The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey around South America - Ernesto ('Che') Guevara

The account of two Argentinian travellers exploring South America on a disaster prone motorbike is, I believe, interesting in itself, even if you don't know anything about Che Guevara. If this is the case, I'd suggest you either go and find out, or read this book first and see what you think of him before looking at the rest of the review, because I'm interested to know what sort of impression people get from it before they find out anything else about him. I haven't figured out where this review is going yet (as with the last three...) so please excuse me.

Guevara, a 23 year old medical student, leaves Buenos Aires on their motorcycle, 'La Poderosa II', in January of 1952 with his friend Alberto Granado, and returns home in September of that year minus both friend and bike. They pass through Chile, where the people are incredibly friendly, and Peru, where they get through a lot of sightseeing; then Colombia, and Venezuela. In this edition, at least, letters from Che Guevara to his parents are interspersed with his diary entries. I get the impression that these have been altered for publication, and of course it's inevitable that the translation isn't as direct as the original, but the entries are very readable - they're written with a sense of humour, and apparent honesty; Guevara doesn't hold back in telling of how they used their positions as 'doctors' to cadge meals or few nights' accomodation at the local hospitals, getting drunk and having to escape an enraged husband, their 'anniversary routine' - I hope you'll appreciate this so I'm putting it in:

"1. One of us says something in a loud voice immediately identifying us as Argentine, something with a che in it and other typical expressions and pronunciation. The victim asks where we're from and we strike up a conversation.

2. We begin our tale of woe but don't make too much of it, all the while staring into the distance.

3. Then I butt in and ask what the date is. Someone says it and Alberto sighs and says: 'What a coincidence, it was exactly a year ago.' The victim asks what was a year ago, and we reply that was when we started out on our trip.

4. Alberto, who is much more brazen than me, then heaves a tremendous sigh and says, 'Shame we're in such dire straits, we won't be able to celebrate' (he says this as a kind of aside to me). The victim immediately offers to pay, we pretend to refuse for a while saying we can't possibly pay him back, etc., then we finally accept.

5. After the first drink, I adamantly refuse another and Alberto makes fun of me. Our host gets annoyed and insists, I keep refusing but won't say why. The victim keeps asking until I confess, rather shamefacedly, that in Argentina it's the custom to eat when we drink. Just how much we eat depends on what we think we can get away with, but the technique never fails."

- Ernesto Che Guevara, 1995. The Motorcycle Diaries. 'Our hopes are dashed', p115-116. Verso: London.

Please excuse the rather long quotation and the referencing :P This is only one of the many things they come up with - a Kiwi OE seems so dull by comparison. An excellent thing about Che Guevara's writing is how ordinarily he treats his adventures (I'm not sure if this is what he actually thought - perhaps this is completely normal behaviour for South American guys in the 1950s - or if it's just a feature of his writing style); he doesn't try to excuse their actions, and writes very casually about recurrent asthma attacks, or about swimming across the Amazon to visit a leper colony.

You may have seen the film of The Motorcycle Diaries - it's good, although in some ways I think the book does more justice to the characters, being a first hand account. However, the movie does emphasise a lot of the material that Che Guevara downplays, for example the way they deal with the patients in the leper colony (normally, compared the way they're treated by the doctors and nuns), and works well in combination with the book.

Che Guevara's developing political and social views also come across to an extent - in his birthday speech at the leper colony, where he talks about a united South American identity, or when he writes of meeting a Communist couple in Chile '..what had burgeoned in him [the husband] was nothing more than the natural desire for a better life...' and the treatment of workers at a Chilean copper mine. He tells his mother about staying in a hospital in Colombia - '...by which I mean a chair to spend the night in. We aren't all that broke, but explorers of our stature would rather die than pay for the bourgeois comfort of a hostel.' Comments like these might not be entirely noticeable, though, unless you know more about his later life.

Well, I apologise profusely for the quality of the review, and all I can say now is that I strongly recommend you read this book (and watch the film), because they're humorous/entertaining, and thought-provoking; if you don't know much about South America they're also informative, and give an insight into the development of (I think) the world's most influential socialist revolutionary.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressel

(I wrote this review last year, so my opinions might have changed, but thought this might be relevant to the one I just did of Mary Barton).

It's a book by a guy writing under the name of Robert Tressel, and an excellent insight into socialism in early 1900s Britain. It seemed a bit simplified to me at first but after reading the introduction I must admit I missed some points. Perhaps it's not as relevant to present day New Zealand but the reasoning is still the same, and the situation is very similar in a lot of countries which still seem trapped in the industrial revolution.

The story follows a group of workmen and their families for over a year, showing the problems they're facing; and also the scheming of the bourgeoisie to exploit their employees as much as possible (names like Adam Sweater and Mrs Starvem help to overstate the point a little). Like Gaskell in Mary Barton, Tressel emphasies the suffering of the workers One of the workers, Frank Owen, turns out to be a socialist, and gives several 'lectures' to the others - telling them that they are being exploited, explaining how they're being exploited - and is generally ridiculed for it. Clearly the author was (naturally) furious with the entire system. The amount of repetition regarding this seems unnecessary, but does make the book an excellent 'beginner's guide to socialism' (from my limited knowledge of the subject).

There is also an emphasis on the frustration felt by Owen at the lack of understanding shown by the workers (the novel is based on his own experiences) - and while I can't find any specific article to back me up on this (and could be completely wrong), I think this is related to Gramsci's idea of hegemony (relying on what I recall from proofreading my sister's essay), so it appears to have been observed and documented before Gramsci (but only recognised as social control - nothing so elaborate as his theories about hegemony).

It's interesting to note that while reading the book, I somehow got the impression that the author had never actually been one of the workers he was writing about, but I was completely wrong. The person who wrote the introduction also got this impression on first reading. It's possibly to do with the somewhat derogatory tone taken towards most of the characters - including the workers - for perpetuating and believing in the system.

The life of the author is also interesting, and relevant, but something you'll find out about if you do read the book (or an introduction). In my opinion the prose wasn't particularly good, and the ideas were repeated too often - at times too sarcastic for a modern reader? but it's definitely worth the time all the same.

Before I forget: the 'ragged trousered philanthropists' are the workmen - philanthropists, because they're willing to sacrifice their - and their families' - necessities, working in unhealthy conditions for a pittance, and content to be exploited for the comfort of their 'masters'. (Ragged Trousered is pretty self explanatory).

Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell

Mary Barton is another of those mid-19th century novels about the working class in industrial Britain. It is apparently one of the earliest novels of this sort, and may be worth reading for that reason alone. I'm not sure that all of you will have the patience for the melodrama, and this style of writing, but if you do it's an interesting book. The story follows Mary, her father John, their family friends and her suitors, through a simple enough plot involving a murder and subsequent trial (and some remarkable coincidences, of course). Compared to authors such as Thomas Hardy, Gaskell avoids the idealisation of working class life - in fact, she emphasises the hardships - but a strong religious element rather blunts the effect, and I expect that people with more Marxist views will disagree with her beliefs.

My political science lecturer pointed out in one of our classes that people who lead revolutions (at least the 'People's Revolutions' kind) tend to be well off - not the people that the revolutions are meant to help. This could be extended to say that authors of books protesting the 'condition of the working class' are also generally middle class and comparatively wealthy, which is interesting - hypocritical, perhaps? (Maybe this isn't the right place for that particular discussion...) Anyway, when I first started reading Mary Barton I was expecting something similar, but found that Gaskell isn't protesting inequality as much as lamenting the consequences. Her view seems to be that, while class divisions are perfectly acceptable, the wealthy should, out of the kindness of their hearts, do as much as they can for the poor. When wages are cut, it is so that the factory owners can continue cheap production and therefore stay in business, which would be beneficial to the workers. Apparently the problem is that the working class doesn't understand this, and the industrialists don't know how much their workers are suffering. This bothered me throughout the novel, enough to make me want to throw things at Gaskell, but is one of the reasons that I'd recommend reading it (it's good to know what other people think, after all).

The original title was 'John Barton', because the story was meant to focus on Mary's father and his struggle (as a trades' unionist) against the industrialists of Manchester. However, the publisher required a name change - it's easy enough to see that Mary does end up playing the main role, whatever Gaskell's intentions were. The story of Mary's two love interests (the son of a factory owner, and her childhood friend, who is a factory worker) is meant to link back to the theme of 'the suffering of the poor', and the activities of the more radical trades unionists, but in many aspects manages to detract from it. Nevertheless it's important to keep this in mind while reading the book, because John Barton makes some interesting decisions in his frustration with the industrialists, which are significant in the themes, not just as a plot device.

Another point of interest is the way the lives of the characters are described. The first few chapters, in particular, are quite readable, showing the friendships between the characters - I felt that this was later sacrificed to the plot, but at least there was something to think back fondly on while mentally throwing things at the author. The religious element surfaces most strongly at the end of the novel, with deathbed confessions and redemptions and whatnot (Gaskell was married to a minister, after all) and was another annoying feature. However, the views expressed in the novel are might be quite liberal for Victorian England (alright, so she 'redeems' the prostitute, but never condemns her in the first place).

It doesn't look like I have that many good things to say about Mary Barton but it's worth reading for a different opinion, however frustrating it may be, and I don't think any of you will have trouble with the actual writing style, and it's less than 400 pages which isn't much compared to some of the massive tomes I see you lot with. I can't say that you'll enjoy it, but hopefully it'll make you think.