Now many thanks to Alexander Lee who explained why American Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was an adventurer, natural sportsman, raconteur and loyal friend, yet he was also homophobic, misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic. Hemingway’s most primitive passion was his undisguised love of bullfighting. He admitted he was obsessed to the point that bullfights had a central part in many of his best-known works. The Sun Also Rises (1926) followed friends going to a Pamplona fiesta; For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) included the story of a consumptive matador who died of horror at seeing the mounted head of his kill; and Death in the Afternoon (1932) was a paean to the corrida/running.
Though he spoke tenderly of bulls, Hemingway described their deaths with ecstatic fervour. Why?? Once a somewhat sickly child, the author heard the call of the wild at an early age. His father taught him to hunt and fish in the Northern Michigan hills; and with the cruelty and tenderness characteristic of hard fathers, he kindled in his young son a reverence for toughness and for danger.
After distinguishing himself as an ambulance driver in WW1, the young man moved to Paris, hoping to launch his literary career. With Gertrude Stein in Paris, he first heard of bullfights and was so captivated, he immediately wrote an article on the topic.
In bullfighting, the American ex-pat found an answer to his dreams. He knew that, if he were to succeed with his writing, he needed to master the Simplest Things. What he meant in particular was Violent Death, in which was distilled the very essence of life. Of course young Ernest had seen it too often in war; but now that Europe was at peace, bulls would have to substitute.
Hemingway arranged to travel to Spain with friends in 1923. Setting out before the others, he arrived in Madrid in May and went to see a bullfight that very day. Apparently the bulls and the matadors fought poorly and the killing was mishandled, but to Hemingway it was a revelation. As he watched the proud and sweaty matador walking away, he knew he loved the sport.
Bullfighting was popular entertainment, especially when the bull was stabbed
with sharp instruments to 'stimulate' the bull to fight on.
Global Post
Hemingway explained in Death in the Afternoon that the trick was for the matador to expose himself to as much danger as he dared, and to adopt ever more dangerous stances. Had the bull been tame, the corrida would have been nothing more than an empty spectacle, a pointless pageant of cruelty. Its death would have occurred without glory. But if the bull was courageous and dangerous, the corrida became the most immortal of tragedies.
Ernest Hemingway advising his favourite matador
History Today
Even so, the matador drove metal rods into the bull’s hump to tire and enrage the animal. Then he brought the bull under control with a series of passes with his cape, before leaning over its horns and stabbing it dead. Brave men! Hemingway had not abandoned the traditional element of risk; he increasingly elevated it to the status of an ideal.
Over the next five years, Hemingway immersed himself in the world of bullfighting in Spain. In bars, he struck up friendships with many leading matadors and became an expert judge of technique. Hemingway had seen thousands of bulls killed by matadors and he had read 2,000+ books or pamphlets in Spanish dealing with the topic. The people of Castile had great interest in death, he wrote. The English and French on the other hand, lived for life and so they didn't really care for bull-fights. Furthermore a good Spanish matador actually enjoyed killing. Killing that gave aesthetic pleasure had always been one of the “greatest enjoyments for the human race”, he said. I don't think so.
A great matador's skills lay in a barely concealed toughness, brooding masculinity and defiance of danger. In risking his life in the ring, the matador embodied the essence of the human condition; in defeating the bull, he defeated death itself. As Hemingway agreed that bullfighting was an art in every way, it seemed meaningful to him to compare it with sculpture and painting, or to see the matadors alongside Marlow, Shakespeare, Velasquez, Goya and Cervantes. Even such refined elements as the line of the matador's body at the critical instant made for the fans' excitement. Bull-fighting was thus an art heightened only by the possibility of death. Again I disagree.
Hemingway, who suffered profound insecurities, may also have seen in the bull a solution to his fears. Perhaps his toughness and courage could hide his doubtful manliness, a problem that tormented Hemingway all his life. After being seriously injured in 2 plane crashes in Africa, he found writing more difficult. Suffering from depression which electroshock therapy couldn’t ease, he sank into alcoholism. After a long, painful decline, he suicided (1961).
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14 comments:
Maybe the Spanish like that horrible sport because it is uniquely Spanish. But Hemingway was not Spanish.
Hello Hels, I am not a big fan of Hemingway, nor of bullfighting, in which the risk to the bullfighter is only moderate, but tortured death for the bull a virtual certainty. It is interesting that with his image and hang-ups Hemingway in Paris hung out a lot with Gertrude Stein and her mixed crowd, and later the ever-despicable Ezra Pound.
--Jim
Train Man
it is very difficult to understand other nations' passions, even though I want to be very accepting and non-judgemental about passions that actually seem strange or cruel. Big game hunters in Africa, for example, killed rare large animals for souvenirs, not for food. In boxing, the crowd roar if someone knocks an opponent out cold.
So yes, I am really trying to understand why the Spanish love their unique and cruel sport. Although it would be another step altogether understanding Hemingway's thinking.
Parnassus
I originally thought we knew that Hemingway was unstable by having four marriages and other long term relationships, none of which worked. Then I thought that suicide was a certain sign of his emotional failures. Now I think that his views about slaughtering large animals and having orgasms as the matador leant over the bull's horns and stabbed it dead in front of the hysterical crowd.
p.s you are spot on re Ezra Pound, by the way.
I enjoyed your well researched post. There have been bullfights in France for a very long time; they are called corrida. They have been authorized, then forbidden but since 1951 they are authorized again. They usually happen in the Basque region of France near the Spanish border, like Bayonne. As for Hemingway I visited his house and museum in Key West, Florida at least 3 times. Even though I have been there I like to visit it every time I go to Key West, it’s a beautiful house and there are so many cats – at least 21 the last time I went (descendants of his polydactyl cats.) Hemingway was also passionate about fishing. He would go on his boat from Key West to Cuba, where he bought a house.
When I was there I also bought the restored edition of “A Moveable Feast” – it’s a memoir of his life in Paris in the 1920s. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to read more on that time in Paris – I must have bought 20 books or more on the various authors that peopled Paris at that time. One I thoroughly enjoyed was “Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company” by James R. Mellow. It is almost 600 pages long but worth the read. It talks a lot about the “Lost Generation” and how she acquired such a great art collection. When they gathered art paintings that Gertrude Stein used to own for an exhibit at the NY Metropolitan Museum, I flew to New York from Atlanta just to see the exhibit. I bought a huge book on it and was going to write a post …but have not yet.
While interesting to learn about Hemingway and bulls, it gives me great pleasure to see a matador gored. What a disgusting 'sport'.
Vagabonde
many thanks for your comprehensive response. It was a great idea to read A Moveable Feast, partially as you say because it was a memoir of Hemingway's life in Paris in the 1920s. But also because it was the definitive decade in his life, the significant people he became close to and the politics he was developing. I too read “Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company” and every other journal article I could find on their salon.
Good on you for going to see the paintings that Gertrude Stein used to own, shown at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Andrew
Ha ha.. not literally, presumably. But I DO wonder how Hemingway felt about a matador being seriously gored? Since the author was passionate about the beauty of death and violence, I imagine he would have been orgiastic over all violence, pain and death, to whichever living creature.
Hi Hels - he's another author I know from reputation ... but haven't read any of his works - something to repair once the library reopens. He's always come across as a strong 'bullish' character ... as you've mentioned here - hardened in youth, hardened through his experiences when emotions were kept suppressed and a paternalistic society. An interesting post - thanks ... added to my impressions of him ... he's a great writer. Stay safe - Hilary
Hilary
In high school, we had to read two novels each year that were set by the English teachers and not selected by the students. Because the boys in the class were unhappy about reading Jane Austen or Louisa May Alcott, we girls agreed to a quid pro quo - we would read Ernest Hemingway or Jack London in return.
I am glad now that we broadened our natural reading preferences back then.
I just found "Ernest Hemingway and his World" by Anthony Burgess (1978) deep in my library. Here is the review.
Burgess writes well with interesting facts about Hemingway's background, travels and career as a new and original contributor to world literature as considerable as Faulkner, Joyce and Fitzgerald. The US focus is on Key West after Spain, France, Italy and China as a war correspondent. There is Hemingway's obsession with death as with bulls matadors, soldiers and marlins. He named his son Nicanor after Nicanor Vallalta, who he claimed was the best of contemporary matadors at killing. The conclusion is a pithy concise digest of Hemingway's philosophy that to engage in literature a writer must first engage in life.
Joseph
Thank you. I feel a Sunday of reading coming up :)
At first look, the 116 photos look amazing.
well in my opinion he was a very flawed damaged human being , yet another victim of hypermasculinity which is again threatening the world as we fight Covid and climate change etc . I am sick to the core with this approach to life on this planet . It is evil, narcissistic and cruel and I think the sooner we raise boys with more real intelligence both emotional and intellectual the better off the planet will be .
mem
Hyper masculinity is indeed narcissistic and cruel, but because such men used to represent the common view in most societies, it could not have been defined as evil. Even now! Poland will be leaving the European Domestic Violence Treaty because hyper masculine Polish men believe the treaty poses a threat to traditional families and to Catholicism.
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