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The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey
The young Che Guevara’s lively and highly entertaining travel diary, now a popular movie and a New York Times bestseller.
This new, expanded edition features exclusive, unpublished photos taken by the 23-year-old Ernesto on his journey across a continent, and a tender preface by Aleida Guevara, offering an insightful perspective on the man and the icon.
Features of this edition include:
A preface by Che Guevara’s daughter Aleida
Introduction by Cintio Vintier, well-known Latin American poet
Photos & maps from the original journey
Postcript: Che’s personal reflections on his formative years: “A child of my environment.”
Published in association with the Che Guevara Studies Center, Havana
This new, expanded edition features exclusive, unpublished photos taken by the 23-year-old Ernesto on his journey across a continent, and a tender preface by Aleida Guevara, offering an insightful perspective on the man and the icon.
Features of this edition include:
A preface by Che Guevara’s daughter Aleida
Introduction by Cintio Vintier, well-known Latin American poet
Photos & maps from the original journey
Postcript: Che’s personal reflections on his formative years: “A child of my environment.”
Published in association with the Che Guevara Studies Center, Havana
175 pages, Paperback
First published May 17, 1992
About the author
Ernesto Che Guevara
371 books1,746 followersErnesto "Che" Guevara, commonly known as El Che or simply Che, was a Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, since his death Guevara's stylized visage has become an ubiquitous countercultural symbol and global icon within popular culture.
His belief in the necessity of world revolution to advance the interests of the poor prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's radical ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their movement, and travelled to Cuba with the intention of overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista regime. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the successful two year guerrilla campaign that topled the Cuban government.
After serving in a number of key roles in the new government, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.
Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled "Guerrillero Heroico," was declared "the most famous photograph in the world" by the Maryland Institute of Art.
His belief in the necessity of world revolution to advance the interests of the poor prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's radical ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their movement, and travelled to Cuba with the intention of overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista regime. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the successful two year guerrilla campaign that topled the Cuban government.
After serving in a number of key roles in the new government, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.
Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled "Guerrillero Heroico," was declared "the most famous photograph in the world" by the Maryland Institute of Art.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,589 reviews
September 29, 2013
I have always been intrigued by this charismatic, utterly good-looking, athletic man who was instrumental to the toppling of the Cuban government, and who is now largely forgotten, remembered only as a mythological figure in legends about faraway lands. Suddenly this May, I chanced upon a biography of his in a book fair and grabbed it. At that time, I’d only heard of his name. I knew he was some kind of revolutionary. But nothing had prepared me for what was to come. The biography tormented me for weeks on end, and I spent days thinking about him. It was traumatic for me. And it wasn’t as if I was over-sensitive to accounts of extreme violence, bloodshed or revolutions, or a sentimental, weepy girl. But I was not prepared to meet a man so deeply committed to the cause, without bothering which country he was fighting for.
It was enigmatic for me how Guevara, born into an affluent family, immensely good-looking, lively, easy-going, friendly and with a prosperous future earmarked for him, would later become one of the most determined, daring and charismatic guerilla leaders. Here was a compassionate man not only outraged by political, social and economic injustice, but also one who transcended nationalistic barriers, the roots of which were, undoubtedly, sown in his travels through Latin America. An Argentine who fought for Cuba, and then, instead of resting on his laurels for the rest of his life, went off to fight in Congo, coming to his end in yet another warfare in Bolivia.
So now I didn’t lose the chance to read this little book. I did not find it particularly useful in any way. I’d looked for insights, but I didn’t get any (that I hadn’t already gained). It did not entertain too well. It wasn’t sloppy or anything, but it wasn’t as extraordinary as I’d expected. Of course, I’d wanted some new revelation about his motorcycle tour through Latin America. In that sense, I was disappointed. But then, it was about Guevara, and I eagerly lapped up every little detail I could, like a star-struck fan clamoring for every single gossip about her favorite celebrity.
What I clearly liked about the diary is that it was humorous and light-hearted in tone, but not flippant. Che’s compassion showed through in his reflections on poverty and his accounts of indigenous people, his awareness of the richness of a Latin American culture, which, though distinct in every country, was, as he realized very soon, still bonded with each other through a common tradition and race. The historical bits thrown in with his account were quite interesting, and whetted my appetite for Latin America, which Allende's "Daughter of Fortune" and Neruda had already aroused some years ago.
By itself, it is little more than disjointed, hasty vignettes of their journey (in 1951-’52 with his friend Alberto Granado on a motorcycle they called La Poderosa II/The Mighty One), punctuated by humor, amusement and compassion – despite the lightness of the prose, which is, in fact, quite charming in many places, it is of little value in isolation. It is obvious it was a personal diary, not intended to be published. Without Che being who he was, these serve as nothing more than a light-hearted, one-time read. Its appeal lies in the fact that this was one of those times that struck a deep root in Che’s mind, which was later to prove crucial in making him what he was. It was one of those little, seemingly unimportant incidents that shaped his already conscientious nature. It was not a turning point – rather, it was one of the slight turns that happen in degrees, imperceptibly, that in the long run, changed the course of his life, and that of Cuba – it is well-known now that but for Che, Castro would not have had his landmark victory.
‘A Note in the Margin’ provides a comparatively deeper idea of what Che was, and it was further sealed by the appendix at the end, titled A Child of my Environment (Speech to medical students, 1960). It is clear that Che’s Hippocratic Oath came from the heart, not from a book. His speech elucidates what he considers the duty of a doctor, and also throws light on his political views.
The three stars are for the book – objectively. The fourth is for Che – because I read this not as a travel-memoir, but as a way to understand Che. In that young, handsome 20-something lad, I was seeking the sparks that were to make some youngster called Ernesto, “Che Guevara”. I read it in an attempt to gain insight into a man who has not been adequately honored. A man who was selfless to the very core. A man who threw away his family, his children, his clearly prosperous, comfortable life to serve an ideology.
Here was a remarkable man who was as passionate and compassionate as he was intelligent; who was more alive to the sorrows of the poor than he was to his own comforts. He was determined and daring. No one has affected me so profoundly before. The fourth star is in his memory, a mark of respect. Despite this being a one-time read for me, I refuse to give an objective three-star rating.
It was enigmatic for me how Guevara, born into an affluent family, immensely good-looking, lively, easy-going, friendly and with a prosperous future earmarked for him, would later become one of the most determined, daring and charismatic guerilla leaders. Here was a compassionate man not only outraged by political, social and economic injustice, but also one who transcended nationalistic barriers, the roots of which were, undoubtedly, sown in his travels through Latin America. An Argentine who fought for Cuba, and then, instead of resting on his laurels for the rest of his life, went off to fight in Congo, coming to his end in yet another warfare in Bolivia.
So now I didn’t lose the chance to read this little book. I did not find it particularly useful in any way. I’d looked for insights, but I didn’t get any (that I hadn’t already gained). It did not entertain too well. It wasn’t sloppy or anything, but it wasn’t as extraordinary as I’d expected. Of course, I’d wanted some new revelation about his motorcycle tour through Latin America. In that sense, I was disappointed. But then, it was about Guevara, and I eagerly lapped up every little detail I could, like a star-struck fan clamoring for every single gossip about her favorite celebrity.
What I clearly liked about the diary is that it was humorous and light-hearted in tone, but not flippant. Che’s compassion showed through in his reflections on poverty and his accounts of indigenous people, his awareness of the richness of a Latin American culture, which, though distinct in every country, was, as he realized very soon, still bonded with each other through a common tradition and race. The historical bits thrown in with his account were quite interesting, and whetted my appetite for Latin America, which Allende's "Daughter of Fortune" and Neruda had already aroused some years ago.
By itself, it is little more than disjointed, hasty vignettes of their journey (in 1951-’52 with his friend Alberto Granado on a motorcycle they called La Poderosa II/The Mighty One), punctuated by humor, amusement and compassion – despite the lightness of the prose, which is, in fact, quite charming in many places, it is of little value in isolation. It is obvious it was a personal diary, not intended to be published. Without Che being who he was, these serve as nothing more than a light-hearted, one-time read. Its appeal lies in the fact that this was one of those times that struck a deep root in Che’s mind, which was later to prove crucial in making him what he was. It was one of those little, seemingly unimportant incidents that shaped his already conscientious nature. It was not a turning point – rather, it was one of the slight turns that happen in degrees, imperceptibly, that in the long run, changed the course of his life, and that of Cuba – it is well-known now that but for Che, Castro would not have had his landmark victory.
‘A Note in the Margin’ provides a comparatively deeper idea of what Che was, and it was further sealed by the appendix at the end, titled A Child of my Environment (Speech to medical students, 1960). It is clear that Che’s Hippocratic Oath came from the heart, not from a book. His speech elucidates what he considers the duty of a doctor, and also throws light on his political views.
The three stars are for the book – objectively. The fourth is for Che – because I read this not as a travel-memoir, but as a way to understand Che. In that young, handsome 20-something lad, I was seeking the sparks that were to make some youngster called Ernesto, “Che Guevara”. I read it in an attempt to gain insight into a man who has not been adequately honored. A man who was selfless to the very core. A man who threw away his family, his children, his clearly prosperous, comfortable life to serve an ideology.
Here was a remarkable man who was as passionate and compassionate as he was intelligent; who was more alive to the sorrows of the poor than he was to his own comforts. He was determined and daring. No one has affected me so profoundly before. The fourth star is in his memory, a mark of respect. Despite this being a one-time read for me, I refuse to give an objective three-star rating.
September 20, 2017
Che Guevara was a doctor, a revolutionary, extremely hot, and the subject of the most t-shirts worn by people who do not understand them ever.
Here's the young Che Guevara's chronicle of motorcycle crashes - nine in one day, great job! - on his busted ass motorcycle over busted ass roads, until the thing entirely breaks, and then he becomes a revolutionary.
you know what I like is maps
You could break Guevara's life into three phases. Phase 2 is where he's a crucial player in the Cuban revolution with Fidel Castro. Phase 3 is when he quits his cushy job in the new Cuban government to go back to the jungle and lead another revolution, this one in Bolivia, because this is the one guy in the world who, like, every time he says "We should have a revolution," he immediately drops everything and starts one. Che Guevara is the final word on money going where mouths are. These two phases are covered in Stephen Soderbergh's 4.5-hour biopic Che, which, it turns out, is pretty boring, don't watch that.
Look, I just think it's important to acknowledge that this is a very attractive man.
Phase 1 is him becoming a revolutionary, and the fun thing about this book is that you get to watch it happen. It's his real diary from this cross-continental trip, and it starts off sortof like a typical young guy road trip, brash and full of stories about getting drunk with strangers - On the South American Road, you know? And then he runs into this old woman dying of asthma and is consumed by rage.
Isn't that passage fuckin' astounding? I mean, here he is, a lifelong asthma sufferer himself, in a shitty hut trying to help some poor woman, and expanding her condition out to the systemic injustices that created it, and to its impact on the very fabric of society, in three sentences. And here it is: you're watching Ernesto Guevara become Che. "We learned perfectly," says Che, "that the life of a single being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth." It sounds so obvious when he says it, right?
Here's the young Che Guevara's chronicle of motorcycle crashes - nine in one day, great job! - on his busted ass motorcycle over busted ass roads, until the thing entirely breaks, and then he becomes a revolutionary.
you know what I like is maps
You could break Guevara's life into three phases. Phase 2 is where he's a crucial player in the Cuban revolution with Fidel Castro. Phase 3 is when he quits his cushy job in the new Cuban government to go back to the jungle and lead another revolution, this one in Bolivia, because this is the one guy in the world who, like, every time he says "We should have a revolution," he immediately drops everything and starts one. Che Guevara is the final word on money going where mouths are. These two phases are covered in Stephen Soderbergh's 4.5-hour biopic Che, which, it turns out, is pretty boring, don't watch that.
Look, I just think it's important to acknowledge that this is a very attractive man.
Phase 1 is him becoming a revolutionary, and the fun thing about this book is that you get to watch it happen. It's his real diary from this cross-continental trip, and it starts off sortof like a typical young guy road trip, brash and full of stories about getting drunk with strangers - On the South American Road, you know? And then he runs into this old woman dying of asthma and is consumed by rage.
The poor thing was in a pitiful state, breathing the acrid smell of concentrated sweat and dirty feet that filled her room...It is at times like this, when a doctor is conscious of his complete powerlessness, that he longs for change: a change to prevent the injustice of a system in which only a month ago this poor woman was still earning her living as a waitress, wheezing and panting but facing life with dignity. In circumstances like this, individuals in poor families who can't pay their way become surrounded by an atmosphere of barely disguised acrimony; they stop being father, mother, sister or brother and become a purely negative force in the struggle for life and, consequently, a source of bitterness for the healthy members of the community who resent their illness as if it were a personal insult to those who have to support them.
Isn't that passage fuckin' astounding? I mean, here he is, a lifelong asthma sufferer himself, in a shitty hut trying to help some poor woman, and expanding her condition out to the systemic injustices that created it, and to its impact on the very fabric of society, in three sentences. And here it is: you're watching Ernesto Guevara become Che. "We learned perfectly," says Che, "that the life of a single being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth." It sounds so obvious when he says it, right?
November 28, 2020
There's a lot to be said for a man who decades after his death has readers all over the world tracing out the path of an arduous adventure he went on while he was merely 23 and studying to be a doctor. Even if we are only trying to see where his footsteps lead him within the confines of a book, we cannot help but look for clues. What caused a complete paradigm shift in a man who had his career as a simple physician stretching out before him? What did he see?
The seeds of the ideology for the Marxist revolutionary that Che was to become were clearly sown during this trip, we see his opinions on the importance of education, socialized medicine and science, and the need for a Pan American identify being vocalized here. Che also shows a clear aversion to suffering in general and often feels compelled to do something about it even when he is completely broke and lacks the resources.
What I want to talk about here though is the single paragraph that's often taken out of context by the right wing to label him as a racist.
The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese. And the two ancient races have now begun a hard life together, fraught with bickering and squabbles. Discrimination and poverty unite them in the daily fight for survival but their different ways of approaching life separate them completely: the black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations.
There's no denying that the writing here is racist, but what we need to remember is that this is a diary entry by 24 year old Argentine upper middle class man who was having his first encounter with black people. What we also need to remember is that his earlier views on race soon saw another paradigm shift. On his way back to Argentina, Che was stuck in Miami for a while and it was here that he saw firsthand the discrimination against American blacks and their plight in what was supposed to be a democratic country. Naturally, Che sympathized with their struggle and developed a negative view of the United States. Che denounced US racism and US policies against its own black population several times, including in his address to the United Nations in 1964. The Black Panthers adopted their beret based on Che Guevara after his death.
Che Guevara is today a symbol of freedom to many people all over the world, despite the ironic commercialization and commodification of this very symbol. The Motorcycle Diaries is instrumental to understanding the circumstances of Ernesto Guevara's transformation to Che, the polarizing leftist figure.
My eyes traced the immense vault of heaven; the starry sky twinkled happily above me, as if answering in the affirmative to the question rising deep within me: “Is all of this worth it?"
The seeds of the ideology for the Marxist revolutionary that Che was to become were clearly sown during this trip, we see his opinions on the importance of education, socialized medicine and science, and the need for a Pan American identify being vocalized here. Che also shows a clear aversion to suffering in general and often feels compelled to do something about it even when he is completely broke and lacks the resources.
What I want to talk about here though is the single paragraph that's often taken out of context by the right wing to label him as a racist.
The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese. And the two ancient races have now begun a hard life together, fraught with bickering and squabbles. Discrimination and poverty unite them in the daily fight for survival but their different ways of approaching life separate them completely: the black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations.
There's no denying that the writing here is racist, but what we need to remember is that this is a diary entry by 24 year old Argentine upper middle class man who was having his first encounter with black people. What we also need to remember is that his earlier views on race soon saw another paradigm shift. On his way back to Argentina, Che was stuck in Miami for a while and it was here that he saw firsthand the discrimination against American blacks and their plight in what was supposed to be a democratic country. Naturally, Che sympathized with their struggle and developed a negative view of the United States. Che denounced US racism and US policies against its own black population several times, including in his address to the United Nations in 1964. The Black Panthers adopted their beret based on Che Guevara after his death.
Che Guevara is today a symbol of freedom to many people all over the world, despite the ironic commercialization and commodification of this very symbol. The Motorcycle Diaries is instrumental to understanding the circumstances of Ernesto Guevara's transformation to Che, the polarizing leftist figure.
My eyes traced the immense vault of heaven; the starry sky twinkled happily above me, as if answering in the affirmative to the question rising deep within me: “Is all of this worth it?"
April 28, 2014
These Diary notes provide us with an ernest and fetching account of a young Che, a middle-class kid, not yet embarked on the violent and heroic road that stretched past these early trails. Not particularly educational or insightful, but yet strangely moving.
The carefree bikers turn into compassionate observers of humanity along the course of this journey, thus fulfilling the purpose of the journey, at least in retrospect. The passion and the compassion shines through the entire text and a youthful hope enlivens it, and that is part of its lasting appeal.
As the following passage makes clear, how much of this book is observation and how much is later interpretation is hard to judge. All we can be sure is that this is how Che saw the journey as he looked back on it.
In nine months of a man’s life he can think a lot of things, from the loftiest meditations on philosophy to the most desperate longing for a bowl of soup — in total accord with the state of his stomach. And if, at the same time, he’s somewhat of an adventurer, he might live through episodes of interest to other people and his haphazard record might read something like these notes.
And so, the coin was thrown in the air, turning many times, landing sometimes heads and other times tails. Man, the measure of all things, speaks here through my mouth and narrates in my own language that which my eyes have seen. It is likely that out of 10 possible heads I have seen only one true tail, or vice versa. In fact it’s probable, and there are no excuses, for these lips can only describe what these eyes actually see. Is it that our whole vision was never quite complete, that it was too transient or not always well-informed? Were we too uncompromising in our judgments? Okay, but this is how the typewriter interpreted those fleeting impulses raising my fingers to the keys, and those impulses have now died. Moreover, no one can be held responsible for them.
The person who wrote these notes passed away the moment his feet touched Argentine soil again. The person who reorganizes and polishes them, me, is no longer, at least I am not the person I once was. All this wandering around “Our America with a capital A” has changed me more than I thought.
As the book slowly moves from casual observation, to detailed description, to heart-felt indictments and finally to loud declamations of a future that has to be wrought at any cost, the reader might find it difficult to follow the spiritual evolution of a middle-class kid that is compressed into this narrative - unfortunately, for modern middle-class readers, that is precisely what is expected of Che. Also, the structure of this progression was a little too neat for my liking, but with Che the myth is everything and is an essential component of enjoying these Diaries. Embrace it.
July 22, 2021
I have a very distant memory of reading this in college, though picking it up now, I confess I couldn’t remember a thing from that first read. Like most tiny wannabe revolutionary students, I had an ardent love for what Che Guevara represented, though I was pitifully ignorant of the details of his life. I’ve been dusting off some old college-era books lately, and I thought that this one deserved a more serious study.
What one gets from reading this little travelogue is a taste of Guevera’s natural talent for beautiful writing, and an incredible insight into the profoundly transformative power of traveling. The young man who first plans this motorcycle trip across South America with his friend Alberto Granado is a restless medical student who will suddenly be exposed to things his comfortable upbringing had shielded him from: poverty, exploitation, discrimination and human suffering on a scale he had never imagined before. This trip will plant the seed of revolution in his heart, and years later, when Guevara prepared this collection for publication, he felt the need to remind readers that his story was no one of heroism but a simple honest account of what he saw and his reactions to it. This makes it a very personal account of how one’s social consciousness develops, and where the will to change the world comes from.
I imagine people who read this now are already pre-disposed to agree with the young Che, but there is something nevertheless beautiful and moving in these pages, in following the footsteps (and numerous bike breakdowns) of this young man who would be transformed by this trip. He describes the continent he is exploring in such vivid details, and with such love. While I wish it was longer, the final few pages are so powerful that I did not close the book disapointed.
A wonderful glimpse into the mind of a man who would leave a mark of great significance on history and culture.
What one gets from reading this little travelogue is a taste of Guevera’s natural talent for beautiful writing, and an incredible insight into the profoundly transformative power of traveling. The young man who first plans this motorcycle trip across South America with his friend Alberto Granado is a restless medical student who will suddenly be exposed to things his comfortable upbringing had shielded him from: poverty, exploitation, discrimination and human suffering on a scale he had never imagined before. This trip will plant the seed of revolution in his heart, and years later, when Guevara prepared this collection for publication, he felt the need to remind readers that his story was no one of heroism but a simple honest account of what he saw and his reactions to it. This makes it a very personal account of how one’s social consciousness develops, and where the will to change the world comes from.
I imagine people who read this now are already pre-disposed to agree with the young Che, but there is something nevertheless beautiful and moving in these pages, in following the footsteps (and numerous bike breakdowns) of this young man who would be transformed by this trip. He describes the continent he is exploring in such vivid details, and with such love. While I wish it was longer, the final few pages are so powerful that I did not close the book disapointed.
A wonderful glimpse into the mind of a man who would leave a mark of great significance on history and culture.
April 16, 2018
Diarios de motocicleta = The motorcycle diaries: a journey around south America, 1995, Ernesto Che Guevara (1928 - 1967)
The Motorcycle Diaries (Spanish: Diarios de motocicleta) is a 2004 biopic about the journey and written memoir of the 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, who would several years later become internationally known as the iconic Marxist guerrilla commander and revolutionary Che Guevara.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و هفتم ماه فوریه سال 2005 میلادی
عنوان: خاطرات موتور سیکلت: روزنگاشت سفر به آمریکای لاتین؛ اثر: ارنستو چه گوارا؛ مترجم: تبسم آتشین جان؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، حوض ن��ره، 1385، در 160 ص، نقشه، شابک: 9647961332؛ این کتاب با عنوان: «خاطرات سفر با موتور سیکلت» توسط انتشارات اجتماع در سال 1383 چاپ و منتشر شده است؛ چاپ دوم زمستان 1386؛ موضوع: چه گوارا ، آمریکای لاتین، سیر و سیاحت - سده 20 م
ا. شربیانی
The Motorcycle Diaries (Spanish: Diarios de motocicleta) is a 2004 biopic about the journey and written memoir of the 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, who would several years later become internationally known as the iconic Marxist guerrilla commander and revolutionary Che Guevara.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و هفتم ماه فوریه سال 2005 میلادی
عنوان: خاطرات موتور سیکلت: روزنگاشت سفر به آمریکای لاتین؛ اثر: ارنستو چه گوارا؛ مترجم: تبسم آتشین جان؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، حوض ن��ره، 1385، در 160 ص، نقشه، شابک: 9647961332؛ این کتاب با عنوان: «خاطرات سفر با موتور سیکلت» توسط انتشارات اجتماع در سال 1383 چاپ و منتشر شده است؛ چاپ دوم زمستان 1386؛ موضوع: چه گوارا ، آمریکای لاتین، سیر و سیاحت - سده 20 م
ا. شربیانی
May 21, 2020
يجورايي مثل انشاء بچه هاي ابتدايي بود🙄من انتظار داشتم بيشتر با چه گوارا اشنا بشم ولي نشد،فقط فهميدم بعد اين سفر متحول شده و تصميم گرفته خودشو وقف بقيه كنه.نكته قابل توجه اين بود كه تو اون زمان چقدر ادمها متفاوت بودن ،خيلي راحت بهم اعتماد ميكردن!مثلا يه ماه تو ميامي بوده بعد به يارو صابخونه گفته وقتي برگشتم ارژانتين پولتو ميدم،اخه كي تو اين دنياي امروزي به كسي اينقدر اعتماد ميكنه؟يا وقتي تو سفر بود مردم بهش غذا ميدادن و جاي خواب بدون هيچ چشم داشتي!
اين سفر رو وقتي ٢٣ساله بوده انجام ميده با دوستش،البته فكر كنم اون زمانها سفركردن زياد باب نبوده!
بهرحال،من رفتم گوگل كردم ببينم اون وقتا چه شكلي بوده،برخلاف عكسي كه هميشه ازش ميبينيم با كلي ريش و پشم تو اون دوران ٢٢ ٢٣ سالگي اينا خيلي خوشتيپ و خوش چهره بوده🤤😍🥰
اين سفر رو وقتي ٢٣ساله بوده انجام ميده با دوستش،البته فكر كنم اون زمانها سفركردن زياد باب نبوده!
بهرحال،من رفتم گوگل كردم ببينم اون وقتا چه شكلي بوده،برخلاف عكسي كه هميشه ازش ميبينيم با كلي ريش و پشم تو اون دوران ٢٢ ٢٣ سالگي اينا خيلي خوشتيپ و خوش چهره بوده🤤😍🥰
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July 3, 2023To be up front here at the front of this review, I didn't know Che Guevara was a writer. According to the bio info, not only travel journal writing, which he developed here the year after his peregrinations throughout South America, but short stories, even.
I did know he had a medical background, however. Dr. Che, Renaissance Man. And, to his eventual and early demise, Angry Young Man who predicted (incorrectly assuming men preferred principles and justice over profit and greed) the end of capitalism was nigh.
Yup. Just like the Holy Rollers who come out of the woodwork every now and again to say the END is nigh. Judgment Day. When the Lord settles some old scores, Old Testament-like.
But where was I? Ah, yes. Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and so on and so forth. Che with his medical pal, starting first on an old motorcycle at age 23, and then bumming rides on truck flatbeds, rough-hewn rafts, etc.
Che who becomes a master at begging for food without seeming to beg for food. Che who suffers from serious asthma attacks without the proper medication for them. Che who, as you'd expect from any journal, comes across as oh-so-human and oh-so-sympathetic that you, too, would be pissed about CIA-backed goons executing him some 15 years later (Che probably being a better Renaissance man than soldier schooled in evasive maneuvers).
A yeoman outing, it is, more interesting because of the man than his writing ability, which is... yeoman. Meaning: this is of historical importance, in its way, and it certainly humanizes the icon who is now best known for his trademark face and beret, now available to the proletariat as a T-shirt or poster (via the capitalism he so detested) by clicking to "CART" at an online merchant near you. Or your computer, maybe.
I did know he had a medical background, however. Dr. Che, Renaissance Man. And, to his eventual and early demise, Angry Young Man who predicted (incorrectly assuming men preferred principles and justice over profit and greed) the end of capitalism was nigh.
Yup. Just like the Holy Rollers who come out of the woodwork every now and again to say the END is nigh. Judgment Day. When the Lord settles some old scores, Old Testament-like.
But where was I? Ah, yes. Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and so on and so forth. Che with his medical pal, starting first on an old motorcycle at age 23, and then bumming rides on truck flatbeds, rough-hewn rafts, etc.
Che who becomes a master at begging for food without seeming to beg for food. Che who suffers from serious asthma attacks without the proper medication for them. Che who, as you'd expect from any journal, comes across as oh-so-human and oh-so-sympathetic that you, too, would be pissed about CIA-backed goons executing him some 15 years later (Che probably being a better Renaissance man than soldier schooled in evasive maneuvers).
A yeoman outing, it is, more interesting because of the man than his writing ability, which is... yeoman. Meaning: this is of historical importance, in its way, and it certainly humanizes the icon who is now best known for his trademark face and beret, now available to the proletariat as a T-shirt or poster (via the capitalism he so detested) by clicking to "CART" at an online merchant near you. Or your computer, maybe.
May 12, 2016
I wanted to read this book so badly, mainly because I wanted to read about Che. He is such a popular icon and you see so many people wearing t-shirts with his image on them etc. I knew very little about him and that was the main reason for picking up this book. I would say I read more from Wikipedia, than from the book. I would open Wikipedia to read more about the cities mentioned in the book. I also read stuff about Fiedel Castro and few more people mentioned in the book. Apart from Che's personal life, this book was interesting to read in many aspects. Machu Picchu, which is now one of the wonders of the world, has been explained very well by Che in the book. He also speaks about Inca empire, its decline and Spanish invasion.
What really impressed me in the book were his thoughts about everything-
1. Owner made a person carry their luggage walking while these people were riding horses. Che pitied for that guy and took back the luggage from that guy.
2. His compassion towards the mine workers who have to work in such horrible conditions, in return for such poor wages.
3. Communist couple to whom Che and Alberto lend their blanket, even though they themselves were shivering from cold.
4. The way he feels compassion for all those leprosy patients and makes sure they feel 'human' again, like playing football with them, touching their hands. I am not sure how many people would have actually done that.
5. I like the way they get free food and drinks during the trip. Che's idea of telling they always eat while drinking :)
I feel sad for the Indians(native Americans). He describes third class in the train by saying it used to stink more than the coach used to transport animals in Argentina.
"But the people before us are not the same proud race that repeatedly rose up against Inca rule... These people who watch us walk through the streets of the town are a defeated race".
"... To die hoping that one of their children, thanks to miracle powers of a drop of colonising blood in their veins, might somehow achieve the goal they look forward to until their last days"
Che's thoughts along with their travel anecdotes made it a great read.
Updated:
Movie was good. I especially loved those beautiful locations (Machu Picchu). But still book was better.
What really impressed me in the book were his thoughts about everything-
1. Owner made a person carry their luggage walking while these people were riding horses. Che pitied for that guy and took back the luggage from that guy.
2. His compassion towards the mine workers who have to work in such horrible conditions, in return for such poor wages.
3. Communist couple to whom Che and Alberto lend their blanket, even though they themselves were shivering from cold.
4. The way he feels compassion for all those leprosy patients and makes sure they feel 'human' again, like playing football with them, touching their hands. I am not sure how many people would have actually done that.
5. I like the way they get free food and drinks during the trip. Che's idea of telling they always eat while drinking :)
I feel sad for the Indians(native Americans). He describes third class in the train by saying it used to stink more than the coach used to transport animals in Argentina.
"But the people before us are not the same proud race that repeatedly rose up against Inca rule... These people who watch us walk through the streets of the town are a defeated race".
"... To die hoping that one of their children, thanks to miracle powers of a drop of colonising blood in their veins, might somehow achieve the goal they look forward to until their last days"
Che's thoughts along with their travel anecdotes made it a great read.
Updated:
Movie was good. I especially loved those beautiful locations (Machu Picchu). But still book was better.
February 12, 2015
"This is not a story of incredible heroism, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives that ran parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams."
At times I mourn the inadequacy of the written word and how poor of an approximation it is of lived experiences. And yet reading transports you to places and into minds you could never have known otherwise, in any other way. As I closed this book with a sigh and put it aside, I felt strangely elated at having not only seen a little of that mysterious continent, which we call South America, but understood it, in its tragedy and promise. My fascination with the continent partly stems from the fact that I, too, come from a place having a colonial past, and understand how important culture is, especially when it dies and you are left with only a few architectural ruins to remember the glorious dynasties you were once a part of. Ernesto’s journey through Peru, his exploration of Cuzco along with those few pages dedicated to the reconstruction of Inca civilization perhaps were my favorites, for this reason. “The navel of the world”, the world of the Incas in the Peruvian mountains, the ancient civilization carved out in the heart of Machu Picchu, now hot tourist attractions, carry the blood of thousands of Indians—another group of humans who have been treated miserably by the world. It’s funny, the Eurocentricism that I find among my people, not sad but funny as I read through this book and realized that there are races and cultures and countries and forests and mountains worth dreaming of, about which we have such little interest, and absolutely no knowledge.
But I digress. Ernesto begins the most important part of his journey taking us through the “land of hospitality”, Chile, recounting several comic incidents involving never-ending barbecues, near escapades, to its deserts and its mines, the point where his narration takes on a kind of seriousness as he describes the living conditions of the miners and mourns the exploitation of those who give away their lives so cheaply, suffocating in the entrails of the world. It is at this stage of his journey that something hits him, something we all know that would ultimately and irrevocably change him into “Comandante Che”. But this book is not special merely because it is the future-Che who is writing it, but because of South America itself, and all the places Ernesto and Alberto journey through. Read it as a diary of an adventurer, and it will still be great!
As far as Che is concerned, well, what can I say. To say that the man fascinates me would be an understatement. But as much as I think I am in love with all the romanticism and idealism his name evokes, I have to admit that I cannot “know” him, nobody can, and what I think of him is what I want to believe of him. To think of Che as a man is too depressing, but to think of him as a mythic legend, a hero of some folktale is something I can live with better.
“The person who wrote these notes passed away the moment his feet touched Argentine soil. The person who reorganizes and polishes them, me, is no longer, at least I’m not the person I once was. All this wandering around “Our America with a capital A” has changed me more than I thought.”
Ernesto, on the other hand, the young Argentine who went on this journey, is someone else. As Aleida writes in her beautiful preface, I am in love with the boy her father had been, and I envy his spirit which took him to journeys I can only dream of. His narration is full of pathos and sympathy, but sometimes has the coldness of pure scientific inquiry. But then again, his romanticism comes in full force and the prose becomes lyrical, poetic, even slightly excessive. Anyway, these notes read smoothly, and the discordance you might find is forgivable, considering the fact that their writer wasn't exactly a prose stylist.
P.S. I think the movie was quite brilliant. I am a fan of Bernal and it was through browsing his filmography that I came to know of this book. They did a pretty fantastic job of making a linear, cohesive, beautiful story out of these notes, some of which are quite hurried. If you like, do watch the movie, but only if you vouch to read the book, as well. There is something the movie doesn't give you, and that is the narrative, the inner dialogue which accompanied Ernesto as he traveled silently through South America. If the movie gives you scenery, the book gives you the right perspective to see it. And, my God, what a perspective!
“My eyes traced the immense vault of heaven; the starry sky twinkled happily above me, as if answering in the affirmative to the question rising deep within me: “Is all of this worth it?”
February 11, 2024
"لست ذلك الشخص الذي كان. كل هذا التجوال هنا وهناك في أمريكتنا لتكتب بحروف كبيرة غيرني أكثر مما حسبت".
في نهاية عام 1951 والنصف الأول من عام 1952؛ قام الشاب طالب الطب "إرنستو جيڤارا" مع صديقه "ألبرتو جرانادو"، برحلة مجنونة لاكتشاف أمريكا اللاتينية بواسطة دراجة نارية وبعد تعطلها في منتصف الطريق تمت مواصلة الرحلة بشتى المواصلات المتوفرة وبأقل التكاليف الممكنة، شاحنات، سفن، والنوم في مراكز الشرطة والمستشفيات. وذلك بداية من بلدهما الأرجنتين وعبر كل من بالترتيب الزمني تشيلي، پيرو، كولومبيا، ڤنزويلا، ميامي بالولايات المتحدة. عبر جبال الأنديز وحضارات الأزتيك والإنكا.
"كنا نستلقي في حقل بمحاذاة الجدول، ناظرين إلى السماء المتغيرة مع حلول المساء، حالمين بذكريات الحب القديم، أو متخيلين الصورة المغرية لطعام عادي في كل سحابة".
يوميات مدونة بجمل رشيقة غنية لشاب تسرد تجاربه ومغامرة شكلت وعيه، وتبين رؤية عميقة وشعور التمرد لثائر بالفطرة، قبل العمل الثوري فيما بعد. مع رؤية شخصية لكل ما شاهده وعايشه خلالها، وسرد فذ كنواة لكتابته الثورية اللاحقة. نشعر بحسه الشخصي لأمريكا اللاتينية وهويتها وتعلقه بها، وهو من أسرة كما قالوا عنه محبة للعدالة، رافضة للفاشية، واهتمام بالأدب والموسيقى وكراهية المال وجمعه.
أيضًا كانت مغامرة بها تجربة مع المصابين بالجذام، من خلال القرى الفقيرة والمدن عبر القارة، ومحا��لة المساعدة الإنسانية.
"إن كان هناك ما سيجعلنا نكرس أنفسنا بجد إلى الجذام، فإنه ذاك الشعور الذي أظهره لنا المرضى الذين قابلناهم أثناء الترحال في الطريق".
تلك الرحلة شكلت فكر جيڤارا الثوري فيما بعد وكانت مقدمة للعمل الثوري، والقضاء على الظلم المستشري في القارة والعالم. والجدير بالذكر أنه تم نشر هذه المذكرات من قبل ابنته "أليدا" في عام 1992.
"علمت أنه حين تشق الروح الهادية العظيمة الإنسانية إلى شطرين متصارعين، سأكون إلى جانب الشعب".
في نهاية عام 1951 والنصف الأول من عام 1952؛ قام الشاب طالب الطب "إرنستو جيڤارا" مع صديقه "ألبرتو جرانادو"، برحلة مجنونة لاكتشاف أمريكا اللاتينية بواسطة دراجة نارية وبعد تعطلها في منتصف الطريق تمت مواصلة الرحلة بشتى المواصلات المتوفرة وبأقل التكاليف الممكنة، شاحنات، سفن، والنوم في مراكز الشرطة والمستشفيات. وذلك بداية من بلدهما الأرجنتين وعبر كل من بالترتيب الزمني تشيلي، پيرو، كولومبيا، ڤنزويلا، ميامي بالولايات المتحدة. عبر جبال الأنديز وحضارات الأزتيك والإنكا.
"كنا نستلقي في حقل بمحاذاة الجدول، ناظرين إلى السماء المتغيرة مع حلول المساء، حالمين بذكريات الحب القديم، أو متخيلين الصورة المغرية لطعام عادي في كل سحابة".
يوميات مدونة بجمل رشيقة غنية لشاب تسرد تجاربه ومغامرة شكلت وعيه، وتبين رؤية عميقة وشعور التمرد لثائر بالفطرة، قبل العمل الثوري فيما بعد. مع رؤية شخصية لكل ما شاهده وعايشه خلالها، وسرد فذ كنواة لكتابته الثورية اللاحقة. نشعر بحسه الشخصي لأمريكا اللاتينية وهويتها وتعلقه بها، وهو من أسرة كما قالوا عنه محبة للعدالة، رافضة للفاشية، واهتمام بالأدب والموسيقى وكراهية المال وجمعه.
أيضًا كانت مغامرة بها تجربة مع المصابين بالجذام، من خلال القرى الفقيرة والمدن عبر القارة، ومحا��لة المساعدة الإنسانية.
"إن كان هناك ما سيجعلنا نكرس أنفسنا بجد إلى الجذام، فإنه ذاك الشعور الذي أظهره لنا المرضى الذين قابلناهم أثناء الترحال في الطريق".
تلك الرحلة شكلت فكر جيڤارا الثوري فيما بعد وكانت مقدمة للعمل الثوري، والقضاء على الظلم المستشري في القارة والعالم. والجدير بالذكر أنه تم نشر هذه المذكرات من قبل ابنته "أليدا" في عام 1992.
"علمت أنه حين تشق الروح الهادية العظيمة الإنسانية إلى شطرين متصارعين، سأكون إلى جانب الشعب".
July 18, 2024
4.0 ⭐️
GENRE - MEMOIRS.
Whilst in college I would often come across the cool dudes of our class wearing T Shirt of this flamboyant and appalling figure in beret with his name printed on the T-shirt that read ‘CHE GUEVARA’ Some how that figure fascinated me and I would research and learn about him in the years to come. ERNESTO “CHE” GUEVARA a cult figure of our era was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military general who played a major role in Cuban Revolution 1953 - 1959. Post war he hold the position of President of the National Bank of Cuba aswell as Minister of Industries, he was killed in Bolivia after trying to stage a coup against the Bolivian Government by fighting a guerrilla war.
About the book :- It’s about two young boys Argentina one of them “CHE” and his friend who set out from Buenos Aires to explore South America on a road trip. The travel through Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela through dense forest muddy landscapes, mountainous terrains, rivers,lakes and the Sea.
The come across Native Indians living under extreme poverty, deprivation, sickness and bad governance.The never knew where their next meal or drink will be coming from, where the next bed is to be found and who may be around to help them!
A truly captivating and breathtaking journey which will keep you thrilled and entertained throughout!
Thank You 🙏 ❤️😎
GENRE - MEMOIRS.
Whilst in college I would often come across the cool dudes of our class wearing T Shirt of this flamboyant and appalling figure in beret with his name printed on the T-shirt that read ‘CHE GUEVARA’ Some how that figure fascinated me and I would research and learn about him in the years to come. ERNESTO “CHE” GUEVARA a cult figure of our era was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military general who played a major role in Cuban Revolution 1953 - 1959. Post war he hold the position of President of the National Bank of Cuba aswell as Minister of Industries, he was killed in Bolivia after trying to stage a coup against the Bolivian Government by fighting a guerrilla war.
About the book :- It’s about two young boys Argentina one of them “CHE” and his friend who set out from Buenos Aires to explore South America on a road trip. The travel through Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela through dense forest muddy landscapes, mountainous terrains, rivers,lakes and the Sea.
The come across Native Indians living under extreme poverty, deprivation, sickness and bad governance.The never knew where their next meal or drink will be coming from, where the next bed is to be found and who may be around to help them!
A truly captivating and breathtaking journey which will keep you thrilled and entertained throughout!
Thank You 🙏 ❤️😎
July 12, 2022
“The first commandment for every good explorer is that an expedition has two points: the point of departure and the point of arrival. If you intend to make the second theoretical point coincide with the actual point of arrival, don't think about the means -- because the journey is a virtual space that finishes when it finishes, and there are as many means as there are different ways of 'finishing.' That is to say, the means are endless.”
This is my third time reading it, and I still can’t come up with a decent review. Well, so be it.
The premise of this memoir is too simple to demand any synopsis at all. But for those who don’t know, it’s about THE legendary motorcycle journey and how that evolved Ernesto as a person, changing his perspective towards life as a whole. Of course, this alone will be sufficiently intriguing for anyone who has even heard the name of Che Guevara.
“I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel...”
I remember when I read Robert Pirsig’s Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the first time, I thought of comparing these two. But while that one was about self-discovery combined with philosophy, this one has a coming-of-age element in it that works wonders. For Ernesto was already becoming a doctor, and not for the cliché selfish reasons, but this journey changed him in the way that no institution could’ve with all the ideologies dating back from Hippocrates.
The whole point of this memoir is, however, to break the myth. Ernesto Che Guevara has become such a legend that nowadays kids wear his face on shirts because they’re ‘cool’… irrelevant of whether they have ever heard his name before or not. But his words somehow showcase him as a next-door neighbour all the time, though.
“This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives running parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams.”
What I wasn’t expecting the first time I read it, I still clearly remember, was any sort of descriptive prowess. But that is done throughout the entire couple hundred pages rather smoothly: there’s an almost perfect balance of all the elements you can ask for in a book like this: adventure, humour, philosophical outlook and at some point, what will feel like random scribblings. It is hilarious in some parts while in other parts it gets deadly serious, but the whole time extremely energetic, almost to the part where it gets hyper-realistic.
“I finally felt myself lifted definitively away on the winds of adventure toward worlds I envisaged would be stranger than they were, into situations I imagined would be much more normal than they turned out to be.”
Of course, people with polarizing political ideologies also tend to dehumanize the acts of Che Guevara, as they also do with any notable political personalities. From a personal pov, I don’t see the point. The first book on politics I ever read was the Communist Manifesto, and that was followed by loads of other books by Marx and Engels. Now if I’m being entirely honest, the reason I read those, one after another wasn’t that I had adapted that particular ideology, but because I loved those people as authors (and also because the local library was strictly communist with even the CPIM flag on the door).
As I grew up and read books from different political pov, all that I have come to conclude is that none of them is without their flaws. And it’s kind of pointless to bash any particular ideology without having a specific amount of knowledge about it, and most people tend to do only that. And that’s not about to change anytime soon, as well.. definitely not as long as people aren’t forced to believe that democracy is a tool to come closer, not to fight against one another.
Either way, truth be told, art & human emotions all rank much, much higher than politics or religion. Of course, art and culture are hugely modified by both of these, but the majority of the time (the majority being 99.99%) it ends up becoming a barrier. And Ernesto Che Guevara’s works are not mere reflections of his ideologies. If it had been a mere chronology of events without any literary merits, it would never have become one of my favourite autobiographical works.
“All night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of his own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly--not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things the outer limits would suffice.”
I’m not telling you to read this book, though. But, in general, it’s depressing to see people not reading books because they hate the author. I mean, I know J.K. Rowling is transphobic. But if you don’t read Harry Potter for that reason, you’re a goddamn fool.
This is my third time reading it, and I still can’t come up with a decent review. Well, so be it.
The premise of this memoir is too simple to demand any synopsis at all. But for those who don’t know, it’s about THE legendary motorcycle journey and how that evolved Ernesto as a person, changing his perspective towards life as a whole. Of course, this alone will be sufficiently intriguing for anyone who has even heard the name of Che Guevara.
“I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel...”
I remember when I read Robert Pirsig’s Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the first time, I thought of comparing these two. But while that one was about self-discovery combined with philosophy, this one has a coming-of-age element in it that works wonders. For Ernesto was already becoming a doctor, and not for the cliché selfish reasons, but this journey changed him in the way that no institution could’ve with all the ideologies dating back from Hippocrates.
The whole point of this memoir is, however, to break the myth. Ernesto Che Guevara has become such a legend that nowadays kids wear his face on shirts because they’re ‘cool’… irrelevant of whether they have ever heard his name before or not. But his words somehow showcase him as a next-door neighbour all the time, though.
“This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives running parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams.”
What I wasn’t expecting the first time I read it, I still clearly remember, was any sort of descriptive prowess. But that is done throughout the entire couple hundred pages rather smoothly: there’s an almost perfect balance of all the elements you can ask for in a book like this: adventure, humour, philosophical outlook and at some point, what will feel like random scribblings. It is hilarious in some parts while in other parts it gets deadly serious, but the whole time extremely energetic, almost to the part where it gets hyper-realistic.
“I finally felt myself lifted definitively away on the winds of adventure toward worlds I envisaged would be stranger than they were, into situations I imagined would be much more normal than they turned out to be.”
Of course, people with polarizing political ideologies also tend to dehumanize the acts of Che Guevara, as they also do with any notable political personalities. From a personal pov, I don’t see the point. The first book on politics I ever read was the Communist Manifesto, and that was followed by loads of other books by Marx and Engels. Now if I’m being entirely honest, the reason I read those, one after another wasn’t that I had adapted that particular ideology, but because I loved those people as authors (and also because the local library was strictly communist with even the CPIM flag on the door).
As I grew up and read books from different political pov, all that I have come to conclude is that none of them is without their flaws. And it’s kind of pointless to bash any particular ideology without having a specific amount of knowledge about it, and most people tend to do only that. And that’s not about to change anytime soon, as well.. definitely not as long as people aren’t forced to believe that democracy is a tool to come closer, not to fight against one another.
Either way, truth be told, art & human emotions all rank much, much higher than politics or religion. Of course, art and culture are hugely modified by both of these, but the majority of the time (the majority being 99.99%) it ends up becoming a barrier. And Ernesto Che Guevara’s works are not mere reflections of his ideologies. If it had been a mere chronology of events without any literary merits, it would never have become one of my favourite autobiographical works.
“All night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of his own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly--not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things the outer limits would suffice.”
I’m not telling you to read this book, though. But, in general, it’s depressing to see people not reading books because they hate the author. I mean, I know J.K. Rowling is transphobic. But if you don’t read Harry Potter for that reason, you’re a goddamn fool.
October 9, 2022
برای من جداست، منشِ چهگوارا (که این کتاب معرف آن است)، و سیاستورزی چهگوارا (که کتاب انسان و سوسیالیسم و کمی گشتوگذار در اینترنت معرفش است). مثلا توی این کتاب، کارگر مغروری را که از همه بیشتر بار حمل میکند تا خودش را اثبات کند، استهزا میکند، و در متن سخنرانیهایش در آن کتاب، همانند کاسترو، همه را به کار بیشتر برای تحقق انسانیت تشویق میکند.
یادداشتهای سفرنامهایِ این کتاب را چهگوارا در بیستوسه سالگی نوشته. سال آخر پزشکی بود که با دوست بیولوژیستش میروند سفری حدودا شش ماهه در آمریکای جنوبی. از آرژانتین شروع میکنند و بعد شیلی و پرو و کلمبیا و ونزوئلا. شرح غذاها و مفتسواریها، شرح آدمهایی که اکثرا برای آنها دل میسوزاندند و بهشان سرپناه میدادند. و نیز مشاهدهی این دو جوان از وضعیت اسفناک مردم آمریکای جنوبی. اینجا چهگوارا مطلقا از هیچ تئوری سیاسی یا چپی حرف نمیزند و یا هیچ راهحلی برای گسترش عدالت پیشنهاد نمیدهد. او مشاهده میکند و از فقر و رنج مردم/مریضهایش غصه میخورد؛ از اینکه کاری از دستش برنمیآید.
و در آخرین خط سفرنامه به این نتیجه میرسد که «میدانم که وقتی روح هدایتگر بشریت را به دونیم تقسیم کند، من با مردم خواهم بود.» سفر او و رفیقش آلبرتو، نه حاوی سِلفی با هتلهای گرانقیمت است، و نه خودبرتربینیِ توریستمآبانه. آنها کینگ رام نیستند که تهِ تجربهشان مواد روانگردان باشد و --بقول خودش-- دختربازی با فنها و بعد اسم خودش را هم بگذارد پانک. آنها در دل کلبههای پاسبانها و کارگران زندگی میکنند و چایشان را با رانندهها به اشتراک میگذارند. این خاطرات «ماجرای دو زندگی است که روزها و ماهها باهم سفر کردند و امید و رؤیاهایی مشترک داشتند.»
یادداشتهای سفرنامهایِ این کتاب را چهگوارا در بیستوسه سالگی نوشته. سال آخر پزشکی بود که با دوست بیولوژیستش میروند سفری حدودا شش ماهه در آمریکای جنوبی. از آرژانتین شروع میکنند و بعد شیلی و پرو و کلمبیا و ونزوئلا. شرح غذاها و مفتسواریها، شرح آدمهایی که اکثرا برای آنها دل میسوزاندند و بهشان سرپناه میدادند. و نیز مشاهدهی این دو جوان از وضعیت اسفناک مردم آمریکای جنوبی. اینجا چهگوارا مطلقا از هیچ تئوری سیاسی یا چپی حرف نمیزند و یا هیچ راهحلی برای گسترش عدالت پیشنهاد نمیدهد. او مشاهده میکند و از فقر و رنج مردم/مریضهایش غصه میخورد؛ از اینکه کاری از دستش برنمیآید.
و در آخرین خط سفرنامه به این نتیجه میرسد که «میدانم که وقتی روح هدایتگر بشریت را به دونیم تقسیم کند، من با مردم خواهم بود.» سفر او و رفیقش آلبرتو، نه حاوی سِلفی با هتلهای گرانقیمت است، و نه خودبرتربینیِ توریستمآبانه. آنها کینگ رام نیستند که تهِ تجربهشان مواد روانگردان باشد و --بقول خودش-- دختربازی با فنها و بعد اسم خودش را هم بگذارد پانک. آنها در دل کلبههای پاسبانها و کارگران زندگی میکنند و چایشان را با رانندهها به اشتراک میگذارند. این خاطرات «ماجرای دو زندگی است که روزها و ماهها باهم سفر کردند و امید و رؤیاهایی مشترک داشتند.»
May 14, 2020
در سال 1952 زمانی که ارنست چگاوارای آرژانتینی 24 سال داشت و فقط یک دانشجوی پزشکی ناشناخته بود، تصمیم گرفت با دوستش آلبرتو گرانادا، به کشورهای مختلف آمریکای جنوبی سفر کند، آن هم با یک موتور سیکلت درب و داغون! حدود 15 سال بعد از این سفر، چگاوارا تبدیل به یکی ��ز محبوبترین چهرههای انقلابی در آمریکای جنوبی شد و حتی امروز هم میتوان تصویرش را روی لباس و کلاه و فندک جوانها مشاهده کرد.
چگوارای جوان در کتاب خاطرات خود، انسانی جایزالخطا است که گاهی دروغ میگوید، دست به دزدی میزند و حتی تلاش میکند با زن صاحب مهمانی عشقبازی کند. از طرفی میتوان شخصیت آرمانگرای او را دید وقتی نظرش را با شجاعت و صداقت بیان میکند، بدون چشم داشتی هفتهها به خدمتگذاری بیماران جزامی میپردازد و تمام پول سفر خود را به زن و شوهر فقیری که در معدن کار میکنند میبخشد.
بخشی از ارزش این کتاب به خاطر نویسندهی آن یعنی چگوارا است، انتظار نداشته باشید با یک سفرنامهی دقیق یا یک نوشتهی غنی ادبی مواجه شوید*
فیلم خوبی با عنوان «خاطرات موتور سوار» به کارگردانی والتر سالس با اقتباس از این کتاب ساخته شده است*
چگوارای جوان در کتاب خاطرات خود، انسانی جایزالخطا است که گاهی دروغ میگوید، دست به دزدی میزند و حتی تلاش میکند با زن صاحب مهمانی عشقبازی کند. از طرفی میتوان شخصیت آرمانگرای او را دید وقتی نظرش را با شجاعت و صداقت بیان میکند، بدون چشم داشتی هفتهها به خدمتگذاری بیماران جزامی میپردازد و تمام پول سفر خود را به زن و شوهر فقیری که در معدن کار میکنند میبخشد.
بخشی از ارزش این کتاب به خاطر نویسندهی آن یعنی چگوارا است، انتظار نداشته باشید با یک سفرنامهی دقیق یا یک نوشتهی غنی ادبی مواجه شوید*
فیلم خوبی با عنوان «خاطرات موتور سوار» به کارگردانی والتر سالس با اقتباس از این کتاب ساخته شده است*
November 26, 2013
This is a book which everybody in their 20s need to read. At a time when everyone is trying to settle down into a career which would reap harvests eventually, where you dream of going on your dream trips eventually, where you would want to read that book or draw the painting or write the poem, eventually; we have a book about a 20 something who does it all. The story of Che before he became The Che, when he still is a rash youngster hot blooded and filled with hunger for adventure. In spite of which, he displays a caring philosophical mind of a legend in making. Filled with good servings of humour, in this travelogue, you take the place of Alberto Granado and travel across South America with Che. There are so many lines which will remain etched in one's memory forever, like his description of the terminally ill lady. Read this book, if you dream of travelling, if you had dreams of travelling. May bea towards the end of it you just might want to live the life Che Guevara did.
June 5, 2017
قبل از اینکه چگوارا به رهبر انقلاب کوبا بدل شود، یک دانشجوی پزشکی درونگرا بود که در بوینس آیرس زندگی ساده ای داشت.زندگی او در سال 1952 دچار تحول شد، علی رغم اینکه تا فارغ التحصیلی اش چیزی نمانده بود، تصمیم گرفت تا از درس خواندن دست بکشد و به دوستاش آلبرتو گرانادو، برای سفری در دل قاره ی آمریکا ملحق شود.سفر آن ها که با یک موتورسیکلت قدیمی آغاز شد و با ماشین و قایق سواری ادامه یافت، حدود 7 ماه طول کشید و آن ها توانستند سفری 7500 مایلی داشته باشند.وقتی سفر آن ها با رسیدن به کاراکاس به پایان رسید، چه گوارا دیگر آن چه گوارا در ابتدای سفر نبود.«خاطرات موتورسیکلت»، مقتبس از سفرنامه ی چه گوارا و کتاب گرانادو است و داستان همان سفر را شرح مى دهد
May 1, 2012
Sometimes my job sees me heading off to the worst kind of places (chemical works and sewage plants being two prime examples), however sometimes the gods just smile down and I find myself being sent somewhere really good. Really good, like where? Well, I'll tell you. I've been sent to work in a library for five days.
WHOO HOOOOOOOOO!
The local liberry (to quote Richard Derus) has been closed for a big refurbishment which partially involves whole scale demolition of parts of the building. Want to demolish a historic building? Whoyagonnacall? The archaeologists, that's who. So all these books are being given away, chucked out, pulped or sold on to make way for an e-liberry. Ye Gods! And I found this in the recycle bin - astonishing what people are willing to throw away really! It was not own its own either because it was accompanied by copies of Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice and many many many others. In total I liberated about 40 books all of which have now been dusted off, registered on bookcrossing and released around the city for other people to enjoy. If you don't know about book crossing then go to http://www.bookcrossing.com immediately. Go on, off you go!
Overall I enjoyed this special random free "book-in-a-bin" find, but it was not quite as inspirational as generations of Che t-shirt wearing wannabee revolutionaries would have me believe. Maybe I'm just too old? Is this something you're supposed to read when you're young and perky and stoned? Up there with Kerouac in that this book sells loafing and free loading as a form of modern spiritual enlightenment. See? I am too old.
There is no doubt that his writing is good and the trip was an exceptional and entertaining journey, especially since Che and Alberto made the journey relying on the charity of strangers. The most amazing part of the book was the way that the police could always be relied on to provide a place to stay and some free food when all else failed. Not to discredit our loyal band of polis, but I can't imagine that ever being likely in the UK!
WHOO HOOOOOOOOO!
The local liberry (to quote Richard Derus) has been closed for a big refurbishment which partially involves whole scale demolition of parts of the building. Want to demolish a historic building? Whoyagonnacall? The archaeologists, that's who. So all these books are being given away, chucked out, pulped or sold on to make way for an e-liberry. Ye Gods! And I found this in the recycle bin - astonishing what people are willing to throw away really! It was not own its own either because it was accompanied by copies of Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice and many many many others. In total I liberated about 40 books all of which have now been dusted off, registered on bookcrossing and released around the city for other people to enjoy. If you don't know about book crossing then go to http://www.bookcrossing.com immediately. Go on, off you go!
Overall I enjoyed this special random free "book-in-a-bin" find, but it was not quite as inspirational as generations of Che t-shirt wearing wannabee revolutionaries would have me believe. Maybe I'm just too old? Is this something you're supposed to read when you're young and perky and stoned? Up there with Kerouac in that this book sells loafing and free loading as a form of modern spiritual enlightenment. See? I am too old.
There is no doubt that his writing is good and the trip was an exceptional and entertaining journey, especially since Che and Alberto made the journey relying on the charity of strangers. The most amazing part of the book was the way that the police could always be relied on to provide a place to stay and some free food when all else failed. Not to discredit our loyal band of polis, but I can't imagine that ever being likely in the UK!
December 28, 2023
23-year-old dude takes a break from his medical studies to explore Latin America while on his way to volunteer at a leper colony, showing glimmers of the revolutionary perspective eloquently spelled out by Hélder Câmara:
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”
“A journey, a number of journeys. Ernesto Guevara in search of adventure, Ernesto Guevara in search of America, Ernesto Guevara in search of Che. On this journey of journeys, solitude found solidarity, ‘I’ turned into ‘we’.” —Eduardo Galeano
”His awareness grows that what poor people need is not so much his scientific knowledge as a physician, but rather his strength and persistence in trying to bring about the social change that would enable them to live with the dignity that had been taken from them and trampled on for centuries.” --Aleida Guevara March, preface.
Reflections:
--The content itself is raw and episodic, as you would expect from a travel diary by a 23-year-old seeking adventure. The sociopolitical musings are brief.
--As the inspiring Vijay Prashad notes in this illustrative lecture on writing about communism (https://youtu.be/AVoFFnyEY_w), no one is born a radical, let alone a revolutionary. As Galeano repeats, this is a journey... We are all born into the status quo world and adopt (in varying degrees) many of its contradictions. We ceaselessly struggle with this with a combination of individualist escape plans, subservience, and if we are lucky and put in the effort, imagination for alternatives that dig into the root contradictions (i.e. radical).
--Thus, it is curious how people make or fail to make this transition. How do we each rearrange our privileges on the occasions of mounting contradiction? Apart from the middle-class perspective, I found my mind wandering to contemplating Guevara’s liberal scientist education.
…Working partially in public health, I always find it curious how “educated” healthcare professionals often compartmentalize their expertise, resulting in narrow social imagination (this is particularly egregious in global health). What are the most visceral ways to expose the contradictions of public health in the context of profit over people, and how do we then present a re-imagined context?
...COVID and the Anthropocene are providing further emphases, but without persuasive alternatives we can expect cynicism and thus subservience. To paraphrase Julian Assange, human’s ability to adapt is our greatest strength and weakness; strength when overcoming obstacles, and weakness when tolerating abuses.
…Working partially in Information Technology, I also think of the glaring contradictions here (i.e. automation and rapid changes creating structural unemployment and unimaginable new power structures).
...And how can I not slip in a hurrah for revolution, by Michael Parenti? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npkee...
--The entries end with quite a flurry as Guevara quotes a well-travelled adventurer:
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”
“A journey, a number of journeys. Ernesto Guevara in search of adventure, Ernesto Guevara in search of America, Ernesto Guevara in search of Che. On this journey of journeys, solitude found solidarity, ‘I’ turned into ‘we’.” —Eduardo Galeano
”His awareness grows that what poor people need is not so much his scientific knowledge as a physician, but rather his strength and persistence in trying to bring about the social change that would enable them to live with the dignity that had been taken from them and trampled on for centuries.” --Aleida Guevara March, preface.
Reflections:
--The content itself is raw and episodic, as you would expect from a travel diary by a 23-year-old seeking adventure. The sociopolitical musings are brief.
--As the inspiring Vijay Prashad notes in this illustrative lecture on writing about communism (https://youtu.be/AVoFFnyEY_w), no one is born a radical, let alone a revolutionary. As Galeano repeats, this is a journey... We are all born into the status quo world and adopt (in varying degrees) many of its contradictions. We ceaselessly struggle with this with a combination of individualist escape plans, subservience, and if we are lucky and put in the effort, imagination for alternatives that dig into the root contradictions (i.e. radical).
--Thus, it is curious how people make or fail to make this transition. How do we each rearrange our privileges on the occasions of mounting contradiction? Apart from the middle-class perspective, I found my mind wandering to contemplating Guevara’s liberal scientist education.
…Working partially in public health, I always find it curious how “educated” healthcare professionals often compartmentalize their expertise, resulting in narrow social imagination (this is particularly egregious in global health). What are the most visceral ways to expose the contradictions of public health in the context of profit over people, and how do we then present a re-imagined context?
...COVID and the Anthropocene are providing further emphases, but without persuasive alternatives we can expect cynicism and thus subservience. To paraphrase Julian Assange, human’s ability to adapt is our greatest strength and weakness; strength when overcoming obstacles, and weakness when tolerating abuses.
…Working partially in Information Technology, I also think of the glaring contradictions here (i.e. automation and rapid changes creating structural unemployment and unimaginable new power structures).
...And how can I not slip in a hurrah for revolution, by Michael Parenti? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npkee...
--The entries end with quite a flurry as Guevara quotes a well-travelled adventurer:
The future belongs to the people, and gradually, or in one strike, they will take power, here and in every country....For a much-wider portrayal of Che, see: I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967.
The terrible thing is the people need to be educated, and this they cannot do before taking power, only after. They can only learn at the cost of their own mistakes, which will be very serious and will cost many innocent lives. Or perhaps not, maybe those lives will not have been innocent because they will have committed the huge sin against nature; meaning, a lack of ability to adapt. All of them, those unable to adapt — you and I, for example — will die cursing the power they helped, through great sacrifice, to create. Revolution is impersonal; it will take their lives, even utilizing their memory as an example or as an instrument for domesticating the youth who follow them. My sin is greater because I, more astute and with greater experience, call it what you like, will die knowing that my sacrifice stems only from an inflexibility symbolizing our rotten civilization, which is crumbling. I also know — and this won’t alter the course of history or your personal view of me — that you will die with a clenched fist and a tense jaw, the epitome of hatred and struggle, because you are not a symbol (some inanimate example) but a genuine member of the society to be destroyed; the spirit of the beehive speaks through your mouth and motivates your actions. You are as useful as I am, but you are not aware of how useful your contribution is to the society that sacrifices you.
July 12, 2020
The Motorcycle Diaries is a series of diary entries written by Che Guevara back when he was a 23 year old medical student traveling through South America with a motorcycle. We follow his mishaps, encounters with strangers, discussions about poverty and poor health care, and general impressions of South America of the 50s.
This feels like such an intimate look of a person. With our hindsight of what Che Guevara would become, every sentence feels fueled by context and predictions. We can already feel his frustration about injustice and his desire to act. It's easy to fall in love with his humor and philosophical tangents.
I saw a lot of myself in this book (and not just because his descriptions of asthma were on point). There were moments that I felt like I could have written and parts that reflected thoughts that I myself had. It's very cool to consider that the act of traveling, even with the internet, has remained mostly the same. Like, I've absolutely done the whole *casually mentioning I'm from abroad in order to get special attention* thing.
On the long list of sad things that happened because of the coronavirus, my cancelled travel plans are certainly among the last but I was very much looking forward to traveling somewhere this summer. I had a vague plan involving working in the states for a while and then traveling in South America. (My alternative plan was to couchsurf through the Baltics because I'm just dying to see Estonia and I have no idea why or what I expect to see there.)
So reading this book was somewhat bittersweet. It was like seeing adventures through someone else's eyes and yeah okay, I'm weirdly jealous of 23 year old Che Guevara, which is not a sentence I thought I'd say in my life. At the same time, reading this also made me feel like I'm doing some traveling, in the cliche "reading books is like traveling!" type of way.
I don't know much about South America but I imagine this book will be fascinating for people who are more involved with Latin culture. Che Guevara is a very careful narrator and spends some time detailing the various sights and people that he encounters. I personally adored hearing about his experiences with the Incas of Peru.
All in all, this book was nice. I'm looking forward to reading about the Cuban revolution and thinking about young Ernesto here. To be honest, I don't have much inherent interest in South America (my Peruvian roommate will forever be disappointed in me). One of the reasons why I want to do this reading challenge is entirely because without it, I'll forever only read books about the Middle East, Europe and maybe a bit of Asia. That's got to change so I'm definitely looking forward to falling in love with South America. This feels like a solid beginning for that.
As a side note, I've decided to consider this as my Argentina book. Technically, in the writing of this book, Che Guevara was Argentinian and some parts of this book take place there. Also, I have other books I want to read for Cuba but no other ideas for books about Argentina.
What I'm Taking With Me
- South American hospitality sounds very impressive and I'm curious now.
- Alberto seems like a great guy and their friendship is lovely.
- I think the coronavirus really highlights how connected are doctors and social issues.
- The moments here when he suddenly stops being a young guy traveling and gets swept up in social justice and poverty are just so fascinating.
---------------------
Now I have a strong urge to travel around South America by motorcycle and get inspired to fight against corruption and poverty.
Review to come!
This feels like such an intimate look of a person. With our hindsight of what Che Guevara would become, every sentence feels fueled by context and predictions. We can already feel his frustration about injustice and his desire to act. It's easy to fall in love with his humor and philosophical tangents.
I saw a lot of myself in this book (and not just because his descriptions of asthma were on point). There were moments that I felt like I could have written and parts that reflected thoughts that I myself had. It's very cool to consider that the act of traveling, even with the internet, has remained mostly the same. Like, I've absolutely done the whole *casually mentioning I'm from abroad in order to get special attention* thing.
On the long list of sad things that happened because of the coronavirus, my cancelled travel plans are certainly among the last but I was very much looking forward to traveling somewhere this summer. I had a vague plan involving working in the states for a while and then traveling in South America. (My alternative plan was to couchsurf through the Baltics because I'm just dying to see Estonia and I have no idea why or what I expect to see there.)
So reading this book was somewhat bittersweet. It was like seeing adventures through someone else's eyes and yeah okay, I'm weirdly jealous of 23 year old Che Guevara, which is not a sentence I thought I'd say in my life. At the same time, reading this also made me feel like I'm doing some traveling, in the cliche "reading books is like traveling!" type of way.
I don't know much about South America but I imagine this book will be fascinating for people who are more involved with Latin culture. Che Guevara is a very careful narrator and spends some time detailing the various sights and people that he encounters. I personally adored hearing about his experiences with the Incas of Peru.
All in all, this book was nice. I'm looking forward to reading about the Cuban revolution and thinking about young Ernesto here. To be honest, I don't have much inherent interest in South America (my Peruvian roommate will forever be disappointed in me). One of the reasons why I want to do this reading challenge is entirely because without it, I'll forever only read books about the Middle East, Europe and maybe a bit of Asia. That's got to change so I'm definitely looking forward to falling in love with South America. This feels like a solid beginning for that.
As a side note, I've decided to consider this as my Argentina book. Technically, in the writing of this book, Che Guevara was Argentinian and some parts of this book take place there. Also, I have other books I want to read for Cuba but no other ideas for books about Argentina.
What I'm Taking With Me
- South American hospitality sounds very impressive and I'm curious now.
- Alberto seems like a great guy and their friendship is lovely.
- I think the coronavirus really highlights how connected are doctors and social issues.
- The moments here when he suddenly stops being a young guy traveling and gets swept up in social justice and poverty are just so fascinating.
---------------------
Now I have a strong urge to travel around South America by motorcycle and get inspired to fight against corruption and poverty.
Review to come!
March 12, 2019
“I began dressing slowly, a task which wasn’t very difficult because the difference between our night wear and day wear consisted, generally, of shoes.”
Two buddies take a break from their medical studies to tour their home country of Argentina, then Chile, Peru, Columbia, and Venezuela. What gives this fun, youthful adventure a different twist (in addition to the fact their destination is a leper colony) is that one of the buddies is Che Guevera, the guy who would go on to fight with Castro in the Cuban Revolution, and then to take up other fights in the Congo and then in Bolivia, where at age 39 he was captured and killed and then became an icon.
Most of the book is about how they found ways to get from one place to another and what they ate, and I understand from my own travels on the cheap that it really can be all about these two things. His diary gives us the feel of being on the road: survival, adventure, the companionship of travelers, the kindness of strangers.
What’s interesting about the journey of this book is that it helped make Che Che. Che, by the way, is just the Argentinian version of “mate” or “pal,” but those of us who’ve seen the t-shirts, the posters, we know what the name means to us. It means rebel. What he saw on this trip—poverty and illness and injustice--turned him from middle-class doctor into revolutionary.
You can see it in passages like this, which starts out like a tame entry in a Peruvian tourist’s diary:
“The most memorable part of Lima is the centre of the city around its magnificent cathedral … The church facades and alters demonstrate the complete range of Churrigueresque art in their love of gold. It was because of this vast wealth that the aristocracy resisted the armies of America up to the very last. Lima is the perfect example of a Peru which has never emerged from its feudal, colonial state. It is still waiting for the blood of a truly liberating revolution.”
The reading ranged from tedious to startling, unsettling to inspiring. I’m very happy to have had the experience.
Two buddies take a break from their medical studies to tour their home country of Argentina, then Chile, Peru, Columbia, and Venezuela. What gives this fun, youthful adventure a different twist (in addition to the fact their destination is a leper colony) is that one of the buddies is Che Guevera, the guy who would go on to fight with Castro in the Cuban Revolution, and then to take up other fights in the Congo and then in Bolivia, where at age 39 he was captured and killed and then became an icon.
Most of the book is about how they found ways to get from one place to another and what they ate, and I understand from my own travels on the cheap that it really can be all about these two things. His diary gives us the feel of being on the road: survival, adventure, the companionship of travelers, the kindness of strangers.
What’s interesting about the journey of this book is that it helped make Che Che. Che, by the way, is just the Argentinian version of “mate” or “pal,” but those of us who’ve seen the t-shirts, the posters, we know what the name means to us. It means rebel. What he saw on this trip—poverty and illness and injustice--turned him from middle-class doctor into revolutionary.
You can see it in passages like this, which starts out like a tame entry in a Peruvian tourist’s diary:
“The most memorable part of Lima is the centre of the city around its magnificent cathedral … The church facades and alters demonstrate the complete range of Churrigueresque art in their love of gold. It was because of this vast wealth that the aristocracy resisted the armies of America up to the very last. Lima is the perfect example of a Peru which has never emerged from its feudal, colonial state. It is still waiting for the blood of a truly liberating revolution.”
The reading ranged from tedious to startling, unsettling to inspiring. I’m very happy to have had the experience.
August 30, 2007
This is a first-hand account of Ernesto "Che" Guevara's trip across South America with his good friend. Guevara is not a professional writer and it shows in his straight-forward delivery of the material. It's a diary and it reads like a diary. There is very little exposition here. It's just a blow-by-blow account of the events that took place.
What I found interesting was that Che was a passionate medical student who just wanted to help people, quite in contrast to his later guerrilla life with Castro. It's amazing that such a caring, gentle person would go on to become such a vicious individual.
I guess that's part of the enigmatic personality that has kept Che Guevara on people's minds for the past 50 years. I just wish all those Hot Topic kids would learn about the man behind that iconic image on their t-shirt. Some of them might not be so quick to wear those shirts in public anymore when they find out what a incompetent butcher he became in Castro's Cuba.
What I found interesting was that Che was a passionate medical student who just wanted to help people, quite in contrast to his later guerrilla life with Castro. It's amazing that such a caring, gentle person would go on to become such a vicious individual.
I guess that's part of the enigmatic personality that has kept Che Guevara on people's minds for the past 50 years. I just wish all those Hot Topic kids would learn about the man behind that iconic image on their t-shirt. Some of them might not be so quick to wear those shirts in public anymore when they find out what a incompetent butcher he became in Castro's Cuba.
December 1, 2015
For life, courage, adventure, endurance and whatnot. Non-adherence to Marxist ideology should not prejudice me against him. The moving memoir gave me an access to the mind of pre-revolutionary Che Guevara which undergoes significant changes as the motorcycle moves ahead. With all the bumps, jerks and brief halts, this is a fascinating journey. A real journey which made me dream throughout and imagine myself as a part of this adventure. Lastly, I do not rate such kind of non-fiction on literary merit or judge it structurally as a book. Instead, on the merit of life, on the merit of human qualities and the extraordinary element of their lives which made them worth writing in the first place. To me, such books celebrate what is best in humans.
June 27, 2021
"... بیماران بیمارستان لیما بامحبت و عشق از ما خداحافظی کردند و همین ما را تشویق کرد که تحقیقاتمان را در این زمینه ادامه دهیم. آنها به ما چراغ پیکنیکی و صد سول پول دادند که با آن وضعیت بد اقتصادیشان، بسیار هم چشمگیر است. وقت خداحافظی چندنفری اشکشان درآمده بود. قدردانی آنها به این خاطر بود که وقتی آنجا بودیم نه دستکش دست میکردیم نه لباس مخصوص میپوشیدیم، به این خاطر که با آنها هم مثل دیگران دست میدادیم، به این خاطر که با آنها مینشستیم به گپزدن، به این خاطر که با آنها فوتبال بازی میکردیم و ... این کارها شاید بیاهمیت باشد، اما برای آنها بسیار مهم بود که با ایشان مثل حیوان رفتار نمیکردیم."
چهارصدمین کتابِ زندگیم - طبقِ گودریدز - در آستانهی بیستوسهسالگی، شد یادداشتهای سفر غبطهبرانگیز چهگوارا در بیستوسهسالگی.
چهارصدمین کتابِ زندگیم - طبقِ گودریدز - در آستانهی بیستوسهسالگی، شد یادداشتهای سفر غبطهبرانگیز چهگوارا در بیستوسهسالگی.
November 21, 2020
Why wouldn't you become a revolutionary after a journey through the thicks of Latin America ?
June 26, 2012
His account begins: This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives running parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams. In nine months of a man’s life he can think a lot of things, from the loftiest meditations on philosophy to the most desperate longing for a bowl of soup — in total accord with the state of his stomach. And if, at the same time, he’s somewhat of an adventurer, he might live through episodes of interest to other people and his haphazard record might read something like these notes.
And so, the coin was thrown in the air, turning many times, landing sometimes heads and other times tails. Man, the measure of all things, speaks here through my mouth and narrates in my own language that which my eyes have seen. It is likely that out of 10 possible heads I have seen only one true tail, or vice versa. In fact it’s probable, and there are no excuses, for these lips can only describe what these eyes actually see. Is it that our whole vision was never quite complete, that it was too transient or not always well-informed? Were we too uncompromising in our judgments? Okay, but this is how the typewriter interpreted those fleeting impulses raising my fingers to the keys, and those impulses have now died. Moreover, no one can be held responsible for them. The person who wrote these notes passed away the moment his feet touched Argentine soil again. The person who reorganizes and polishes them, me, is no longer, at least I am not the person I once was. All this wandering around “Our America with a capital A” has changed me more than I thought.
In any photographic manual you’ll come across the strikingly clear image of a landscape, apparently taken by night, in the light of a full moon. The secret behind this magical vision of “darkness at noon” is usually revealed in the accompanying text. Readers of this book will not be well versed about the sensitivity of my retina — I can hardly sense it myself. So they will not be able to check what is said against a photographic plate to discover at precisely what time each of my “pictures” was taken. What this means is that if I present you with an image and say, for instance, that it was taken at night, you can either believe me, or not; it matters little to me, since if you don’t happen to know the scene I’ve “photographed” in my notes, it will be hard for you to find an alternative to the truth I’m about to tell. But I’ll leave you now, with myself, the man I used to be…
And it ends: I saw his teeth and the cheeky grin with which he foretold history, I felt his handshake and, like a distant murmur, his formal goodbye. The night, folding in at contact with his words, overtook me again, enveloping me within it. But despite his words, I know knew...I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I would be with the people. I know this, I see it printed in the night sky that I, eclectic dissembler of doctrine and psychoanalyst of dogma, howling like one possessed, will assault the barricades or the trenches, will take my bloodstained weapon and, consumed with fury, slaughter any enemy who falls into my hand. And I see, as if a great exhaustion smothers this fresh exaltation, I see myself, immolated in the genuine revolution, the great equalizer of individual will, proclaiming the ultimate mea culpa. I feel my nostrils dilate, savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood, the enemy's death; I steel my body, ready to do battle, and prepare myself to be a sacred space within which the bestial howl of the triumphant proletariat can resound with new energy and new hope.
This is a diary of perhaps the greatest journey that any individual has ever made. Coming from a well to do family and taking time off from studying medicine, young Ernesto and friend Alberto travels across Latin America and witnesses the human condition and the suffering it faces. He is very much affected and it is this experience that shapes his future political ideology and what fuels his revolutionary spirit. He vividly paints Latin America as it is, exploited and downtrodden. Ernesto leaves Argentina an unconscious and idealistic boy and returns a cynical and wiser man. One can see here the metamorphosis of a young Argentine to the world's greatest revolutionary. Patria O Muerte! Hasta La Victoria, Siempre!
And so, the coin was thrown in the air, turning many times, landing sometimes heads and other times tails. Man, the measure of all things, speaks here through my mouth and narrates in my own language that which my eyes have seen. It is likely that out of 10 possible heads I have seen only one true tail, or vice versa. In fact it’s probable, and there are no excuses, for these lips can only describe what these eyes actually see. Is it that our whole vision was never quite complete, that it was too transient or not always well-informed? Were we too uncompromising in our judgments? Okay, but this is how the typewriter interpreted those fleeting impulses raising my fingers to the keys, and those impulses have now died. Moreover, no one can be held responsible for them. The person who wrote these notes passed away the moment his feet touched Argentine soil again. The person who reorganizes and polishes them, me, is no longer, at least I am not the person I once was. All this wandering around “Our America with a capital A” has changed me more than I thought.
In any photographic manual you’ll come across the strikingly clear image of a landscape, apparently taken by night, in the light of a full moon. The secret behind this magical vision of “darkness at noon” is usually revealed in the accompanying text. Readers of this book will not be well versed about the sensitivity of my retina — I can hardly sense it myself. So they will not be able to check what is said against a photographic plate to discover at precisely what time each of my “pictures” was taken. What this means is that if I present you with an image and say, for instance, that it was taken at night, you can either believe me, or not; it matters little to me, since if you don’t happen to know the scene I’ve “photographed” in my notes, it will be hard for you to find an alternative to the truth I’m about to tell. But I’ll leave you now, with myself, the man I used to be…
And it ends: I saw his teeth and the cheeky grin with which he foretold history, I felt his handshake and, like a distant murmur, his formal goodbye. The night, folding in at contact with his words, overtook me again, enveloping me within it. But despite his words, I know knew...I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I would be with the people. I know this, I see it printed in the night sky that I, eclectic dissembler of doctrine and psychoanalyst of dogma, howling like one possessed, will assault the barricades or the trenches, will take my bloodstained weapon and, consumed with fury, slaughter any enemy who falls into my hand. And I see, as if a great exhaustion smothers this fresh exaltation, I see myself, immolated in the genuine revolution, the great equalizer of individual will, proclaiming the ultimate mea culpa. I feel my nostrils dilate, savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood, the enemy's death; I steel my body, ready to do battle, and prepare myself to be a sacred space within which the bestial howl of the triumphant proletariat can resound with new energy and new hope.
This is a diary of perhaps the greatest journey that any individual has ever made. Coming from a well to do family and taking time off from studying medicine, young Ernesto and friend Alberto travels across Latin America and witnesses the human condition and the suffering it faces. He is very much affected and it is this experience that shapes his future political ideology and what fuels his revolutionary spirit. He vividly paints Latin America as it is, exploited and downtrodden. Ernesto leaves Argentina an unconscious and idealistic boy and returns a cynical and wiser man. One can see here the metamorphosis of a young Argentine to the world's greatest revolutionary. Patria O Muerte! Hasta La Victoria, Siempre!
August 27, 2024
Che Guevara, for me, was a childhood idol.
India was left of centre initially, during the Nehruvian Era. During the Indira years, it became authoritarian and centrist. Rajiv Gandhi moved it slowly to the right, and during the Narasimha Rao/ Manmohan Singh Era, it became unabashedly right liberal. And with the advent of Modi, the country has moved further to the right; it has also become authoritarian, just one notch down from a certain European country under the regime of a guy with a toothbrush moustache.
But my home state of Kerala, located down at the bottom, has remained staunchly liberal. And secular. And left-wing. In fact, we were the first electorate in the world to democratically elect a communist government to power; and it is the only state where the communists are in power now.
My generation grew up hearing the heroic tales of the October Revolution and the Long March. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro et al were our role models. Our sacred texts were Das Kapital| and The Communist Manifesto. And Che, undoubtedly, was the mythical hero. The revolutionary par excellence, who threw away a lucrative career as a doctor; and eschewed a position as a minister in a newborn socialist country, just to plunge into the battlefield to liberate Latin America from the greedy clutches of Uncle Sam - and to die a martyr, looking into the eyes of the American GI who shot him, saying: "Shoot, coward, you are killing only a man."
As I grew older, I understood that truth was a little more nuanced, and that there were no blacks and whites, only greys - and that revolutionaries and communists were not all that they were cracked up to be. But my fascination with Che remained, even when idealistic youth transformed into disillusioned middle-age and then to the current jaded and cynical sixties. Because, you see, this revolutionary is no longer a man but a symbol.
Every hero undergoes a journey. He enters it as a raw novitiate and after the road of trials and tribulations, emerges as a sage. This trope is a staple of most myths and epics, and also of a lot of popular narratives in novels, TV and film. We rarely see it in real life. Che is one of the rare exceptions.
In December 1951, 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado, both medical doctors, set off on an epic journey across South America on the latter's Norton 500 bike, named "La Poderosa II". The journey was ostensibly to visit leper colonies and study the disease: the real intention was just to have a good time: two red-blooded Latinos whooping it up, wining, dining and fornicating. But when it ended 1n August 1952, Ernesto had transformed into a man who was deeply disturbed by the distressing history of his unfortunate continent: twice enslaved, once physically by Europe and then economically by the USA, her riches bled dry to fill foreign coffers while her sons and daughters lived in abject misery.
As we read these memoirs which he kept during the journey, we can feel the change almost physically. The initial notes which are mostly about their mischievous escapades, slowly give way to long, thoughtful passages about the condition of the poor in Latin America, and the proletariat in general. For example, see how he describes a sick woman here:
By the time they reach Cuzco and Machu Picchu in Peru, Guevara has become acutely conscious of the rich Indian past of the continent, which the Spanish conquistadors destroyed mercilessly. However, he says that the hybrid culture that the mixing of the invaders with the indigenous people created was not like the insular one of North America, with the natives totally segregated and marginalised: Latin America was one nation, one people, even though separated into different countries through arbitrarily drawn boundaries. When Che talks of a defeated people who live on when there is nothing to live for, just because "living has become a habit", we understand the depth of compassion which kindled the fire within.
Read this book to understand the making of a revolutionary.
India was left of centre initially, during the Nehruvian Era. During the Indira years, it became authoritarian and centrist. Rajiv Gandhi moved it slowly to the right, and during the Narasimha Rao/ Manmohan Singh Era, it became unabashedly right liberal. And with the advent of Modi, the country has moved further to the right; it has also become authoritarian, just one notch down from a certain European country under the regime of a guy with a toothbrush moustache.
But my home state of Kerala, located down at the bottom, has remained staunchly liberal. And secular. And left-wing. In fact, we were the first electorate in the world to democratically elect a communist government to power; and it is the only state where the communists are in power now.
My generation grew up hearing the heroic tales of the October Revolution and the Long March. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro et al were our role models. Our sacred texts were Das Kapital| and The Communist Manifesto. And Che, undoubtedly, was the mythical hero. The revolutionary par excellence, who threw away a lucrative career as a doctor; and eschewed a position as a minister in a newborn socialist country, just to plunge into the battlefield to liberate Latin America from the greedy clutches of Uncle Sam - and to die a martyr, looking into the eyes of the American GI who shot him, saying: "Shoot, coward, you are killing only a man."
As I grew older, I understood that truth was a little more nuanced, and that there were no blacks and whites, only greys - and that revolutionaries and communists were not all that they were cracked up to be. But my fascination with Che remained, even when idealistic youth transformed into disillusioned middle-age and then to the current jaded and cynical sixties. Because, you see, this revolutionary is no longer a man but a symbol.
Every hero undergoes a journey. He enters it as a raw novitiate and after the road of trials and tribulations, emerges as a sage. This trope is a staple of most myths and epics, and also of a lot of popular narratives in novels, TV and film. We rarely see it in real life. Che is one of the rare exceptions.
In December 1951, 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado, both medical doctors, set off on an epic journey across South America on the latter's Norton 500 bike, named "La Poderosa II". The journey was ostensibly to visit leper colonies and study the disease: the real intention was just to have a good time: two red-blooded Latinos whooping it up, wining, dining and fornicating. But when it ended 1n August 1952, Ernesto had transformed into a man who was deeply disturbed by the distressing history of his unfortunate continent: twice enslaved, once physically by Europe and then economically by the USA, her riches bled dry to fill foreign coffers while her sons and daughters lived in abject misery.
As we read these memoirs which he kept during the journey, we can feel the change almost physically. The initial notes which are mostly about their mischievous escapades, slowly give way to long, thoughtful passages about the condition of the poor in Latin America, and the proletariat in general. For example, see how he describes a sick woman here:
I went to see an old woman with asthma, a customer at La Gioconda. The poor thing was in a pitiful state, breathing the acrid smell of concentrated sweat and dirty feet that filled her room, mixed with the dust from a couple of armchairs, the only luxury items in her house. On top of her asthma, she had a heart condition. It is at times like this, when a doctor is conscious of his complete powerlessness, that he longs for change: a change to prevent the injustice of a system in which only a month ago this poor woman was still earning her living as a waitress, wheezing and panting but facing life with dignity. In circumstances like this, individuals in poor families who can't pay their way become surrounded by an atmosphere of barely disguised acrimony; they stop being father, mother, sister or brother and become a purely negative factor in the struggle for life and consequently, a source of bitterness for the healthy members of the community who resent their illness as if it were a personal insult to those who have to support them. It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over. In those dying eyes there is a submissive appeal for forgiveness and also, often, a desperate plea for consolation which is lost to the void, just as their body will soon be lost in the magnitude of mystery surrounding us.Or a Chilean couple, who couldn't find a decent job and were forced to live a pitiful existence, because they were members of the banned communist party:
There we made friends with a married couple, Chilean workers who were communists. By the light of the single candle illuminating us, drinking mate and eating a piece of bread and cheese, the man's shrunken figure carried a mysterious, tragic air. In his simple and expressive language he recounted his three months in prison, and told us about his starving wife who stood by him with exemplary loyalty, his children left in the care of a kindly neighbor, his fruitless pilgrimage in search of work and his compañeros, mysteriously disappeared and said to be somewhere at the bottom of the sea.The starving man is willing to share his frugal meal with the bums because "he, too, is a tramp." As Che says, he probably didn't understand what communism meant: but he could understand the slogan, "bread for the poor"!
The couple, numb with cold, huddling against each other in the desert night, were a living representation of the proletariat in any part of the world. They had not one single miserable blanket to cover themselves with, so we gave them one of ours and Alberto and I wrapped the other around us as best we could. It was one of the coldest times in my life, but also one which made me feel a little more brotherly toward this strange, for me anyway, human species.
By the time they reach Cuzco and Machu Picchu in Peru, Guevara has become acutely conscious of the rich Indian past of the continent, which the Spanish conquistadors destroyed mercilessly. However, he says that the hybrid culture that the mixing of the invaders with the indigenous people created was not like the insular one of North America, with the natives totally segregated and marginalised: Latin America was one nation, one people, even though separated into different countries through arbitrarily drawn boundaries. When Che talks of a defeated people who live on when there is nothing to live for, just because "living has become a habit", we understand the depth of compassion which kindled the fire within.
Read this book to understand the making of a revolutionary.
December 28, 2017
3.5-4 stars
Really interesting, and it actually reads like the diary it is. Took longer than I expected to get through all of it, but that's okay -- sometimes Che would meander off and wax philosophical here and there and then get back to what he'd started talking about, but that's how diaries go: personal thoughts. I was a bit perplexed by the idea that Che and Alberto made it through 2/3 of their journey with next to no money and basically existed on the hospitality of strangers. Perplexing most likely because I don't think it's something anyone could do in the US in 2017, but that's one of the differences between the US in 2017 and South America in the 1950s. Beyond that, his compassion and intelligence shines on the page, and because it's a diary you really feel how upset he is to see people living in squalor and without proper care. His speech toward the end of the book feels so heartfelt and passionate. I also liked the bookends of prologue and epilogue written by Che's father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch.
Sidenote: traveling through Peru, Brazil, etc and running across names like Manaus and Iquitos gave me flashbacks to the old Amazon Trail game. Gonna go play some. Bye!
Really interesting, and it actually reads like the diary it is. Took longer than I expected to get through all of it, but that's okay -- sometimes Che would meander off and wax philosophical here and there and then get back to what he'd started talking about, but that's how diaries go: personal thoughts. I was a bit perplexed by the idea that Che and Alberto made it through 2/3 of their journey with next to no money and basically existed on the hospitality of strangers. Perplexing most likely because I don't think it's something anyone could do in the US in 2017, but that's one of the differences between the US in 2017 and South America in the 1950s. Beyond that, his compassion and intelligence shines on the page, and because it's a diary you really feel how upset he is to see people living in squalor and without proper care. His speech toward the end of the book feels so heartfelt and passionate. I also liked the bookends of prologue and epilogue written by Che's father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch.
Sidenote: traveling through Peru, Brazil, etc and running across names like Manaus and Iquitos gave me flashbacks to the old Amazon Trail game. Gonna go play some. Bye!
November 7, 2015
تا حالا نشده بود از خوندن بدبختی های یه نفر انقدر لذت ببرم و بخندم، خاطرات سفر هشت ماهه ارنستو و دوستش آلبرتو به کشورهای امریکای جنوبی از مردم میگه، از مشکلات سفر میگه، از بی پولی میگه ولی سرشار از حس آزادیه، سرشار از حس زندگیه، حتی آدم رو ترغیب میکنه که خونه به دوشی و سفر این مدلی رو تجربه کنه.
"ما هنوز زنده بودیم و در متن حادثه زندگی حضور داشتیم، همین برای ما کافی بود. بین میلیاردها احتمال نبودن، قرعه بودن به نام ما افتاده بود"
"ما هنوز زنده بودیم و در متن حادثه زندگی حضور داشتیم، همین برای ما کافی بود. بین میلیاردها احتمال نبودن، قرعه بودن به نام ما افتاده بود"
November 20, 2021
The Motorcycle Diaries is a memoir of the revolutionary Marxist Ernesto Che Guevara, before his days of revolution and violence, as he travels across Latin America in his motorbike with his friend, Alberto Granado.
The book is like a coming-of-age story, a story of self-realisation as well as political realisation. It didn't really move me to my core, but it was still interesting to see the world through his eyes; the poverty, the injustice, the discrimination that people suffered from.
The book is like a coming-of-age story, a story of self-realisation as well as political realisation. It didn't really move me to my core, but it was still interesting to see the world through his eyes; the poverty, the injustice, the discrimination that people suffered from.
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