Customer Reviews

Self Portrait Che Guevara

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you are tired of the same books on Che Guevara, this is the different book. Formed by texts and images based upon Che's own life it follows mainly the same path of its biographers but in such a beautiful way it made his own daughter Aleyda (who rarely saw him) exclaim: "the photos in this book are so magnificent you feel a desire for kissing him, embracing him and keep talking to him" (she means with his own personal texts based in his own testimony).

The selection, prepared on the first hand with the remembrance of a lost love (by his widow) and on the other, by the professional eye of Victor Casaus (a Cuban cinematographer who had been many times a judge on international film competitions) you can follow Dr. Guevara from his childhood, young age, his travels, the Sierra Maestra up to his last days in Bolivia.

Sorry, no Christ figure photo (in the words of its own editor). Keep in mind this is a pro-Cuban Government book so you instead will find Fidel, but judge by yourself. My only last opinion is that if this people can produce such a book in a system so full of censorship, I do wonder what they can achieve in liberty!

This book combines a great in depth look to a man who means something different to many different people. It really allows you inside the head of Ernesto Guevara, the man, not just the revolutionary. The pictures in the book are beautifully done and in large clear print. I searched through many Che books before settling on this one and have to say I am pleased with myself for choosing the book in the end.

I purchased Self Portrait because it sounded like a good biography/autobiography of Che Guevara. What the book actually is is a coffee table book, with small excerpts from Che's diaries and letters and commentary by the editor, Victor Casaus. It seems in some parts of the book that Casaus is more the author and that his words fill the pages more than Guevara's. This book has great photos of Guevara and it decorates my coffee table quite nicely, but if you are looking for a good history of Guevara, look elsewhere.

A stunning book - lovingly composed, beautifully presented, replete with photographs and excerpts from Che Guevara's own writings (some previously unpublished). A treasure which will delight those who already know the man, and enlight those who don't.

This large format book looks great out on your table for all to look at. Wonderful family photos, and travel photos through Africa and Europe. Much interesting and candid photos here, including in disguise for his flight to Bolivia, bald and heavy and bespectacled. Did this really fool anyone . . .

Several candid shots well known are not included, however, and so the collection here is in no way complete. The lay-out of the pages is rather purposefully sloppy, which is not always helpful, and the text often wanders into very small font sizes, making legibility an issue in old ones like me.

Nevertheless, a very interesting and pleasant collection of candid photos of Cdte. Guevara, as long as the reader realizes the great need for supplmentary readings and viewigs of ther sources, including such primary sources as Diario de un combatiente (Centro de Estudios Che Guevara) (Spanish Edition), and such secondary sources as Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara. Please see also Che: Images of a Revolutionary. The current pricing of the Rene Burri, Ernesto Che Guevara 1963 (Magnum Contact Sheets) may prove of course prohibitive for the amateur historian and casual collector. See also Ché, Hasta la Victoria Siempre.Edicion Multimedia del Diario del Che en Bolivia.CD-ROM and the myriad of other productsand articles here generously available.

Meanwhile one may even find issue with the title of this present work, as what we have here in the main are not self-portraits but family and news photos. I did not notice the famous self-portrait of Cdte. Guevara still in disguise seated in a La Paz hotel, pointing his camera at himself in a mirror.

I also really want to find the once famous photos of the Bolivarian generals, puppets of the USA, stroking Ché's long hair shortly after his brutal and senseless asassination in captivity, sick and old and posing no threat to anyone, a prisoner killed violently and cowardly while helpless, his body destroyed and disposed of in unknown part, under orders from above.

Above all else read as well the recent study Who Killed Ché

A very interesting way of portraying the Cuban hero through pictures. My one criticism is that the pictures at the end of the book are not captioned to tell us what they are or when they were taken.

The usual revolutionary psychosis on display. Committed to "saving the world" once he got power he was at a loss to do anything but make vacuous speeches and, of course, kill, until he was up to his elbows in blood.
As he discovered that the real world was a bit more complex than his teenage formulations, he tried time and time again, Congo, Russia, China and finally Bolivia to escape into the role playing and costumes of "man of the people" but never duplicating the thrills of the Sierra Maestra until betrayed by Fidel he died alone in a mud hut, with the solace that millions of like wise vacuuous teenagers would someday wear his picture on a t-shirts while getting stoned.