be painfully obvious: "Why does Greece (that is, Europe) wage war with Persia (that is, with Asia)? Why do these two worlds - the West (Europe) and the East (Asia) - fight?"

Actually, Kapuscinski never compellingly discusses why East and West fight. While it may be worthwhile to point out that the two have been battling since the literal dawn of Western history, Kapuscinski is too reductionist, retreading the old story about blood feuds, messianic kings, and enlightened Athens versus the Persian hordes. Surely a man who has seen as much as Kapuscinski knows things aren't quite that simple.

Overall, the book is too much Herodotus, and not enough Kapuscinski. The conceit that the journalist always carried his Greek inspiration with him is believable enough, but over the course of an entire book begins to wear thin. Further, as the book progresses, Kapuscinski's initially vivid portrayal of his younger self becomes a gray placeholder that he occasionally returns to in between extended glosses on The Histories. One longs for the narrative to feel more organic, for the tie between Kapuscinski and his inspiration to grow thicker and more complex instead of falling into a dull pattern. Travels With Herodotus is certainly a fun read filled with a lot of information - and it instills an eagerness to return to the source material - but it feels too much like a collection of interesting thoughts with nothing truly original to bring them together.