The Motorcycle Diaries

I just now finished reading motorcycle diaries by Che Guevara. The book is more of a diary of Che during his travel across Latin America.

I expected the book to be more about Che, how he became the revolutionary, what influenced him to move away from his profession . Well, the book just falls short of that. There are 3 or 4 pages in the end which talks about the revolutionary Che. It is more like a speech Che is making to the general audience than the transformation. I think i had wrong expectations about the book, but if you treat the book as a travel diary, it is an interesting read.

It gives a brief account of the life and culture in Latin America. It throws in some history of the land as well. The interesting bit about the book it never compares each country with Argentina (Che's home) or to any of the previous countries visited. There are fleeting comparison on the economic drivers, dress and the language. The regions visited were poorer, the mines were a typical owners exploiting the locals. Che is moved by all these, but at any point there is no connect between things that moved him across regions. There is an instance in the book were a couple talk about communism, but there is no build-on after that. He comes across a rebels planing a strike but he keeps away from it. It is more of taking things the way they come and hardly any contemplation thereafter.

What i feel is Che observed the pain of the people during his tour but there was something in the later part of his life which changed him and his attitude towards the way he saw life and the people. And his previous observation of the people in Latin America got new meanings which might have strengthened the cause he believed in and probably fuelled the revolutionary che became.

More insights into this change in nature and the new interpretation about the life in Latin America will be useful and will be very handy to understand one of the greatest revolutionaries of the century.