The Motorcycle Diaries

I finished reading The Motorcycle Diaries yesterday. The book consists of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's diary entries as he and his friend Alberto Granado travel the length of the South American continent. Guevara is pursuing his studies in medicine when he and Granado decide to undertake the journey. Their planned mode of transport is their rickety old Norton motorcycle which they fondly call 'La Poderosa' (The Mighty One). They soon discover that the journey is tougher than they had imagined, with the bike skidding and crashing at every possible opportunity on the inhospitable roads before being totally destroyed in a crash. Their main concern soon shifts to somehow finding the next meal, some shelter to spend the next night, and to hitch a ride on a truck or a boat.

The impact the journey makes on Ernesto Guevara is gradual, but profound. In one instance, he is called upon to provide medical aid to an old woman. He discovers that she is going to die soon, as she cannot afford medical treatment. Speaking of those who, because of their poverty, cannot spend their final days with dignity, Guevara writes:

"It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over. In those dying eyes there is a submissive appeal for forgiveness and also, often, a desperate plea for consolation which is lost to the void, just as their body will soon be lost in the magnitude of mystery surrounding us."

Guevara and Granado meet a couple who are social outcasts because of their affiliation to a communist party. They learn that the couple is traveling to the copper mines of Chuquicamata where the environment is so hazardous, that any willing worker - even a communist - may find work. On visiting the mine, Guevara writes his feelings:

"Cold efficiency and impotent resentment go hand in hand in the big mine, linked in spite of the hatred by the common necessity to live, on the one hand, and to speculate on the other... we will see whether one day, some miner will take up his pick in pleasure and go and poison his lungs with a conscious joy. They say that's what it's like over there, where the red blaze that now lights up the world comes from. So they say. I don't know."

On the boat to Iquitos, Guevara and Granado bargain with the authorities, and get to travel first class while paying for third. Guevara finds that he cannot identify with the facade of dignity of the people in first class. About the arrogance and ignorance of the upper classes of society, Guevara writes:

"Although the food is better in first class and the threat from mosquitoes less vicious, I'm not sure what we won in the bargain. We are drawn more to the simple sailors than to that small middle class which, whether rich or not, is too attached to the memory of what it once was to allow themselves the luxury of associating with two penniless travelers. They have the same crass ignorance as any other man, but the small victories they have achieved in life have gone to their heads, and their dull opinions are delivered with even more arrogance for the fact that they themselves have tendered them."

Guevara and Granado closely work with leprosy patients, and this experience too has a deep impact on Guevara.

Shortly after finishing the book, I also watched the movie which goes by the same name. The movie has largely done justice to the contents of the book. I found the movie much more moving than the book itself, probably because of the graphic manner in which situations can be depicted on screen.

I loved the book, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who is thinking of reading it. The entire book carries a very fresh, and a very youthful feeling. Also, I very strongly recommend the movie, irrespective of whether you've read the book, or are planning to read the book, or not.

The Fountainhead

I had read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead a while ago. It's one of the few works of fiction I've read, and I liked it. Ayn Rand's writing is as interesting as it is bitter... Here are a few quotations from The Fountainhead that I especially liked...

Dean: "Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?"
Howard Roark: "Yes."
Dean: "My dear fellow, who will let you?"
Howard Roark: "That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?"

Howard Roark to Peter Keating: "If you want my advice, Peter, you've made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?"

Dominique Francon: "Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don't ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul."

Kent Lansing: "When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is to do the most and contribute the most, has the least to say. It's taken for granted that he has no voice and the reasons he could offer are rejected in advance as prejudiced--since no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an idea. Though how in hell one passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his brain is more than I'll ever understand. However, that's how it's done."

Dominique Keating: "It's said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to kill his self-respect. But that's not true. Self-respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it."

Gail Wynand: "Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness."

Howard Roark: "And isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self."

Howard Roark: "The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power--that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He had lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement."