A few days ago I finished reading Jorge Castañeda's La vida en rojo una biografía de Ernesto el Che Guevara. It is an excellent account from a historical perspective, with much analysis and sharp criticism. It is a personally autographed copy, as I ran into the author recently, one week after I returned from México.
The other book I had finished reading a couple of weeks prior was by Paulo Coelho, and the title of the book is El Zahir, una novela de obsesión. An excellent book, full of that stuff which fills life, that creeps up one day and suddenly is a great void, and just as suddenly one gets a glimpse into what life is, what it can be, if only we surrendered to it. I really enjoyed this book. I can recommend this book, as well as others by the same author, like Once minutos, El alquimista, Manual de un Guerrero de la luz y otros. (estos mencionados he leído y disfrutado personalmente.)
Al terminar de leer el libro sobre el Che, saqué mi otro libro de biografía del Che, por el autor Jon Lee Anderson; empecé a comparar el relato, la prosa, la forma de contar la historia. El trabajo de Castañeda es más histórico, político, con un punto de vista latinoamericano que obviamente está ausente en el libro de Anderson. Aunque en realidad coinciden en muchas interpretaciones, claramente el trabajo de Castaña está más dirigido al serio estudiante de política e historia en América Latina que el otro, que mejor parece ser dirigido a casuales curiosos sobre el fenómeno cultural que se interpreta al Che.
Some time ago I had come upon the thesis that a number of really world-changing events had happened around the year 1967-1968, when the world had been waking up to a reality it did not like or accept, and started to make a change in their world. Many things came to a climax, or more likely exploded onto the global consciousness, with an irresistible call to action, in many different forms and contexts. It really is amazing.
It was around that time that I stumbled upon a book (at Shakespeare & Co. Broadway near Washington Place, in downtown New York), written by author Mark Kurlasnky, and whose title is 1968: The Year That Rocked The World. It turned out that my thesis is more correct that I thought (and also not really mine- not "just mine" anyway). Piecing together a large puzzle of a thousand pieces, is the only way I can describe my encounter with this book. Imagine suspecting what the puzzle would look like in the end, but still finding precious information in every little corner, information that if it doesn't fully belong in one's idea of the final picture, it certainly enhaces it by showing what it really is and what it is not.
Near the end of Castañeda's book, that larger theme appears, circling 1967, the year of Guevara's death, and events the world over coinciding in time. So I have taken out 1968 again and am reading it once more.
- More Info:
- ISBN: 0679759409, Author: Jorge Castañeda
Title: Companero : The Life and Death of Che Guevara (Paperback) - ISBN: 9681903455, Author: Jorge Castañeda
Title: La vida en rojo - ISBN: 0345455819, Author: Mark Kurlansky
Title: 1968: The Year That Rocked The World - ISBN: 0060831316, Author: Paulo Coelho
Title: El Zahir - ISBN: 0060591838, Author: Paulo Coelho
Title: Once Minutos - ISBN: 0060565713, Author Paulo Coelho
Title: Manual del Guerrero de la luz - Shakespeare & Co. in New York City: Their website in a new window