14 Aug 08 The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

A light hearted travel journal, that gives the reader few inklings into the why and how of Guevara’s transformation into ‘Che’ the famed revolutionary.

The motorcycle breaks down half way through and has to be abandoned, the rest of the travel is continued mostly through hitch hiking. Guevara, and Alberto Granado set off on Granado’s ramshackle 500 cc Norton, optimistically named La Poderosa, embarking on a series of adventures and misadventures that take them, and the reader, across Latin America, into Inca headquarters, and inside a lepers’ colony.

The diary starts off with a rather monotonous litany of places visited. Guevara spends less of himself in describing what he sees, whom he meets, and more on what is the fastest way to get out of here. Seems rather pointless and not a little parasitic to the reader.

The history of the Inca civilization, however, resonates with a depth of feeling inspite of the pompous verbosity. The leper’s colony similarly touches the reader’s heart. Few of the other places catch the reader’s imagination. The pair’s habit of scrounging off other hard working bourgeois while at the same time claiming kinship to the simpler classes would have smacked of hypocrisy had not Guevara redeemed himself by living, and prematurely dying, for his beliefs. The young Geuvara’s dreams and plans for the future are made more poignant by the knowledge of his untimely fate.

Overall, this is a simple travel diary, not a polished travelogue by a professional author, with understandable lapses in the writing. Also, contrary to the reader’s expectation, this book does not provide any miraculous insight into what transforms a young student into a legendary revolutionary.