Hasta La Vista, Che!

“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”~Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

After a few months, and the occasional setting-aside of the text in the interest of more "required" reading, I finally completed Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by John Lee Anderson. At 832 pages, this is by far the longest book I have read since The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, in college, and during the past three months completing it had become a literary mountain I had become obsessed to scale than simply an interesting biography of interest.

It took me a while to work through the dense historical background and detail provided by the author, much of which was alien to me at the onset. Like most (I suspect), Che had been little more than a pre-supposed icon who's look at been consciously duplicated by celebrity fashionistas like Johnny Depp.

Of course regardless of how you come down on his politics (and the book really doesn't attempt to convince the reader one way or another), Ernesto was much more than an icon. As "john R>" noted in his review on Goodreads.com: The book captures the true Che, A guy from the elite circles who crossed over to the bad side of town and never fit in anywhere.

My own online commentary seemed to align with those of other who have taken on Che:

A meticulously researched and (seemingly) unbiased account of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara from birth to death. This book seeks neither to anoint Che as a savior or demystify him as a villain, but rather to synthesize and present exhaustive research from the man's own writings, as well as, interviews with those who knew him. An amazing look at a regular man around whom a mythos grew and persists to this day...

Given the passion with which Che lived (and ultimately died in the jungle of Bolivia) it is not difficult to see why his experiences (as defined by those who sought to mythologize him) continue to be so attractive to those whose own affluence provide personal comfort to seek to use a critical eye on the way others choose to utilize their wealth on self-interest... there is something innately attractive about appearing to "care," especially when one is not in a position to need to (for example the wealthy, upper/middle class college student taking up the cause of poverty, when in the end they really have little to worry about when it comes to their next meal) which seems to be one criticism levied against Che.

In the end though, at the very least, Che lived his cause fully, choosing in the end not to stay on the sideline and considering doing so only when it became clear his journey was near an end.

Embrassez votre été invincible!