Death In The Afternoon

This is one of those books that should be part of anyone's collection especially anyone who lives or is thinking about living in Spain. It is brutal but fascinating. I have read it before but lost my copy; it can be horrifying to read in places and in others it like a description of some kind of ballet. Oxy Moron

”Fiesta” is the one I favour most of all the Hemingway novels, because it is young at heart and old in wisdom. This choice of mine is problematic since it is in spite of my deprecation of bullfighting, and bullfighting is a subject matter that is a substantial part of the book. Hemingway's foremost objection and argument in ”Death in the Afternoon” to all opponents of bullfighting is that they are in no position to be against it unless they have experienced a live corrida performance, and that any dismission of his argument mainly stem from ignorance. Once I have been to a bullfight. Once I have been standing on the yellow sands in the middle of the deserted red-painted bullring in Ronda, ”the cradle of bullfight” - feeling the magic. Now I have read his beautifully titled and highly knowledgeable book on bullfighting. My experience has left me still against. The focus point of bullfighting today is probably the ethics of its practise which nowadays, of course, is even more controversial than in the 1930s when the book was written. The book contains disappointingly little regular philosophical discussion aroud the moral issue. Instead the book is a mighty exhaustive manual of the terminology, technicalities and choreography of what Hemingway emphasizes is bullfighting as an art form, bordering on religion, and not a sport, at all. Qualities in bullfighting that fascinates Hemingway are bravery and pride, in bull as well as matador, or man, the word he prefers using, and he goes to great lengths describing, very interestingly, those two virtues. If Man has a good day and realizes to play with the bull in a way that displays grace, valor, force, emotion, intelligence, wisdom, exquisiteness, intensity, passion, spirituality, purity, he brings an orgasmic ecstasy to the aficionados and spectators who feel the bullring and the earth move, they have been ”there”, they are witnesses of a miracle. I would say that in bullfighting the bull is regarded as a catharsis element, a living creature is killed under torturing circumstances and treated as a vehicle, or instrument, for personal excitement. The more so called beautiful bravery from the fighting bull, the more of its prestanda, the more the bull is seen as a perfect art object. But making the bull a sacrfice for human's needs and pleasure is severely an objectifying of the animal. The bull's natural instinct is to fight, so what the corrida does, Hemingway seems to mean, is just bringing out the bull in the bull, so to speak, the fighting makes the bull maximum bull – and that is regarded as a good way to die, in the sunsetting Afternoon. The bull is saved through the poetry and art of the act. Art demands sacrifice, it's a truth, but consequently Hemingway's passion for bullfighting puts esthetics before ethics, a view which seems repellent to me, and not so as a lover of animals, but as a lover of arts. That Hemingway is omitting a probe into moral aspects about bullfighting, is perhaps not unexpected. More surprising might be that the book doesn't contain much historical background to bullfighting in terms of bull mythology and symbolism. Bullfighting is a tradition from prehistoric times in the Mediterranean, where bulls have been sacrificed in different cults, like the Cretensian and the Mithras, and bulls have symbolized both male strength and virility, as well as its opposite, subjugation of masculinity and animality, under the dominance of different moon-godesses. Hemingway's credo in life was above all ”Grace under pressure”. You have to go to his biography to get a full understanding of his Grace with a capital ”G”. Why he is indulging in an orgy of bullfighting technicalities and says nothing about bull mythology and cult, has probably something to do with the deep hidden psychological roots of his passion; the whole bullfighting manual is a shield to protect his bare feelings. The omitting is of course also to give credit to his classical new thinking in style of writing, omitting what's below the surface, only expressing one eight of the iceberg. He avoids moral aspects and psychological motives because he has never been an aficionado of explicit didactic theorizing and intellectualism. Like he says himself: ”horseshit, that is unsoundness in an abstract conversation or, indeed, any overmetaphysical tendency in speech”. Bullfighting is mainly about death – and learning to face death without flinching. To succeed in this ordeal is to have Honor. To see Bull and Man in the red-painted bullring united in a graceful and dangerous Natural pass is to Hemingway the most delivering vision imagined. The Man playing close, close with death gives to the spectator a feeling of immortality. The difficulty and exclusive skill of killing beautifully, is a justification of killing the animal that sublimates and ennobles the Bull, Matador and spectator. To kill is the same as challenge existence and thus overcome death, which is followed by the sense of Pride, which is bullfighting in essence. There are good singers and there are bad ones, the same goes for matadors. If they just go through the motions and don't visualize the soul of the true bullfight they are simply dayworkers or butchers, not dignified killers. It is interesting to meet Heminway as a writer of documentary facts, or journalism, and not fiction. His structure and composition is in ”Death in the Afternoon” far from as tight as in the novels and short stories, but much more rhapsodic and fragmentary. Although his supreme handling of fiction appears in this book too. ”Hundreds” of matadors are passing by, each one in a miniature portrait, everyone originally depicted without any signs of repetition narratively; that is skillful and vigorous writing, and very admirable. His snapshots of the picturesque towns of Spain, like Aranjuez with its tree-shaded streets, Ronda with its setting in a dramatic and romantic landscape, and many more, have got his characteristic sensual and restrained language. Hemingway is an ardent aficionado and brilliant connaisseur of bullfighting and his knowledge is knock-out impressive. His views on it as an art form could be alluring, since it is pure poetry and intensely beautifully described in his perspective. But no, even so, it's primitive and wrong. Bullfighting is a relic from an age when both humans and animals were sacrificed in cults. To justify a sacrifice of a human being is unthinkable as of today, the same should be a fact about animals. Life is not logic. Still, bullfighting belong at the museum, whether at the Anthropology or Ethnology museum could be discussed. Nature or culture? Life is not logic.

Read again after a number of years. Still has the power to pull you in to the world of bullfighting in its golden age at the time of Hemingway. Now a shadow of its former greatness, this book gives you a real feel for the blood and guts.

For me a very overrated classic read a lot of Hemingway and enjoyed most. I never got around to reading this and did not know much about it except it was about bullfighting but I expected it to be a story when in fact is is literally about bullfighting techniques and mechanics. Hemingway was well known to admire bullfighting and this is written in praise I would say but anyone reading who had any sensibilities for animals and indeed humans will find this a disgusting and disturbing read,

Me gustó mucho este libro. Me enseñó mucho sobre la forma de arte que es el toreo. No estropeado por el tiempo I really liked this book. Taught me a lot about the art form that is bullfighting. Not spoiled by time

Not one of his best. I am left wondering why this is said to be a great wooooork? I will have to read it again over another bottle of Spanish red.

I've just been to my first bullfight, thought it graceful, brutal, balletic, macho, exquisite, bloody, yet had no idea what it was all about. I bought this book, about which I'd heard much, hoping to find out. The pictures alone are compelling. It was written in 1939 before horses were protected by padding so in Hemingway's time, the horse would die first. It looked a far more primitive and riskier business that it did in Seville last month. I think I regret the passing of the real-ness of it all but not of the pain all concerned must have experienced at different points in the performances. It is odd that a developed country like Spain still allows bullfights to continue and yet it allows us a brief peek into a world nearly over forever. Hemingway was fascinated by it - I think I am too.

Great book. Historical in context but great detail on the art of bullfighting .

An excellent resume of the rules and regulations of bullfighting, with a comprehensive glossary of the Spanish terms. Although the toreros referred to (extensively) were active in the late 1920s, the principles are the same and the history fascinating.

The printing quality was very poor and there were numerous spelling and other errors. This is obviously a cheap reprint and I would not recommend it.

Incomparable book about fighting bulls and those who fight them in the glorious and ancient tragedy of the ring. On the side it tells us a good deal about writing, too. I knew nothing about the former, but know a little now. Any new reader who has never been to a bullfight would do well to search YouTube for news about the current state of the art. I found there the wonder of matador Jose Thomas, who I suspect would have attracted Hemingway's favor had he been alive today. The drama may be dying everywhere lately, but, like bulls thought by the matador to have been brought to the moment of truth that still manage to surprise, it is not dead yet. Ole! *** Further thoughts: This is my third time through this book. I've read many of his others, but not all. I come back to this one, drawn as some are to the ring and the Corrida de Toros. Each time I try to take greater care in reading it -- catching each nuance, detail, omission, and ambiguity; noting how what we are told is sequenced; wondering at the ways he structures some sentences; observing how all that affects our understanding of what we are being told. It is a book that bears rereading. It is complex. Unless somehow you already know the vocabulary of bullfighting, you should consult Hemingway's Explanatory Glossary as you go along. Old photos from the '20s are offered as Illustrations for the uninitiated. If we weren't that we might skip this book. Some will regard it as an aggrandizement of a barbaric immoral practice. They will have to come to grips with the fact that the argument remains unresolved in Spain and South America to this day, eighty-five years after this was written. The book is timeless, speaking powerfully of things better embraced than forgotten or ignored.

Sachbuch zum Thema Stierkampf mit einigen wenigen sehr unterhaltsamen Stellen. Für den normal interessierten sehr kompetent. Eine Empfehlung von J. Michener in seinem Buch Iberia sagt alles.

Here is a great book that explains bull fighting something I knew little about. If I was young I would make a full study of bull fighting ,as a cultural anthropologist.