Avail Yourself Chasing Che Developed By Patrick Symmes Available As Audiobook

Symme's Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey In Search Of The Guevara Legend
In Chasing Che, author Patrick Symmes attempts to replicate the adventure of Che Guevara's book Motorcycle Diaries in search of a valuable truth: Understanding Che Guevara for what he really was and is still today by separating the legend from the man.
The writing is entertaining, thoughtful and likeable,

If you've read my novel Blue Rubber Pool, you know I'm fascinated by these Two Truths, Why Because Che once said that "that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love, " Yet he also exulted “hatred as an element of the struggle”, Hatred, he believed, was necessary to creating “violent, selective and cold killing machines.
"

With Che, it was his way or the highway,

If you joined his ranks for the love of the cause but then balked on the battle field, he'd put a bullet in your head without hesitation.


As a result, Symmes points out, proChe slogans such as "Be Like Che"are commonly found as graffiti throughout Central America, existing concurrent with intense distaste for "Guevarista"style guerrilla tactics.


The moral of the story: Be Like Che by helping people, But without killing them to do so,

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which has reignited my passion for South America, In the description of the Dirty War I found links to Threads of Life, a wonderful book about embroidery by Clare Hunter, as well as The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernieres my favourite book.
I think the combination of travel writing, history and interviews works really well and prevented me from feeling bored I even enjoyed reading about fishing and motorbikes, which are not areas of interest to me.


This is the first book in a long time where I've felt sad about finishing it, and it's also the first book this year to earn a permanent spot on my bookshelf.
This is a wellwritten book, I read it first because it is an "ontheroad" and "motorcyclediaries" book combining myfavourite shelves, As road tale it stands alone on it's merits, Lots of adventure and mishappery, over interesting geography and described with a pro's skill,

His travels were driven by the focus of Che's original wanderingboth literally and figuratively, I understand that Symmes had made a name on Latin American politics by he had clearly done quite a bit of Che/Granado research to prepare for the trek.
On the route, he was tenacious at ferreting out the people and places on his hidden hit list for the trip, He knit his contemporary events, and personal political ruminations with the landmarks, events etc, from the Che/Granado diaries of the original,
The bonehead who opined here on Goodreads, that "Patrick Symmes fails to intertwine his story with Che's and thus recounts two parallel stories.
" is just plain wrong.

Most of the Symmes effort I found interesting and entertaining, even though I didn't always agree, I found his explorations of the political contexts also interesting, and he seemed genuinely trying to explore how this landscape and it's peoples transformed Ernesto into Che.
I didn't feel he was trying to ram his or any view at the reader,
" his cynicism and selfimportance get in the way of his mission and grate on the reader, " from another silly commenter is unfair,

I did feel that his political cynicism comes from an overtly American perspective and my cynicism comes from a decidedly different angle: Canadian.
To me it was most evident in the final pages of the book where he is in Cuba for the repatriation of Che's bones.
His Yankeecentric amusement with the obvious contradictions of modern Cuban politics is especially amusing to me as I read these passages on theth anniversary of that day in New York, amid all the many contradictory messages emanating out of America.


sitelinkPatrick Symmes shipped a motorcycle to Argentina and set out to follow the motorcycle trip that Che Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado took around South America in.
Symmes had packed in his saddle bags published and edited copies of the diaries that both men kept on their trip, This was the trip that supposedly put Guevara on the path to becoming a Marxist revolutionary,
Symmes aim was to end the trip by also visiting the town in Bolivia where they were excavating in search of Guevara's body.

The book is an interesting travelogue of what Symmes saw, experienced and people he met along the way, He also adds bits of South American historyancient andth century, He speculates why Guevara has become a symbol inspite of his history of killings and his ineffectiveness in other attempted revolutions after Castro's Cuban revolution.

Everyone has heard the popular phrase, “Never judge a person until youve walked a mile in their shoes, ” Well, many people throughout history have judged those gone before us, especially those who went on to change the course of history.
Ernesto Che Guevara Jr. was one of those people, After growing up in Argentina, he took a soontobefamous motorcycle journey with his friend and compatriot, Alberto Granado, into the deep plains and undeveloped areas of Latin America.
During that journey he witnesses abject poverty and suffering of the indigenous people, By the time he returned, seeds of political and revolutionary discourse were germinating in his soul and they would very soon sprout and give rise to the man everyone came to know only as Che.
Even years after his execution by a oneman firing squad, scholars and modernday revolutionaries alike have attempted to explain and understand who the man was, but very few of them remembered that famous parable above, and those who did remember, didnt take it to heart like Patrick Symmes.


Chasing Che is a documentary tale of travel, both physical and intellectual, that follows Symmes as he saddles up on his own motorcycle one a little more modern than Granados jalopy and attempts to follow the exact route those two fellow travelers ventured upon so many years before.
Symmes even attempts to limit any and all creature comforts to match whatever Ernesto and Alberto had during their original journey, There are new obstacles, to be sure, and detours must be made, but when they do arise, Symmes rolls with the punches and finds himself transformed into the same roadweathered traveler he is following years behind.


There are many great qualities about this travel journal, but foremost among those is Symmes dedication to the quest, At numerous points he could have taken a lighter path, called for more help or equipment or turned back towards more friendly locales, but he continually pushed through in search of the same physical places and people that Guevara and Granado touched on their way through.
On more than one occasion, Symmes found himself in conversations of broken Spanish with heavily armed men some government soldiers, while others were guerrilla warriors still trying to live out some of the mantras Che left behind.
One wrong move couldve landed him in a South American jail or worse, “disappeared” like many opponents of the various controlling regimes.
Yet, I believe his

saving grace through this was he not going after an ideology, he was going after a man, He made no proposition to learn, live and spread the teachings of Che, Instead what he was after was the true history of the man, good or evil, who would later become Che and change the face of global politics.
That objectivity and balance allowed him access through gates many others would have failed to pass,

Two things struck me during the book, First, Symmes continually mentioned the inherent charity of the indigenous people with whom he crossed paths, Time after time he would ride up on his motorcycle, kill the engine a good distance away from a small shanty home and clap his hands twice to signal that he was friendly and approaching the house.
He would almost always find the family willing to give him a small piece of floor to sleep on, or at the very least against the side of the house, and possibly food if they had enough to spread around.
The following mornings, many of his newfound landlords would refuse to accept payment, just seeming like it was their duty to help fellow travelers which many of them are as well considering the great distances between villages and homes.
Secondly, Symmes went in the end of his journey to the source, at least, one of the sources Alberto Granado, Still living reasonably off his notoriety as Ches wandering partner, Granado granted an illuminating interview and insight into those dusty days on the trail.
Symmes had both of Granados and Guevaras original diaries from the trip and he pointed out many of the disparate descriptions of places and actions between them, one moment standing out in particular where Granado and Guevara both credit the other for the heroic rescue of a small kitten.
What came from that discovery was that the journey represented different transformations for each traveler, As for the kitten, Granado admitted to laying the heroic banner on Che because he was the one destined for it,

Another factor I found interesting is Symmes was on his travels during the exact same time the government and others were in a desperate search to exhume Ches body from the hidden dumping ground the Bolivian soldiers left him in.
Another writer, Jon Lee Anderson wrote a book entitled, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life which I have also read and highly recommend, and in his research for that book he interviewed and received confessions from the very people responsible for hiding Ches body.
It had been many years since the action, so the location information was not entirely specific, but both books ended up tying together in the same place and moment, which made for even more interesting reading.


For those interested in learning more about the man behind the mythology and who that is staring back from the hipsters tshirts and messenger bags, you could do far worse than starting here.
As I said earlier, Andersons book is another great find, but a much thicker and indepth read, Perfect book to read while on a road trip through Patagonia and after reading Motorcycle Diaries, Symmes, Che and I drove almost exactly the same route trough South America though I went further south and Che went further east into Venezuela and Symmes, batting clean up after Che came though, recounts the social changes in Argentina, Chile, Peru and Bolivia that were the result or were influenced by Che and other socialist/leftist revolutions in the middle of theth century.
Symmes does a great job describing the history and providing a lens through which to understand the current social structure and conditions of the countries he visits.
I don't think I've ever said these words here, but I highly recommend this book for anyone who is planning a trip to South America.
Fortunately for the people in the countries described, the social unrest, revolts and instability has largely gone the way of extreme leftist politics, but the echo is there.
And you can't understand the echo without understanding from whence it came, .