Customer Reviews

I, Che Guevara: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In Hollywood, they call it high concept. Here's the pitch: Che Guevara is not dead. Having escaped execution in Bolivia -- don't ask how -- he shows up back in Cuba 30 years later as Ernesto Blanco, just in time for Fidel Castro to abdicate in favor of free elections. Are you with me? Because there's a payoff here.

While the old Cuban communists run against the Miami exiles in a dead-on parody of American politics, Guevara/Blanco grabs the balance of power. Merely by sipping coffee (how '90s) in village plazas, the viejo leads a peaceful revolution as a Jeffersonian disciple who teaches radical democracy and falls in love (he's not that viejo) with a washed-up American TV personality.

OK, it's a stretch. A pretzel twist -- Che tramping the mountains preaching the gospel of T. Jefferson -- admits the author, John Blackthorn. But as the thrillers go, I, Che Guevara works on most levels. You turn the page. You learn the physical endowments of most of the female characters. Somebody shoots at somebody else (there is even a hot-blooded, curvaceous, ex-Marine, mob-connected hit woman). And, as an unexpected bonus, you get an insider look at the media, pollsters, political hacks and soft-as-George-W.'s-hands money.

And when you find out Blackthorn is actually a pseudonym for Gary Hart, the book works on a couple more levels. Is Che a stand-in for Hart, busily serving his own exile? It sounds like Hart, himself a Jeffersonian disciple, come down from his own mountain to offer the truth -- if people would only listen. Of course, Hart is not quite the iconic figure Che has become. For example, in Cuba today, you can get nail clippers with Che's likeness on them. Hart, meanwhile, is a mere footnote to the politics of personal destruction, a prequel to the Clinton drama.

Could I, Che Guevara be read as I, Gary Hart?

"There's no personal identification," Hart says laughing. He's calling from London and won't say quite what he's doing there. I like that. It's got a spy ring to it. Hart has been a semi-official emissary to Cuba for years, which is how he got the idea for the book. He used the pseudonym -- this is second Blackthorn/Cuba novel -- because he didn't want the Cubans to know he was writing about Cuba. But then, he says, it got to be too Primary Colors for him not to admit to being the author.

"I'll 'fess up to the philosophy, though," Hart says. "I've been working on the idea for a while -- whether Jefferson's ideas of radical democracy in republican form are applicable to the 21st century.

"I think it's possible. The two traditional ideologies don't have much persuasiveness, particularly among young people these days. We need some new alternative, beyond Clinton's Third Way. Something with intellectual content, with some serious political philosophy behind it."

You shouldn't get the idea that the book is heavy. It's as light as a book can be that uses Plato's Republic as a source.

"It's an entertainment," says Hart. "That's the exact word Graham Greene used. It's like what Sam Goldwyn said, 'You want a message in the movies, use Western Union.' Only today he'd have said to use e-mail. It just seemed natural to me that if you're going to have a book about a revolution, you have something of substance to say. I just put Jefferson in Che's mouth. It's not message writing. It's meant to be an interesting story."

With Elian Gonzalez dominating the news, it was certainly the right time for a Cuba story. Hart believes Elian should be returned to his father, but he takes the story further.

"Oddly," Hart says, "this might be a political blessing in disguise, by dividing Cuban-Americans on this issue. Many in the newer generation are saying, 'Don't use this boy to beat up on Fidel.' I've met with a number of them -- one or two in our law firm -- and they shake their heads in disbelief and embarrassment."

But the book is not only about Cuba. It's an easy boat ride back to the States, where Hart takes on the political process, including the, uh, media. Ask Hart if the relationship between politicians and the media has improved, he says, "I have a lifetime prohibition against talking about this. Whenever I talk about it, the lead paragraph is always Hart attacks the press."

And yet (note: in the 14th paragraph) he talks anyway: "It's probably gotten worse. But hopefully politicians will get their spines back and the system will correct. I see where (Bill) Bradley has even refused to say what his favorite color is. It's a slippery slope. If you say your favorite color, then it's what's your favorite cereal. Then it's how often do you change your socks?"

He's laughing, but if you want Hart's true feelings, look to the text. In an unintentionally (I'm guessing) hilarious scene, Che is reborn in order to offer his defense of, well, Gary Hart.

"Now, del norte, the new style is to assassinate them but leave them walking around," Guevara/Blanco lectures. "It has the advantage of being legal. No one pulls a trigger. No one fires a bullet. But someone is assassinated ... Unlike anywhere else in the world, if someone -- even a political enemy -- says that one of your your national leaders may have had a romance with some lady to whom he was not married, it is enough. He is finished. You call it a 'scandal.' He too is assassinated."

Of course, he can live again. All you have to do is buy the premise. And the book.

You can reach Mike Littwin at littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com.

This book has been an unexpected and special gift for me and has illuminated much of the social-political-economic realities here in the U.S. It is filled with details in the storyline that has helped me to identify the roots of my own cynicism and the deep personal and collective need to get out of it. Although the book started off slow, after awhile I couldn't put it down. Halfway through I learned the author was Gary Hart and my attention somehow intensified. In here is wisdom and a great assist to looking at what are the deeper purposes of life. Yesterday a friend told me about the Greens and directed me to Votenader.com. Suddenly I'm realizing there could well be a "true republic" movement going on around me and I'm needing to turn on. If you just want to get an intimate look at Cuba and the forces it has to contend with, pick up the book and read.

[The following is from a paper for a class. Thought I would post it anyway. hope its helpful]

John Blackthorn does an admirable job in taking two traditionally condemned ideas, Revolution and Anarchism, and applying them to his story in a way that makes us identify them for the positive things that they really are. We read as the venom of revolution to society is seeped out of the word and we are redirected to a new definition to the word. After reading the book revolution ceases to be the series of bloody encounters that it is associated with and becomes a concept of change, of reformation through thoughts. Similarly in his discussion of the revolutionary theme where he implants the concept of anarchism in the readers mind the author does an equally commendable job of painting a positive concept of anarchism. As opposed to the image of disorder that the word creates in people's imagination, blackthorn makes anarchism a mark of order and contentment. He presents it in a positive light, as it being the basis of 'our need not to need'. Hence I liked John Blackthorn's book, I Che Guavera, for this strong trait it holds.

The author shows a paradoxical writing in his work as he reveals traces of a non dictator in Fidel as opposed to the image of the tyrant he seeks to portray. Although the author's reference to the 'considerable anger' [of party members upon hearing about his decision to step down] that went 'unexpressed' (p.39) suggests fear in the party and therefore a dictatorship by Castro, the existence of a party by itself contradicts his implication. It draws our attention to the uncharacteristic nature of Cuba's dictatorship, if we call it so. The traditional trend of dictatorship, which includes disposing of the party, seems to be missing in this particular dictatorship. Hitler's Nazi party was only a medium through which he administered massive espionage and control over the people. Stalin communist party was the framework of the ladder he used to climb into power with and got cleaned up in the purges only a decade after his rise to power, whereas Mussolini's was a weapon that was used to create a picture of that so can an individual who retains a party for half a century, sits in a meeting where the same party discusses 'the future of Cuba in a way that didn't include him' (p.41) be really called a dictator? Hence I believe Blackthorn shows a strong weakness in painting a picture of a dictator that Fidel is supposed to be if his book is to have any weight in world politics.

Another flaw in the author's work is in his treatment of the communist party where he shows bias. By 'telling' us through the mouth of one of the party members about how the party was 'getting everybody to vote for it' (p.39) the author tries draw a picture of the state of the communist party in Cuba. However I found it hard to picture politicians sitting around in party meetings and openly 'laugh' about how they manipulate the public to get votes. I felt author's narration was biased in his own favor to create an atmosphere of simple mindedness that could not handle democracy, therefore strengthening his plot. These are people who managed to stay in power for close to 5 decades and according to historian Alan Bullock's theory power is only retained for so long by people with well structured intentions or intentionalists and not these simple minded individuals who gather in an office to disagree on party names and not ideologies. Furthermore as the theory goes when you carry a lie for so long you would forget that it is indeed a lie and hence I see the reality being one where these politicians no longer acknowledge their deceit after so long a time. So I find Blackthorn's use of chapter 7 to be a 'cheap' way of uncovering the truth about Castro's party.

Romanticism is another idea that I recognized in the book. The myth of Che that the Cuban people hold as of the only man who could save them is a demonstration of the romantic thinking that precedes the concept of hero's and heroic actions. Hence when Che makes an observation on the Cuban people and how they are 'longing for a hero'... 'they pray for someone to save them' we recognize elements of romanticism in the society. Ironically enough this observation by the author can also be made on the author. The fact that he had to resurrect a dead hero to help him his theme highlights his romanticism. As he chose to communicate his message through a dead man we realize that, most of the time, it is the messenger that matters and not the message. This is also exhibited in the way that the communist party in chapter 7 dwells on the name of the party for the reality is, due to romanticism, society idolizes the concept of heroes and institutions and the kind more than what they are really about.

Hatred for church is another concept that I recognized in the book and is another source of discussion in class. Powerful rival to the state, Che's expressed hatred of church (p.14) has a clear resemblance to that of 20th century dictators like Stalin and Lenin who openly disowned the Orthodox church and tried to replace it with their cult of personality, Hitler who moved the bible from the altar in the church and replace it with Mein Kampf and Mussolini who entered a concordat with the church to keep it out of his business. Hence in reading about Che's attitude towards the church we read about the forming of another dictator if ever he had wanted to assume formal power.

Gary Hart, alias John Blackthorn, makes a significant contribution to the world for his book is not merely an assessment of history but is a promoter of reflective thinking to any reader. It invites us to examine our stand in the world of the 'visionary' versus the 'practical', for if you are not a revolutionary you are a practical person. While reading his book I was able to examine my inner self and found that I am one who is often satisfied by the state of things, rarely advocating change and generally at the height of contentment. Gary Hart makes me an enemy of the Revolution, a reader who admires his book immensely but fails to identify herself with the Che's of the world. Yet!

I, Che Guevara

First off, in order to read this book you have to know who Che was and what he was about. So I think you should get Che by Jon Anderson, a biography of the revolutionary. It's what I did and with the marked irony of the covers, it also serves as a primer on the focus of the novel.

Then accept whole-heartedly that these are two entirely different books/perspectives/realities.

That said. I, Che is a good novel but if you know anything about Che it slowly degenerates strictly around his character. The premise is simple: Che ain't dead, there was a switch but Che has decided that his former way isn't working and he starts a socialist movement, eventually getting a democratic election in Cuba going after Fidel steps down.

This book is a Washington Establishment wet dream. Kind of like watching Rambo so that you can feel that you really did win in Vietnam. It further helps that the chief architect, Che turns against his former ideals and overthrows the country he helped to overthrow. From that perspective it comes off rather weak. But from the light of progressing Che as a person who changes his ideology to suit the world rather than demand that the world fit into his former ideology of socialism-Communism, the book works. But more than anything this book is about the power of the media in elections. Cuba becomes a petrie dish of socialism versus democracy and a hybrid of the two wins out. The book at its heart is idealistic on one hand and a blatant sucking up on the other. Che and Fidel never meet in the book, never have the fateful conversation that we're all waiting for so Che, this new Che remains the figure of glaring spotlight. The constant shuffling game of whether or not this is the real Che is silly after awhile and though this new Che tries to explain his evasiveness, it never quite goes over.

Now in comparison to the real Che. Merde. I hope the man is dead because if not Mr. Blackthorn better watch out, this book is a mockery of who and what Che (rightfully or wrongly) stood for. It goes against his character of rigid discipline and fanatical zeal for changing the world. It is a clever What if..? but it kind of borders on the taste level of ---"What if grandma had become a prostitute instead of marrying grandpa?" because in the end there is the taste that the new Che has prostituted himself in a slow, subversive way to the true ideals of the Republic from the writings of Thomas Jefferson. One of Che's adamant feelings was on slavery, neo or otherwise. This is an attempt to integrate Che into democracy through a man that Che would've seen as a bourgeois Yanqui. Che was all for killing the bourgeois Yanquis and there were quite a few public executions after the Cuban revolution where Che ordered or carried out the order to cleanse.

Nah, he wouldn't have gone to the other side so easily, so anonymously.
However this book is for an American audience, an audience that won't sit down with a great scholarly, biography in one hand and the fictionalized what if in the other. That would require shutting off the TV and having a thought or two. So I, Che finds its' way into bestseller-dom through American ignorance. Now that, both Che's would agree with.

Go get Che by Jon Anderson, a better, more gripping, visceral read. You won't always like the real Che but you will understand who he was.
Three stars.

John Blackthorn (AKA Gary Hart, one-time US presidential candidate) spins a compelling political fable. He uses Ernesto Blanco, a returned Che Guevara, to proclaim the principles of deep democracy and "The True Republic." In a contrived situation where Fidel has stepped down from power and the power-mongers of the Left and Right are scrapping over the spoils, Ernesto travels from village to village, speaking with people about taking the power back. Rather than an armed revolutionary struggle, Blanco proclaims a gospel of democratic ideals.

As far as suspense & thrill, this book is no Ludlum. But the simple, deep Democracy for which Blanco evangelizes is strangely compelling. Power belongs to the people. The local people can make better decisions about their needs than either centralized corporate power or centralized big government. Blackthorn has written the easy part of the story, a tale of an idea, spreading like wildfire through a fictional Cuba. Far more impressive would be a tale of this True Republic movement being implemented in these United States.

I began to feel that this wasn't a novel about Cuba or about Che Guevara, but rather that it was an attempt to stimulate political thought and dialogue. What have we, the American people done with our political power? We have become so absorbed in the trivialities of our daily lives that we have abandoned our power to whomever will take it-and those who have accepted political power have been no more trustworthy than Blackthorn's mafiosi or apparatchik. Blackthorn continuously reminds the reader that power belongs to "the people." It is only upon further consideration that the reader realizes that power does not belong to some other "people," political power belongs to the reader, but it has been abdicated for so long that now it must be struggled for.

The Cuban setting is well researched as are the statements of Ernesto Blanco (based on Che Guevarra's diaries). I give this book five stars for a being a great fable, four stars for entertainment value. Get it. Read it. Pass it on. And then, maybe, we'll get to see an Authentic Republic in these United States.

(If you'd like to dialogue further about this book, click the "about me" link above to drop me an email. Thanks!)

Why couldn't he be this brave and honest about U.S.-Cuba relations WHEN HE WAS IN THE SENATE AND COULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD?

I had been hoping "John Blackthorn" would turn out to be a Latin American author. That would explain the year-2000 delayed-release of a fantasy which is mostly set in 1999. That would explain the subjective, "magical realist" tone of the book, which was a giant relief from the objective, omniscient, slice-of-life, exposition-by-vignette narrative style of most Anglo-American thrillers. That would explain a determinedly un-cynical story which wears its idealism on its sleeve. That would explain the heroism and wisdom shown by the ordinary Cuban people, who are themselves the protagonists of the story.

(It would not explain an error in the very first scene, attributing tortillas and tamales to Cuban cuisine, an error which is never repeated again in the book. Was Hart trying to throw us off the trail, maybe make us think his book was written by a Mexican? Tortillas and tamales in Cuba--it's such an obvious error for one who has supposedly visited Cuba as an "emissary," you HAVE to believe it's some kind of clue!)

Knowing Gary Hart wrote this otherwise wonderful story just ruins everything. When Hart was in politics, making decisions that affected our lives, what did HE ever do to make his "true republic" a reality? This is kind of like Robert MacNamara admitting, 30 years too late, that Vietnam was a mistake.

I'll be the first to admit that the other review for this book is an epic compared to mine, but i felt the urge to review this book anyways. It was truly a great book, and i found it very interesting to read the whole way through, the whold hiding in the mountains thing was pretty amazing. I hadn't heard about a conneciont between the mafia and the miami exiles before, although with the way "Blackthorn" (i.e. Gary Hart) writes about it, it seemed to me as if he knows his stuff.

Anyways, about the book: I would definitely recommend it to anyone with a remote interest in Che, Cuba, or even elections in general. I found out a lot of things i never knew, and to be honest although the cover was what got me interested, it was an extremely well-written book. If you only bought one book this year, it might not be this, but if you got to buy another one this would definitely be it.

For those of you too young to understand the not so subtle reference made in my title, here's the background for it. Shortly after the end of World War II, probably in 1946 or 1947, Clark Gable returned to Hollywood from his stint in the military service. His co-star in one of his firsr post-WWII movies was Greer Garson. The headline in several of the ads for this movie was "Gable's Back and Garson's Got Him." In this novel, Che Guevara has returned from his assumed death 32 years earlier, and Victoria Savidge, almost has-been news anchor for a minor TV network is his (platonic) love interest. Hence my title.

The plot outline follows along these lines: Fidel Castro decides that it is time for him to retire, but wants to get something out of his retirement for the people of Cuba. He believes that this can be accomplished is by taking some action that will get "Tio Sam's" sanctions removed along with their acceptance of certain other caveats to be set by him. He, in turn is willing to make some promises of his own. The caveats are that the U.S., in addition to removing the sanctions, exchange ambassadors, and provide computers for all Cuban students. The promises are for truly free elections for the first time in Cuban history. These elections will be open to monitoring by outsiders such as Jimmy Carter's minions.

The U.S. accepts his offer, removes the sanctions, and gives Cuba official recognition by setting up an Embassy.

As might be expected, the old line power structure sets up a political party aimed at keeping the themselves in power. The Miami exiles, paired with Casino interests who want to make Cuba into the kind of gambling haven it was before Castro, form a second party. The stakes are big, and these two parties run campaigns that take the worst of U.S. campaigning, and run high powered negative campaigns.

As things are getting under way, an asthmatic old man starts entering small mountain villages and, over cups of coffee engages the villagers in conversations in which he tells them that, if they wanted to, they could become the backbone of a new kind of government. This government could be a sort of bottom-up rather than top down government in which each small town would be essentially self governing and self supporting. (The old Town Meeting type of government) There could be low interest loans with long payout periods so the farmers could own their own land, etc. There also would need to be a small centralized government that needn't so much rule as to provide assistance where needed. It seems that in his 32 years of exile, this charismatic old man had been reading works by Plato, and the U.S.'s own T. Jefferson, as he called him.

Over a few months, there is a groundswell of support for the old man's ideas. Eventually people begin to realize that he is Che Guevara, and that he didn't die in Bolivia. He never tells anyone he is Che, but goes by the name of Ernesto Blanco. And he makes it plain that he wants no power or position of leadership for himself, but just wants to help the people help themselves.

Eventually this groundswell of support becomes so great that both of the major parties, fearing this movement more than they feared one another, hire assassins to stop him before it is too late.

Now for Victoria. She starts out as a TV anchorwoman on a last chance assignment to Cuba. Either she breaks a big story or her career is over. When we first meet her, she is a shallow person with no convictions and no idealism, only thinking of herself and her career. After several weeks in the mountains with Che and his small core group, she succumbs to the influence of Che's humble, pure personality and his idealism and exchanges her shallow self-centered perspective for a more honest one.

To summarize the action of the book as described in more detail above: Two political parties determined to win at any costs; A movement backing a people oriented concept introduced by Che; A nearly has been reporter who evolves from shallow reporter to insightful idealist; Two assassins determined to stop Che before he does too much damage; And three other key members of Che's inner circle who help him out in dozens of small, but important, ways. The suspense is provided by the uncertainty of the outcome of this most important election, and by the possibilities of success or failure of the assassination attempts.

It doesn't say so in __I, CHE GUEVARA__, but in other places the pseudonomynous author has been identified as ex-Senator Gary Hart. Hart has made the heart of his novel, not the action, but Che's ideas and idealism. Every few pages, Hart interrupts the flow of the action with one of Che's interior monologues in which he reveals his ideas, and how and why he grew from the type of revolutionary he once was to someone espousing a revolution of ideas. These passages, I believe, are the real reason Hart wrote the book.

While I question whether, in real life, there could be such a massive growth of support in such a short time for these new (old) ideas, or if they even could gain such support in the small peasant communities where Che gained his first few adherents, I admire the idealism and the concepts of Jeffersonian/Platonian Democracy he was espousing.

One other observarion before I quit. This book was published in 1998, long before our current political season. In it, a college professor in Montana (I think it is Montana) latches on to Che's ideas for a people-power government, and declares for the Senate. Putting to work Che's principles of government by and for individuals, he sets up a web site in which he asks for supporters and donees for his campaign based on these principles. He limits individual donations to $20.00 or less, and he gets several hundred thousand supporters who donate an average of almost $18.00 each. Is it possible that this is where a recent internet based campaign got its idea for a political campaign along almost exactly these same lines? It's certainly possible.

I've studied Che for years now. I was amazed at how realistic this novel is. True it takes place in the future, and Che is long dead, but what Mr. Blackthorn has Che thinking is truly inspiring, and completly on track with what Che might be thinking today.

Blackthorn has managed to take a great concept for a novel with unique potential and turn into unreadable drivel. The idea that Guevera didn't die and that Castro ultimately gives up power and all the consequences following is quite tantalizing. But it's just too far fetched to be taken seriously, especially when the narration focuses on the thoughts and musings of Guevara. Che is warped into some type of soap opera character coming out of hiding to reclaim Cuba, and the story also fails in large part because of the awful dialogue. Every time Che appears in the story and you are forced to read the dreadful dialogue you almost become angry at the author. The writer seems to have done some good research and has some great imagination, but just can't put it all together and write it. I had great expectations for this book and was more dissapointed than I had been in a long while.