BOLIVIAN DIARY by Ernesto Che Guevara

I made a good choice in skipping the foreword of this book, as it totally and utterly gives away the ending.

Unfortunately, so did the back…

On the whole though, it’s probably a good idea to read a foreword before ploughing into someone’s real-life diary. Che’s daily notes on who’s done what and where they’re going are thoroughly confusing, because it’s just not written to make sense to anyone but himself. We’re not introduced to these protagonists, and neither is their overall objective clearly set out at the beginning. As a result, one gets the impression that they were just wandering fairly aimlessly in the jungle for a long time, without much plan other than to hope that this would somehow cause a revolution to take place.

The irony is that, in reading the foreword afterwards, I discovered that this actually was the plan.

While Che’s motives come across as fine, his plan to hopefully start a war makes it hard to cheer him on, but reading his daily hassles against such colossal odds inevitably make one want him to succeed. But then you get stuff like:

”…this type of struggle gives us the opportunity to turn ourselves into revolutionaries, the highest state of the human species…”

Okay.

But for all that, it is extraordinary. Assuming that it is true, it’s real. And for that alone you can’t help but feel when real people die on these pages.