NOTE: The articles ON THE HORNS are about bullfighting matters with emphasis on the literary aspect of the subject. They were originaly published in LA BUSCA, the official magazine of the Taurine Bibliophiles of America---TBA---.

A fascinating thing about memory is the way one set of recollections spawns another.  For instance, when I was doing the piece on Stephen Marlowe’s  COLOSSUS for the last LA BUSCA, I was reminded of other books which, strictly speaking, are not what you would call taurine. Yet, they are books no aficionado should miss, for they put toreo in a broader perspective, answering questions and supplying meaning that might be missed when the focus is exclusively taurine.

Consider, if you will, Allen Josephs’ wonderful examination of origins in his book, WHITE WALL OF SPAIN: THE MYSTERIES OF ANDALUSIAN CULTURE (Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa, 1983.)  Too often, aficionados, misled by authors who have not done their homework, gain the impression that toreo began back in the days of ancient Crete and then evolved into what we know today.  Josephs sets the record straight, which is reason enough to read his book.  But, the chapter on the origins of toreo, is just one of six expository essays which not only bring Spanish history alive but do so in a way that integrates discrete developments into the whole we know of as Spain.

In James Michener’s IBERIA (to be the subject of my next “On The Horns”), the question is raised, how is it that Spain is so different from other countries in Europe?  If he had had WHITE WALL OF SPAIN, he could have answered the question with certainty.

Josephs takes the reader back to the time when history began.  He tells of Aegeans and Phoenicians who came to Andalucia seeking minerals.  At the edge of their world, they founded a city, Gadir, in 1100 B.C., which we know today as Cadiz.  Readers may be surprised to discover that the land referred to in the BIBLE as Tarshish was the early name for Andalucia.

There was a period of decline when the Carthaginians moved into the region. Then in 206 B.C. the Romans arrived, changing the name of the city to Gades.  It was in Gades that flamenco had its beginning.  In Roman times, it was the dancing of the Gaditanae, girls of dubious virtue inspired by oriental dance.  Only many centuries later, when gypsies arrived from Eastern Europe and revived the form, would it become the flamenco we know today.  But, and this contrasts with the story of bullfighting, flamenco can be seen as the product of evolution, something part of long ago, later modified into its present form.

When Rome fell, it was not until 631 A.D. that the Visigoths reached southern Spain, and then were driven out by the Moslems in the years 711 to 714 A.D.  Thus began a period of high culture in the land called Al-Andalus.  It was this period lasting approximately seven hundred years that most sets Spain apart from the rest of Europe, which was suffering through “the Dark Ages.”

These are only highlights in the fascinating story of a place which intrigues and enchants most aficionados.  Josephs does a masterful job explaining how the culture evolved and why it is unique in all the world.

Nothing provides proof of that uniqueness so much as the development of toreo. True, the bull had been the subject of mysticism long before. True, the bull had been hunted for sport long before.  True, the bull had been part of ancient spectacles and had been fought in coliseums of long ago.  But, toreo is not derived from any of these.  Toreo was born out of the culture of Andalucia.

As Josephs explains, “Andalucia…came into our age with her antiquity still intact.”  The primitive culture of the pueblo brought toreo into being, the combination of, spectacle, ritual, sacrifice, art, and emotion.  And, he warns, “If toreo fails to survive, it will be because the whole Andalusian sense of life as revealed in Holy Week, in the Rocio, in flamenco, in toreo itself, has succumbed, that duende of Andalucia which has so affected all of Spanish life has vanished.”  Though written before the realization of a unified European Community, the warning is clear, commercialization and cultural homogenization pose a serious threat which has become more real in passing years.

How shall we explain toreo to those who know of bullfighting only as the public torment of a dumb animal?  Josephs walks us around the subject, providing abundant answers which might be boiled down this way.  Look at the formality and the old fashioned costumes worn by the various participants!  You are seeing the Spaniard’s love of ritual and the formality of old customs, the preserved memory of an earlier time.  Consider the inevitability of the bull’s death, and recognize that the only justification for such an elaborate public execution is the art revealed in the doing. Unlike other art forms, the presence of death sets toreo apart, always different yet, like life, ultimately destined to the same conclusion.

I think it is the understanding that toreo is an art rooted in the past which makes aficionados so apprehensive about innovations which intrude as tremendismo.  And yet, it is precisely thus that art in toreo is proved.  It is a creation every time a matador steps in front of a toro bravo, and it is in the nature of man to find new ways to reveal old truths.

I am aware that John Fulton was first bitten by the guisanillo when he went to the movies and saw Tyrone Power in “Blood and Sand.”  Other friends have told how they discovered the Fiesta Brava while stationed in Spain for military service or as children of parents serving in Spain or Mexico or one of the South American countries where bullfighting is popular.  But, far and away, the most frequent response to the question, ‘How did you get interested in the bullfight?’ is, ‘by reading Hemingway.’

Whether what Hemingway wrote about bullfighting was indeed the introduction to aficion or not, virtually every aficionado ranks him at or near the top as a source of literary inspiration for their feelings about the Fiesta.  So, as July, 1999 marks a hundred years since his birth, it is altogether fitting that we spend some time reflecting on what it was that he wrote that affected so many American aficionados, persuaded us to put aside a powerful cultural prejudice against the killing of any creature as “entertainment,” and drew us into the world of bullfighting in a way

Important as it is in taurine literature, I don’t believe it was DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON that had the transforming power to make converts of so many of us.  More often, that was a book we sought out after the worm had bitten, something in which to find answers to a thousand and one questions about the bulls and the toreros and the form and the ritual.  I think it was in reading THE SUN ALSO RISES that we “discovered” the bullfight as something in which to get involved.

If this supposition is correct, what is remarkable is that THE SUN ALSO RISES really doesn’t spend much time telling us about the bullfight.  You must read a third of the way through the book before anybody arrives in Spain, and half way through before they reach Pamplona.  The first day’s bullfight of the feria is described in less than half a page, the second day’s gets about two pages.  Near the end of the book, there is a ten page sequence which takes place at a bullfight and which provides the kind of action and comment that can legitimately be called, writing about bullfighting.  

 There are of course many other references to the bulls and the men who face them in the ring as well as descriptions about how fighting bulls are raised,  how they are run in the street during feria, and other incidental taurine details.  Altogether, it is sufficient to create the mental picture that this is a book about bullfighting.  That’s what we feel in reading it.  It’s what comes immediately to mind when we recollect it.  But, it isn’t there when you inventory the pages and count the times there is any overt material about the bullfight.  Which leads one to wonder why THE SUN ALSO RISES has the affect it does on so many readers.  How does this book lure us into becoming aficionados?

Compare, if you will, this novel and a impressionist painting.  In both, if you look too closely at the details, you lose the meaning, you don’t see the picture!

THE SUN ALSO RISES is a story about a few non-Spaniards (American and English) who have lived through World War I, are unfulfilled, and who travel from Paris to Pamplona to attend the Feria de San Fermin.  Not only Hemingway, but also F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Dos Passos and others wrote about these people we have come to know as “the lost generation.”  At the fiesta in Pamplona, their emptiness is made vivid by the contrast with the traditions of bravery and honor which Hemingway reveals in succinct descriptions and comments about the toreros and the rituals which comprise the bullfight.  The principal characters are lost.  Their lives lack meaning.  They come to Spain seeking diversion, but they are confronted by more than that. The tradition, the honor, the bravery are present at feria.  The reader perceives this because Hemingway has accurately created the aura of feria, what it is to be there, to experience the spectacle in the bullring, to feel the emotion on the street when the bulls are running, and to participate in conversations in the cafes, not just as a spectator but as part of what is happening. The magnetic attraction of feria, being able to feel so alive, caught up in the realization that life is exciting and wonderful, that traditions and honor can shape the kind of people we are.  And, the challenge for the characters in the book is whether they see what the reader sees.

Our debt to Hemingway begins with the realization that we all may be part of a lost generation: cynical, materialistic, and mainly, not honest with ourselves.  In THE SUN ALSO RISES, he presents a challenge which is as real to us as to the lost souls in the story.  Namely, discover what really counts in life: tradition, beauty, bravery, love, and honor. 

Life is not always inspired by these qualities, but they are there, attainable by all, perhaps only for brief periods,  but we must dare to reach out for them.  In sharing his passion about bullfighting and the special world in which it exists, Hemingway created a beautiful impressionistic picture in which we could each imagine ourselves.  I think this is why THE SUN ALSO RISES inspires so many aficionados.  He opened the door to a wonderful world that we could enter.       

Footnote:

THE SUN ALSO RISES was published in 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons.This was the first book by Ernest Hemingway.  Originally titled FIESTA, the name was changed before publication.  Hemingway had attended three ferias in  Pamplona when he wrote the novel.

In 1925, Cayetano Ordonez (Nino de la Palma) was impressing everyone including Hemingway in his first full season as a Matador de Toros.  In the novel, the character Pedro Romero was based on this young Matador who  would become the father of  Antonio Ordonez and grandfather of  Francisco Rivera Ordonez.

 

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