October 03, 2004

Chasing Che book review

Follow-up to The Motorcycle Diaries – book and movie review from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Title:
Rating:
5 out of 5 stars

This book makes a great companion to Ernesto Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries, and the current movie adapted from it. In fact I suspect that Patrick Symmes book was used to research the film, as I noticed several details in the movie from the book.

Chasing Che is a great work of research, investigating the journey made by Ernesto (Che) and Alberto. Symmes travelled along the same route, this time using a bike built for the journey (a BMW R80 G/S, which is a slightly older and smaller version of the R100 GS-PD that I ride). Not only does this journey help to make Ernesto's book more realistic, but also more concrete, as many of the places visited in the original journey are rediscovered. And of course the comparison between the Latin America of Ernesto's youth and that of today is of great significance.

Another great book by a GS rider, even if he does constantly describe his bike as "the ugly cockroach".


Robert O'Toole : 03 Oct 2004 09:09 |  Tags:       |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem

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  1. Folke in Sweden

    Great book – gives a new angle to the myth.
    I have myself seen some of the Argentinian landscape and local habits described so well in the by the author -makes me log to see also Chile and teh rest of Che´s itinerary.

    19 Oct 2004, 11:19

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