Books like Loving Che

"Whenever I travel, I like to spend the last day of my journey in the old part of town, lingering for hours in junk shops whose dusty shelves, no matter where in the world they may be, always seem to be piled high with old magazines and books and yellowed photographs."[return][return]Opening sentence really got me. I mused over the image it conjured for sometime before reading more. I wonder if the author really does do this. I suspect she does.[return][return]The story is something of a mother/daughter story so far, which would normally put me off, but I like Che, for all the wrong reasons, so I stuck it out and ended up liking the book.[return][return]I had some trouble with the rambling way the middle part of the story is told, through letters that feel more like how a scrapbook would read if it wasn't mostly pictures. The end is a bit too tidy, but I usually find endings too tidy. [return][return]Some quotes, in no particular order;[return][return]The next morning I spent several hours unable to move, staring only at the sliver of light through the closed blinds, and in my imagination the light was a solid thing gently trying to pry open the window. (page 75) I so love the idea of light as fingers.[return][return]...every era builds museums to its secret longings... (page 61) This refers to some kind of agreement with capitalism even though the country (Cuba) was moving to socialism. I am not sure how to apply this to today, but I know it does. It would take more thinking which I am not wont to do at the moment, but how wonderful I can note this here and come back to it later.[return][return]...the death that gently draped him. (page 66), referring to Che, but way too romantic for my tastes. I've read some about Che, and yes, you can't deny the romanticism. However, death and gently are not words that should go together describing him.[return][return]A kiss. The first parting of flesh. Everything that comes later is sweet elaboration. The first kiss is more intimate than the naked bed; its small perimeter already contains the first submission and the final betrayal. (page 91) Now this is not romantic and is a wonderful description of a kiss.[return][return]Loving Che was like palest sea foam, like wind through the stars (page 138) This is probably my least favorite sentence. So flowery and precious. Ick.[return][return]Women ate their dreams and bloomed like orchids in the rain. (page 19) And this is probably my favorite line.[return][return]'Don't you understand,' Calixto said to me before he left for Madrid, 'that the very word revolution is doomed to failure? Round and round and round, forever trapped inside its own semantic fortress, forced to retrace it steps for all eternity.' (page 152) And that line has probably been said in many ways since the French Revolution, but somehow we always think we are going to change the meaning of the word.