Around Nag Pokhari

The cover of Snake Lake is a Photoshopped mess: Tibetan motifs, a snakeskin pattern, a golden Buddha, all against the backdrop of a pristine lake and mountains that anyone familiar with Nepal will immediately recognise as having nothing to do with modern-day Kathmandu, where the book is mostly set. The juxtaposition of elements is clunky and clichéd. Yet the cover's failings inadvertently point precisely to what makes Snake Lake a remarkably absorbing book. Unlike the cover, Jeff Greenwald succeeds in fitting seemingly incongruous elements – Kathmandu and Berkeley, myth and modernity, Buddhism and riots – into a cohesive and pleasing whole. Though much of the book is about contrasts of time and place, Greenwald's forte here is not as a travel writer or historian but as biographer and autobiographer, and Snake Lake succeeds primarily as a viscerally honest account of the author's personal struggle to come to terms with love and loss.

Our tale begins with Greenwald's recollections of his time in Kathmandu as a correspondent for the San Fransisco Examiner covering Nepal's popular movement for democracy in 1990, the first Jana Andolan. The book is named after the capital's Nag Pokhari, an old algae-green pond that, as legend would have it, still houses the nagas, serpent kings that ruled the valley when it was still a giant lake. Greenwald is clearly taken by the place and its mythology, and peppers his book with the many naga myths that still survive in Kathmandu today. Having left his native US, Greenwald enthusiastically immerses himself in Nepali politics, finding his way to street protests, interviewing strike leaders and obeying the 'voluntary' blackouts imposed by pro-democracy groups as a form of protest against the entrenched monarchy. Along the way, he begins to attend lectures on Buddhism from a humorous and charismatic Tibetan lama, falls for an American photojournalist, and searches the city for friends willing to let him use their fax machines to file stories in clear violation of the royal government's media blackout. Greenwald paces the narrative well, flavouring it with frequent asides on the ancient history and mythology that inhabit Kathmandu.

Released a full two decades after the events it describes, Snake Lake would be hopelessly outdated if it were not also somewhat prescient. Greenwald faithfully describes Kathmandu's elation in the wake of King Birendra's eventual agreement to democratic elections, but the author is too cautious to get carried away. His misgivings at the time – that Nepal had little understanding of how to put the concept of democracy into practice, that most ordinary Nepalis outside Kathmandu would see little benefit from the revolution, and that in allowing the king to stay on as a constitutional monarch the country, 'hamstrung by tradition … had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory' – point with remarkable accuracy to some of the problems Nepal would face in the following years. Greenwald's treatment of the politics and history leading up to 1990, though, is quite shallow, and anyone already versed in Nepali history will find little of historical value here. Still, as an engaging primer on the period, and as a chronicle of the passions and brutality unleashed in Kathmandu's streets at the time, Snake Lake does well.

Still, for all his fascination with the city, Greenwald's portrait of it rings a bit hollow. His professions of love for Kathmandu are eloquent and unquestionably genuine, and his evocative descriptions suggest true intimacy. But the picture of Kathmandu that Greenwald offers seems rather narrow in what it shows of the city's inhabitants. We are introduced to his new girlfriend, to a witty British businessman and his beautiful wife, and to a number of Kathmandu's more notorious expatriates, many of whom are generously described. When it comes to the Nepalis, however, Greenwald's Kathmandu seems sparsely populated. He does introduce us to the lethargic priest at his neighbourhood shrine, to his pilot neighbour and to a disenchanted newspaper editor, but the author's relationships with these men are clearly distant, lacking much candour or affection. As a work that seeks to introduce its readers to a place few of them would be familiar with, then, Snake Lake falls short.

This is a more significant problem than it may at first appear. The best travel writing – Bruce Chatwin on Patagonia, perhaps, or William Dalrymple on Delhi – introduces the reader to a cornucopia of unexpected characters that seem as though they could only come out of very specific circumstances. Kathmandu has no lack of these, but Snake Lake has surprisingly few. Greenwald's closest local confidant is a Tibetan rinpoche of endearing wisdom and charm, but we see even him only as he interacts with his small court of Western disciples. As a sample of those who make their lives in the valley, Greenwald's selection is unconvincing.

Committed romanticism

There is another tension in the way the author sees his beloved city. Greenwald's view of Kathmandu is suspended between the mystical past and the overpopulated present. This, though, is not so much a flaw in the author's view as a tension intrinsic to the city itself. Kathmandu's distinct heritage, incubated through centuries of relative isolation and lovingly resurrected after countless fires and earthquakes, owes much of its richness and preservation to the same monarchy that the city turned against in 1990. The modernity and liberty that Kathmandu sought then, and continues to chase today, are also the most significant calamity ever to befall the city's heritage. Kathmandu uncomfortably straddles the millennia, and in 1990 the city was already losing much of what it once was.

Against the odds, Greenwald clings to what is left of the image of Kathmandu as Shangri-La. He seeks out the surviving oases of calm around the city's stupas, chases ancient Buddhist wisdoms that few locals seem to care for, and uncovers the myths surrounding Kathmandu's temples and shrines with zealous curiosity. At times, his efforts suggest the desperation of a forlorn lover, clinging to his ideal of the city even as the city itself seems intent on proving his ideal wrong. Of course, he also presents ample evidence to show Kathmandu as anything but idyllic, faithfully describing the seething traffic and pollution, and the mass protests and bloody reprisals which suggest that all was not well in 1990 Kathmandu. Watching a happy family tuck into lunch at a restaurant, Greenwald grudgingly admits, 'I'd visited Nepal too many times to see their apparent contentment as part of the Shangri-La myth.'

Yet the author's yearning for that same idyll and the 'spiritual peace' it promises pervades the book, often making him emphasise the spiritual over the political, the mystical over the mundane. As a committed romantic, Greenwald can perhaps be forgiven for sometimes glossing over Kathmandu's less-pleasing aspects. Though his love is not blind, no love would ever survive if it did not wear heavily tinted glasses. For Greenwald, those glasses let him see Kathmandu as many of us would like to see it, as a Shangri-La that 'is not some imaginary Himalayan paradise, but a vision of the best possible future.'

In fact, neither Kathmandu nor Nepal is the most compelling character in this story. Early on, Greenwald introduces us to his extraordinarily gifted yet troubled younger brother Jordan, skilfully weaving compelling and humorous anecdotes of their shared childhood into the narrative. Here Greenwald's honesty and skill as a writer come into their own with descriptions of Jordan that are both endearing and haunting. The contrast between the brothers and the gulf that would continue to separate them are immediately obvious. 'While I was loud and resilient, a hyperactive comic who rarely shut up, there was a quiet translucence about my brother,' Greenwald writes in a particularly memorable passage. 'Like an Egyptian vase, he seemed both fragile and immortal … He [was] the beautiful one, with the curly hair of Dionysus, his dark eyes wide as an owl's. And there I am, a snaggletoothed clown, prancing and posturing. We were an odd pair – but during those early years, at least, I was the difficult one.'

Greenwald's Kathmandu reverie is shattered by letters from Jordan suggesting a rapid slide ever farther into his persistent depression. The author's anguish is contagious. Forced to choose between helping his brother and remaining in Kathmandu, where revolution seems imminent and things are just getting serious with his new girlfriend, Greenwald buys a ticket home. Once there, Greenwald confronts even deeper crises when his brother commits suicide, leaving the author to chase down the demons at the root of his brother's torment. Eventually, though, he finds his way back to Kathmandu to find that the climax of the popular movement has passed, with the king having acceded to the protestors demands and a new caretaker government in power.

Despite this welcome development, Greenwald remains troubled, as his turmoil over his brother's fate distances him from both the woman and the city he loves. Here again Greenwald's prose is irresistible, his descriptions lucid and his emotional vulnerability never masked over. Brutal emotional honesty becomes an essential part of his style. Yet for all the heavy content, Greenwald leavens the text with touches of appropriate humour that keep it far from morose. He also shows a particular gift for inventive metaphor; for instance, on meeting Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, a career anti-monarchy activist 'stunned into docility' in his unaccustomed role as head of the caretaker government, Greenwald likens the new prime minister to 'a teenager who'd been tossed the keys to an aircraft carrier'. This blend of humour and candour propels the entire book, while the honest story of a man driven by love – for a brother, for a woman, for a city – and searching for peace in this world admirably binds the disparate parts of the book together.

Though Greenwald does finally find some semblance of peace for himself with the help of his rinpoche, the answers the book offers keep faith with the complexity of the issues raised. Unlike many other quasi-spiritual travelogues, there are no hackneyed revelations or promises of enlightenment on offer here. In Snake Lake, as in life, enlightenment is in short supply, whether of the spiritual or historical kind. There are no tremendously profound lessons to take away, but the book does not need them anyway. Greenwald's moving narrative stands on its own.