THIS YEAR MARKS THE 100th
ANNIVERSARY OF BLASCO IBAÑEZ’ “SANGRE Y ARENA”
by Jorge Monteiro
NOTE: This article was originally published in Portuguese in the newspaper LUSO AMERICANO of Newark, New Jersey, on January 9, 2008.
The novel SANGRE Y ARENA (Blood and Sand)
was written by Vicente Blasco Ibañez in 1908.
It is his most famous work dealing with the world of bullfighting, which
achieved universal fame and was portrayed in the cinema in various iterations.
Spanish novelist Blasco Ibañez was born
in Valencia. In his youth he was a member of the Republican movement and he was
the editor of the anti-monarchist newspaper El PUEBLO. In 1896 he was imprisoned because of his
political activities, and he was sentenced to two years of forced labor. Blasco Ibañez subsequently became a
representative of the Republican Party in the Spanish parliament.
In 1906 he was awarded the Legion of
Honor by the government of France. In
1920 George Washington University in the United States awarded him an Honoris
Causa doctorate. He died in Menton,
France, in 1928.
The book SANGRE Y ARENA is proof that
Blasco Ibañez did not write at random.
He visited and resided in the areas in which the action in this novel
takes place. He is perfectly at home
with the environment and with the customs, and this is verified in his writing of
SANGRE Y ARENA.
This work, SANGRE Y ARENA, is a paradigm
of the narrative discourse on bullfighting---a discourse which is manifested
through more than 200 titles and over a period of two centuries of
existence. This questions a level of
popularity which goes beyond the taurine public, and proceeds to become even a
point of reference, from a literary perspective as well as from a sociological
and testimonial perspective.
In the time frame prior to the writing of
SANGRE Y ARENA, and I note this as a point of reference, “Lagartijo” and
Frascuelo were at the height of their success.
Life in Seville in those times did not escape Blasco Ibañez’ notice, as
narrated in great detail in SANGRE Y ARENA. In the book the bullfighter of whom he speaks is called Juan
Gallardo. In real life perhaps he was
Lagartijo. “Lagartijo” was from Cordova
and Frascuelo was from Seville. Could
Juan Gallardo have been Lagartijo or Frascuelo…? In my humble opinion Juan Gallardo was
Frascuelo.
The lines of text in SANGRE Y ARENA
intersect, they complete, or they complicate, at times more strongly than at
other times, because they are the result of a total work, presided over by a
balanced view of the whole. Perhaps for
this reason varying generations of readers will know how to find, over the 100
years of existence of SANGRE Y ARENA, the line which most closely matches their
sensibilities.
As an aficionado and someone who
appreciates literature pertaining to bullfighting I could not allow the
beginning of the year 2008, in which 100 years of the life of the book SANGRE Y
ARENA are celebrated, to pass unnoticed or unremarked.
