Travels with Herodotus (Vintage International)
by Ryszard Kapuściński
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
Where's the love? Add this book to your favorite list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 161)
Read in November, 2007
"So I walk, ask, listen, cajole, scrape and string together facts, opinions, stories. I don't complain, because this method enables me to meet many people and find out things not covered in the press or on the radio." It is with this passage that we learn what Kapuscinski has set out to do; and who he set himself out to be: the modern day Herodotus. And from those who have read his other works, we know he succeeded.
However, this book is not like one of his others. Instead, it i...more
However, this book is not like one of his others. Instead, it i...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2008
Kapuscinski was a young journalist in Poland in the 1950s, with a great desire to cross a border. Not to leave Poland forever, but just to experience what it would be like to cross a border, into, say, Czechoslovakia, and then to return. He mentioned this desire to his boss, who must have been a very understanding and helpful person. The boss, knowing that Kapuscinski wanted to travel, arranged for him to be sent to China on a journalist exchange program, and gave him a draft copy of the first P...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2008
recommended to Jason by:
Mike
This book provides an excellent addendum to the works of a true literary giant of the 20th century. There is a great deal of insight into what has driven Kapuściński to travel the world and say what he has said on revolution, power, and the inevitable failings of both. Through the lens of Herodotus does he view these modern events, coopting so wisely the ancient writer's curiosity in regards to the words of the common man. There are certainly reflections of this approach in his American breakt...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
recommends it for:
Kapuscinski completists
Certainly not his best -- mainly a hodgepodge of recollections he didn't put into other books, loosely structured around an exegesis of The History by Herodotus, whom Kapuscinski calls the first journalist.
To me, the most interesting part was how he applied his eye for telling detail to events in Herodotus that happened 2,500 years ago. Things like this:
Amestris had sent for Xerxes' personal guards and with their help had mutilated Masistes' wife. She cut off her breasts and threw them to the dogs, cut off her nose, ears, lips and tongue, and then sent her back home, totally disfigured. ...more
To me, the most interesting part was how he applied his eye for telling detail to events in Herodotus that happened 2,500 years ago. Things like this:
Amestris had sent for Xerxes' personal guards and with their help had mutilated Masistes' wife. She cut off her breasts and threw them to the dogs, cut off her nose, ears, lips and tongue, and then sent her back home, totally disfigured. ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2008
After a lifetime of putting together some of the finest literary journalism of his time, Kapuscinski changes focus and writes less about the world and more about himself. In his earlier work humility was important; without it his highly personal accounts of place and people would have opened less to the universal. The tone remains humble, but the author nearing the end of his life finally says "yes, I was just that good, and in my own way stood head and shoulders above the rest; follow me i...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
lovers of fine writing, insightful stories, history and travels
I have never read a book by Kapuscinski which I did not like. And as usual, he did not disappoint.
In this book, Kapuscinski hop-scotches throughout the world, Kongo, Iran, China. Different stations in his life. From his first trip abroad as a newly-minted naive reporter experiencing a brand-new strange but fascinating world. Kapuscinski never really lost this quality, to describe the strange in a familiar way and vice versa. His tone is never jaded, never patronizing, always interested, fascin...more
In this book, Kapuscinski hop-scotches throughout the world, Kongo, Iran, China. Different stations in his life. From his first trip abroad as a newly-minted naive reporter experiencing a brand-new strange but fascinating world. Kapuscinski never really lost this quality, to describe the strange in a familiar way and vice versa. His tone is never jaded, never patronizing, always interested, fascin...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
classicists
I was prepared to adore this book; it took me 150 pages or so to admit to myself that it wasn't very good.
Ryszard Kapuci died earlier this year at the height of his powers. Beginning as a local reporter for a Polish newspaper, he rose to international eminence with his reports from many of the most turbulent places on the planet, and at the age of seventy-four, when he died, he was universally acknowledged to be as great a writer as a reporter.
Emerging physically from the stifling repre...more
Ryszard Kapuci died earlier this year at the height of his powers. Beginning as a local reporter for a Polish newspaper, he rose to international eminence with his reports from many of the most turbulent places on the planet, and at the age of seventy-four, when he died, he was universally acknowledged to be as great a writer as a reporter.
Emerging physically from the stifling repre...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Llibre ideal per emprendre una tornada a casa, després de 6 mesos a un País llunyà, i, si més no, continuar viatjant.
La condició d'estrangera va acompanyada d'una intensa sensació d'aprenentatge constant. Forçada a parlar una llengua estrangera, a establir noves dinàmiques de relacions, i a acostumar-me a cercar l'interruptor del llum a un altre indret de l'habitació, tenc la sensació d'aprendre coses les 24 h.
I un cop torn a casa després de 6 mesos, què? només tenc ganes d'em...more
La condició d'estrangera va acompanyada d'una intensa sensació d'aprenentatge constant. Forçada a parlar una llengua estrangera, a establir noves dinàmiques de relacions, i a acostumar-me a cercar l'interruptor del llum a un altre indret de l'habitació, tenc la sensació d'aprendre coses les 24 h.
I un cop torn a casa després de 6 mesos, què? només tenc ganes d'em...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2008
One of the greatest pleasures of this book was how Kapuscinski would use Herodotus as a lens through which to view the world around him. It made the scenes he was recounting from memory seem kaleidoscopic, richly layered, historically resonant. It was strangely satisfying to the reader, like reading two very good and educational books at the same time with a minimum of fuss and trouble. I was never sure whether I wanted him to keep recounting what he read in Herodotus or tell me more about his o...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 2008
I didn't spend too much time on this book - just enough to establish that it chronicled the author's travels through various parts of the world, along with periodic musings on (and, presumably, thematic connections with) Herodotus' Histories. The writing was capable, but Kapuscinski never addressed in the beginning what the reader would take away from this little travelogue. I might run the risk of missing gems of writing, but generally I require in a work of non-fiction an upfront statement o...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2008
Perhaps, I'd built up too much anticipation prior to reading this, as it is my first encounter with Kapuscinski--an author with an enormous and intriguing reputation. However, I was disappointed with *Travels with Herodotus* and, thus, gave up midway through.
While this text is an amazing insight into the unique situation that Kapuscisnki experienced as a young man--being allowed to leave insular, communist Poland to travel for reporting purposes to places like India and China--and, thus, ...more
While this text is an amazing insight into the unique situation that Kapuscisnki experienced as a young man--being allowed to leave insular, communist Poland to travel for reporting purposes to places like India and China--and, thus, ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2008
Staggering. I'd read the Soccer Wars and comne away strangley unsatisfied. Problem now solved.
It goes without saying that Kapuscinski is the reporter's reporter. This book reveals why, chronicling his journeys as a young reporter, sent to places he knows nothing about, surrounded by people with whom he can't communicate, trying to make sense of poltics he's unequipped to understand. It's the prototypical day in the life of a journalist!
Really, though, I was continually astounded by his...more
It goes without saying that Kapuscinski is the reporter's reporter. This book reveals why, chronicling his journeys as a young reporter, sent to places he knows nothing about, surrounded by people with whom he can't communicate, trying to make sense of poltics he's unequipped to understand. It's the prototypical day in the life of a journalist!
Really, though, I was continually astounded by his...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in October, 2007
My first Kapuscinski ever. Once again I've been well suggested.
Less detailed than the other books of him, Travelling with Herodotus is like a compendium of many international experiences of this underrated Polish journalist.
From his very first correspondances from India and China to the several years he spent in Africa, Kapuscinski speaks about the importance of being curious on everything we listen and see around us. No worries if something looks too complicated to understand properly. ...more
Less detailed than the other books of him, Travelling with Herodotus is like a compendium of many international experiences of this underrated Polish journalist.
From his very first correspondances from India and China to the several years he spent in Africa, Kapuscinski speaks about the importance of being curious on everything we listen and see around us. No worries if something looks too complicated to understand properly. ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2008
I believe this was Kapuscinski’s last work before his death in January 2007. Here, Kapuscinski reminisces in simple (almost conversational) but scintillating fashion about his early experiences as a roving reporter, covering such countries as China, India, the Congo, and other dark corners of the world where coups and political instability prevail. Along the way, Kapuscinski reads passages from Herodotus and muses about its relation to his own travels as an observer of foreign cultures. Not a ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Wonderful and enlightening, as one would expect from Kapuscinsky. I had glossed over portions of The Histories before, but Travels With Herodotus inspired me within the first fifty pages to rush out and buy the book--I chose the same translation of Herodotus that is used in the English translation of Kapuscinsky. The only reason I gave it four instead of five stars is that I am always enthralled by Kapuscinsky's travels as a journalist, and would have liked a bit more of his personal story to ba...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2007
Kapuscinski, a Polish journalist who died recently, has long been one of the most perceptive and empathetic journalists extant. He is little known in the West but is well worth seeking out as his insights are generally more profound and intense than the usual run of the mill journalists who sport many pocketed vests and elitist attitudes. Are you listening John Burns? Having been in several of the places Kapuscinski writes about I trust him to get it right.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in October, 2007
One of my biggest regrets in life so far is that I never got to take Ryszard Kapuscinski out to dinner. His reportage, such as The Shadow of the Sun and The Emperor catalogues human frailty better than anything since Dante, and like Dante, possesses a moral sense combined with cosmopolitan empathy for nearly everyone he runs into.
This was a thoughtful and movin
This was a thoughtful and movin
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in July, 2008
I liked the writing and voice. There was a lot about what he thought about Herodotus and his work and comparisons to then and now which was also very interesting. I liked to see what a traveling journalist's life was like back in the days of unreliable phone and shady plane service. His descriptions of all the places he went was fascinating, especially given the time period, but I wanted more about his travels. Guess I should read his other books...
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
wanderers with an ear for history
I've heard that this is not Kapuscinski's strongest book, but this is the first I've read of this author and I really enjoyed it. What impressed me the most was how Kapuscinski captured the strangeness and marvel of stepping outside his country's boundaries and entering different worlds. His reenactement of his first trip out of Poland to Italy and India excited me as if, I , too, were traveling for the first time to such a extraordinary place.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
what a pleasure to read - he switches back and forth constantly between contemporary events in algeria, india, china, congo 50 years ago and the stories of herodotus and the wars between persians, athenians, phoenicians. he relates herodotus' accounts of strange customs and his own musings about it, both revealing his and herodotus' insatiable curiousity, as well as showing how much the same everything is now to the 50s to 2000 years ago.
Like this review?
yes
2 comments
