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Bob Pickett treads the revolutionary trail by bike with "The Motorcycle Diaries" by Che Guevara

Click here for more info or to order this book Che Guevara - revolutionary, icon, rebel - take your pick. If you were a student in the 1960's and 1970's, his was THE poster to have to cover up that nasty wet patch on your bedroom wall in the cheap digs that the landlady never got round to sorting out.

But who was the real Che Guevara? And what made him battle for his beliefs in Cuba, Bolivia and the Belgian Congo, finally dying during one of his idealistic campaigns? "The Motorcycle Diaries" seemed like a good way to get a feel for the young Che and glean what forces shaped the man.

Extremely intelligent (he qualified as a Doctor in three years - at that time the course normally took six), Guevara and his companion Alberto Granado decided to take a year off before entering into full-time employment. The aim? To travel around South America on a 500cc Norton, named "La Poderosa" (literally 'The Powerful One').

The route would take in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela - a truly ambitious task given that Guevara's previous experience was 4,000 miles around Argentina on a moped and neither man appeared to have much experience on large-capacity bikes.

The book is actually a collection of letters from Guevara to his mother during this journey.

Lets get something straight from the outset; this really isn't a tale of derring-do on a motorcycle - the bike finally gives up the ghost shortly before page 50, just under a third of the way through the book.

After this, the two could have given up but they pushed on by whatever means they could afford or blag - and in some ways the book actually picks up from here. Once the early-established pattern of "We rode for a while, we fell off" is out of the way, the two men have to rely on charm, wit, intelligence and the kindness of strangers to carry on with their venture - all of which appeared to have been in plentiful supply.

The book is a mixture of the hilarious (the tale of dysentry, a top floor room, a sloped roof and some tomatoes drying in the sun is gross, but hysterical) and the tragic (Guevara's distress at the appalling working conditions and the truly foul treatment of the miners is tear-jerking).

At times the narrative does ramble and you wonder where the book is going next (no pun intended). Overall, the book achieves the aim of letting you into the world of the young Guevara and giving some idea of why he gave up what would have been a good, rewarding and comfortable life to take to the revolutionary trail.

Praise must be given to Ann Wright, the translator. She has clearly worked long and hard to keep the feeling, despite the translation into English - it is all too easy to lose the emotive in a translation, but she manages to convey the feelings of the narrator.

If you are looking for a tale of bike riding and the open road - do NOT buy this book. You would be better off with something like Good Vibrations by Tom Cunliffe. But if you want to learn more about what shaped a man referred to by no less than Jean Paul Satre as "One of the most complete human beings of our age", then this book is a good place to start.

Interested? Then click here for more info or to order this book

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