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Summary: On The Road Diaries
Review: *Che Guevara, there is much to say about this man and the way he changed people's lives. But what about before he was famous? This book, The Motorcycle Diaries, is an adventure that Ernesto Guevara took, along with his friend Alberto Granado, across South America. The means in which they start their journey is that of spontaneity. At that time, December of 1951, Guevara is at medical school learning to become a doctor. He and Alberto had just quit their jobs and decided to go to South America on Alberto's Norton 500 motorcycle called "La Poderosa II". In their travels they come across many diverse people living in conditions neither of them had ever seen before, as well as some that they have. Indians, lepers, so many people who show them a different world not seen by any, save the one's living there themselves. Argentina, Chile, Peru, through hot deserts, hitchhiking when they could, Columbia, Venezuela, fighting hunger as well as their desire to give up, but all the while never wanting to stop. This is the story of Ernesto Che Guevara, and his journey across America.
*I read this book and can hardly comprehend the feelings Guevara has on the expedition through South America. I think that it is hard for anyone to leave the place they call "home" to go explore the worlds around them. He doesn't have the trip all planned out, doesn't know where he will sleep or if he will be able to find something to eat. I think because of that "improvisation", Guevara shows how strong his will is and how much worrying about something won't change anything unless you try yourself to change it. You may have realized it by now but I really like this book and recommend it to any and all who want to read a story about a journey, life altering to a man who tries to change what he believes must be changed.
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Summary: kerouac in south america with an edge
Review: About the same time Jack Kerouac was "On the Road" Che was on the old Norton below the equator. Part philosophy, part travel, part biography, makes for a fine read and gives insight into the force of this young doctor's life. I am eager to read the sequel
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Summary: Our Modern Soviet Cinema
Review: Browsing through books, you don't expect to recieve the kind of shock I did when reading reviews on Guevara's "Motorcycle Diaries". I have a minority opinion, which saddens me not becuase it isn't popular here - but because others have read only the inspiring part's of Che's life. Not to discourage reading on this side of his life, but for a complete picture - read about his other actions. Are murderers inspiring rebels? Someone who sentenced Cubans to death because they fought for the very rights we enjoy daily in this country is a hero? Sure, be inspired by an awesome travel story - and even by a young person who wanted to make much needed changes - but please, do not be inspired by his later actions. An executioner is not someone to look up to. This book is a manifesto, a 50 year tardy soviet script, and should be acknowledged as such.
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Summary: The Dreamer
Review: Click on the image of a young Che sitting in a pensive , relaxed posture as though he is daydreaming. The picture will reveal an image in your mind quite different from the familiar bearded face many have come to associate with Che. The youth and gaze in his eyes is reflective of the book in it's first hand portrayal of a young idealist. The roots of Che's radicalism, that evolved into his believing in Communism and fighting alongside Castro, in Cuba, began with what he saw on a trip he took through South America. His observations on the differences in social classes within various towns shows his astute vision and concern that eventually turned into action.The epic journey Che undetook with his friend is full of anecdotes, frolicking, humor and some keen observations. Setting out from Buenos Aires, Argentina with his best friend, Alberto Granadas, the two start out on a motorcycle along the Atlantic eventually arriving in Caracas , Venezuela. Prior to their departure the first-hand account talks about cutting ties and the lives they left behind . The narrative account makes for a small book that can be read in one sitting or so. In the small time invested an interesting portrait and adventure awaits the reader. The intimacy of the book is life taking the trip side saddle within Che's mind. Incidently, this book is being transformed for the big screen. The production for a soon to be released movie, directed by Brazilian Walter Salles, with young, Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal("Y Tu MamaTambien" & 'Amores Perros") taking the lead role of Che. The book is entertaining and worthwhile for those interested in history and those that have shaped history.
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Summary: In his own words
Review: Felix Rodriguez, an anti-Castro Cuban who was sent to assasinate Che, said he was a fascinating man he wanted to know better and felt sad at having to hunt him. He protested at Che's execution.With that insight, I eagerly read The Motorcycle Diaries. They are very well written, amazingly entertaining, witty and occasionally insightful and the translation is not only excellent, but well-referenced where terms are transliterated. Personally, I wound up detesting the little troll. He and his friend masqueraded as experts on leprosy, which they milked for guest space and food. They stole liquor, whined about hospitality until they got even better fare and generally were locusts on the local economy. Che complains mightily about bureaucracy and control that keeps him from his wants (The lack of border stops some places, which made it harder to cadge rides from passing trucks), yet makes a point of mentioning his illegally carried revolver and knife that he smuggled through other border checkpoints (and heck, who wouldn't, when traveling like that?). In other words, "If I want it, it's good government. If I don't, it's bad." The true moral dishonesty of the Latin communist comes through. And yet...he was honest enough to preface the book with a note that it represented only a momentary view of his life at that time and place. He didn't edit out any of the bad. The contrast and complexity is fascinating, and I'll have to find more to read about a no doubt highly intelligent man. Love him or hate him, the book is honest in its documentation and pulls no punches. It's a great period piece, a great low-budget travelog, and a journal of a young, brilliantly stupid college punk like lots of us were. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you want to understand the Latin communists or Che, you must read this.
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Summary: Insightful Book
Review: I enjoyed The Motorcycles Diaries. It was an excellent book written by a sensitive and compassionate young man discovering who he was. I read it in Spanish and it made me want to go see The Motorcycle Diaries movie. It also made me want to go to the places mentioned in the book: Peru, Colombia, the parts of Argentina I've yet to visit.
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Summary: Not a motorcycle book
Review: I think the title of this book was a calculated effort to sell this book to people like me--people who care more about motorcycles than revolutionaries. If you pick it up determined to read about a guy who rode a motorcycle all over South America, you'll be disappointed. If you're seeking an adventure touring story, you won't be. I finished the book in a few hours and walked away glad I didn't give up when a youthful Che's motorcycle broke for good 30 pages into the book. The rest detail the travels of Che and a friend, total slackers posing as doctors and leprosy experts (which they were, in loose senses of the words), as they scam their way across the continent by hitching rides, sucking up to cops and brown-nosing anyone with food, booze and a warm place to sleep. The reader gets the feeling that this journey was perhaps the defining experience in Che's pre-revolutionary life, and that his worldview really came into focus based on the things--beauty, oppression, generosity, treachery--that he saw on his bohemian-style trip. This compelling read changed my impression of the man we call Che--much for the better.
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Summary: A man of the people
Review: I was familiar with Che Guevara-the legend, the poster-before I read "The Motorcycle Diaries," but only vaguely. The book is a revelation. I would like to know more about its publishing history. Was it widely read? When was it first available in the United States (I almost said "America," but after reading Guevara's eloquent plea for a United Latin America, I won't make that mistake again)? This tale of two friends from a middle-class background-one a medical student, the other a biochemist-hitting the road on a beat-up motorcycle ("La Poderosa II-the Mighty One) is both archetypal and mythic. The discoveries they make are of a type that look forward to the men they will turn out to be. Guevara continued to travel the rest of his life, even after he had married and fathered two children. He died at a tragically young age, 39, in mysterious circumstances, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Bolivia. The book is often poorly edited (I found a number of typos), but the Ocean Press edition more than compensates by providing several helpful features, including a chronology of Guevara's life, an introductory essay by his daughter, and a speech to medical students (potential "revolutionaries") from 1960. Together, these features provide a much-needed context, especially for readers unfamiliar with Latin American history. But the charm of the book lies in its evocation of the youthful "Che," who is in so many ways a typical, as he puts it, "child" of his environment-the highly politicized Argentina of the Peron era. The epiphany he achieves on his physical journey through post-colonial Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela is both a spiritual and a prophetic one: "I now knew...I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I would be with the people." But don't be put off. Along the way, he and Alberto Granado have a raft of adventures, often side-splitting, and the editors have provided a couple of dozen photographs from the journey to keep you "in the picture." Above all, Guevara's personal charisma shines through the pages of this beautifully written book, which provides welcome insight into the heart and mind of a true revolutionary and man of the people.
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Summary: Darkening Voice of a Young Man Crossing South America
Review: In anticipation of the new film, the previews of which cast an intoxicating spell beyond its obvious travelogue aspects, I wanted to read the original source, Che Guevara's diary of the cross-continental journey he took with his best friend Alberto Granado. What I found is a book whose voice is purely that of a young man looking for his place in the world. There are many books of this ilk around, but obviously what makes this one resonate is Guevara's history after the end of this diary - doctor, Marxist revolutionary alongside the more politic Castro, Cuba's minister of industry, martyr for the Communist cause shot by a firing squad in Bolivia, photogenic icon emblazoned on T-shirts and college dorm posters.
It's a slim volume, mostly observational as would be reasonable to expect from a 24-year old. By no means is the book deeply introspective, as an older man would probably write in nostalgic hindsight. The young Che describes his and Granado's race around South America on a Norton motorbike, and true to someone whose world was ahead of him, he makes broad generalizations about everything he sees - the sight of a stag running as a symbol of the calm before the storm, the political unrest in Chile, the police state he felt Peru was becoming. As road trip stories go, this is decent if rather callow. But what saves the book from being purely youthful treacle is the increasingly darker tone the book takes foreshadowing his development into a revolutionary. Granted it ends far too short of his true achievements to be meaningful as biography, it helps to keep in mind where his life was about to lead. This new edition also has a nice expanded foreword by his daughter Aleida and lots of previously unpublished photos taken by Guevara and Granado on their journey. Definitely worth seeking out if you want to understand the beginning of Che's myth but not if you want political biography.
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Summary: A True Hero of the Left
Review: The fog of time and the strength of anti-anti-Communism have obscured the real Che. Who was he? He was an Argentinian revolutionary who served as Castro's primary thug. He was especially infamous for presiding over summary executions at La Cabaña, the fortress that was his abattoir. He liked to administer the coup de grâce, the bullet to the back of the neck. And he loved to parade people past El Paredón, the reddened wall against which so many innocents were killed. Furthermore, he established the labor-camp system in which countless citizens--dissidents, democrats, artists, homosexuals--would suffer and die. This is the Cuban gulag. A Cuban-American writer, Humberto Fontova, described Guevara as "a combination of Beria and Himmler." Anthony Daniels once quipped, "The difference between [Guevara] and Pol Pot was that [the former] never studied in Paris." - Jay Nordlinger
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