Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara ; The Final Post!

Summary: At this point in the novel, Che’s life is coming to an end. It’s sad to read how his life was taken away from him, and must have been a struggle for his children’s and family. Not did his death affect those who knew him well, but it affected the nation of the Cuban citizens. Many Cuban’s were supporters of the Cuban revolution, and were strong believers of the work that Fidel and Che did for the country. In the final section of the novel which I read, the setting took place in Bolivia. He was trying to start a revolution against the Bolivian government, very similar to what Fidel and the guerilleros did in Cuba. Che struggled with the revolution as many of the guerilla groups were captured by the Bolivian army. As I read I found this very frustrating. Che, as a great man that he was and the many things he did for many people, I hoped that he would be as successful as he was in Cuba. The diaries in this portion of the book were far more apart from each other. In earlier events in the novel, Che wrote more frequently, but in these last few pages, it seemed that he wrote monthly at times. The final passage that Che would come to write was on October 7, 1967, two days before he was captured by the Bolivian government and murdered.

Quotation: "The current was so strong he [Benjamin] was deagged away as he tried to gain his footing; we ran to sae him, but as we were taking off our clothes, he disappeared under the water... After five minutes we gave up home" (Guevara 127-28).

Reaction: One of the guerilla men had fallen in a river, at it made it hard for the crew to save him. As described in the quote, the current was too powerful to try to strife. At a point the crew just gave up home, because it became nearly impossible to save their fellow men’s life. This quote showed the danger that the guerilla army faced, especially when traveling near the Río Grande, which was indeed the river that Benjamin fell into though it was not mentioned in the quote. The narration that Che gave in the last few pages on the novel was different from the previous pages. In the section that I read recently he sometimes referred to himself in third person. For example when Che was referring to a medic he said, “El Médico [Ernesto] arrived with news that Monje was there” (Guevara 124). In translation, médico means medic in English. This change in narration took me nearly reading the page over nearly 3 times to pick up on the fact that he had switched his narration momentarily. The denouement of the novel occurs with some of the farewells that Che wrote to the individuals that had a great impact on his life nearly2 years before his death. These farewells consisted of writings to Fidel Castro, to his parents, and his children: Hildita, Aleidita, Camilo, and Ernesto.