My first book by Hemingway and I was blown away by his writing, I find it crazy reading books where I can understand how it was written vs having absolutely no idea how someone can master a language so well that it’s basically magic, and this was the latter.

The subject matter of bullfighting is an interesting one. Interesting in the sense that I placed aside my moral objections to making a bull fight to the death for sport, and placed myself in a dusty town square in 1950s Spain (empath). I allowed myself to read without (too much) judgement. And every time it gets too heavy in detail it breaks into light conversation which is an absolute lovely thing to read.

Overall great book and painted a thrilling and fascinating pure view of bullfighting, I have not changed my mind that it should be maybe left in the 50s and can’t quite believe it’s still a thing.

As always, beautifully written by Hemingway. No fault there.

I have no interest in bullfighting and find the whole affair of it unnecessary and cruel. I've been reading this for so long because I could only manage a few pages at a time. Thank God it's over.
Sorry Hemingway.

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I picked this up, but I thought if I were to read about bullfighting, Hemingway might be a good choice as a guide. I had no idea it would be so detailed.

I feel like I came away from it understanding the structure of a bullfight, the environment, the emotion. I was fascinated by his descriptions of proper killing, the work of the picadores and banderilleros (who I didn't even know existed before), and all the moves that a matador may perform, properly or improperly. Perhaps the most interesting part was Hemingway's recurring theme of the bravery of the bull. It's easy for an outsider to think of the matador as brave (or crazy), but one rarely considers the idea of a brave bull and how that bravery can raise the level of a bullfight to sheer brilliance if properly used by the matador.

Also, you get a glimpse of Spain and its people through his writing, which I also enjoyed immensely. And finally, some of it was quite funny, as my boyfriend can attest because I kept reading passages out loud to him.

I am not certain where Death in the Afternoon ranks today in the Hemingway canon. It was his first non-fiction piece apart from his journalistic production and, at the time of its publication in 1932, it was not particularly well received. Many found the topic of Spanish bullfighting overly parochial if not repugnant. And there was criticism of Hemingway’s strong judgmental tendencies that covered a gambit of writers and bullfighters. Kenneth Lynn, one of Hemingway’s biographers, wrote in his 1987 Hemingway: “While the side remarks he makes about the art of writing are indispensable to any reader interested in modern literature, his tauromachian erudition is a bore, his tough-guy posturing an embarrassment, and his cutting comments about fellow writers by and large unamusing.”

Those are severe remarks about the book as late as 1987 from a serious student of Hemingway. But for my part, I am not a serious student of his life and works. I’m just a reader. And Death in the Afternoon was for me largely enjoyable.

I must admit to some familiarity with bullfighting. While certainly not an aficionado, I have seen and reflected on a corrida or two during my several extended stays in Spain. I found much of Hemingway’s discourse instructive and entertaining and certainly accessible to even someone unfamiliar with the art.

[As a note, Hemingway defines an aficionado: “The aficionado, or lover of the bullfight, may be said, broadly, then, to be one who has this sense of tragedy and ritual of the fight so that the minor aspects are not important except as they relate to the whole. Either you have this or you have not, just as, without implying any comparisons, you have or have not an ear for music.”]

The fiesta nacional is an aspect of Spain woven into its fabric. That is not to say that it is significantly definitional. The sport of soccer is certainly far more popular today than the art of bullfighting and is probably the true fiesta nacional. But bullfighting does have its adherents and it has worked its way into the language and culture. There are moments when matadors dominate the public consciousness. During the 1960’s, for example, Manuel Benítez Pérez (El Cordobés) was much discussed. And today, figures like Francisco Rivera Ordóñez and his brother, Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez, are capturing journalistic ink and female hearts.

What is the value of Death in the Afternoon? Hemingway’s work on bullfighting was unique at the time of its publication: there was nothing as complete and entertaining in English to describe one thread of the Spanish fabric. As far as I know, nothing in English has replaced it. There are several works in Spanish but only Hemingway for an English speaking audience. And it is not only the text that remains informative but the extensive photos and the equally extensive glossary.

For me the study is more than a mere treatise on bullfighting, however. Weaving through the tome is a reflection on death, a theme that Hemingway himself will pick up with growing intensity in his future writings. But he begins it here. One focal point is his “Natural History of the Dead”, a diversion that he inserts in Chapter 12 beginning on page 133. Yet bullfighting itself is an ongoing dance with death and the reader soon sees its linkage with the confrontations between bull and man, hence the book’s title.

It is in this book also where Hemingway defines aspects of writing—both that of others and his own: “erectile writing” (p. 53); mysticism in writing (p. 54); .his “iceberg theory” of writing (p. 192); the connections between writing and painting (p.203). If nothing else, Hemingway holds back no punches whether “unamusing” or not.

You don't have to care about bull fighting to enjoy Hemingway's writing style, in this book or any of his others. I think you may have to care about bull fighting to enjoy this book. It's a nonfiction travel/history/culture book, so some sort of interest in the region and topic is obviously important.

Torear, es como soñar
(Da rileggere)

Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway
Death in the Afternoon is a non-fiction book written by Ernest Hemingway about the ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting, published in 1932. The book provides a look at the history and what Hemingway considers the magnificence of bullfighting. It also contains a deeper contemplation on the nature of fear and courage. While essentially a guide book, there are three main sections: Hemingway's work, pictures, and a glossary of terms. In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway explores the metaphysics of bullfighting—the ritualized, almost religious practice—that he considered analogous to the writer's search for meaning and the essence of life. In bullfighting, he found the elemental nature of life and death.
Notes: Hemingway 2003: p. 12, "It would be pleasant of course for those who do like it if those who do not would not feel that they had to go to war against it or give money to try to suppress it, since it offends them or does not please them, but that is too much to expect and anything capable of arousing passion in its favor will surely raise as much passion against it."
عنوانها: مرگ در بعد از ظهر؛ من فقط از این خانه نگهداری میکنم؛ نویسنده: ارنست همینگوی؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سی و یکم ماه می سال 2016 میلادی
عنوان: مرگ در بعد از ظهر؛ نویسنده: ارنست همینگوی؛ مترجم: سحر محمدبیگی؛ تهران، آرادمان؛ 1394؛ در 287 ص؛ شابک: 9786008099086؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - سده 20 م
عنوان: من فقط از این خانه نگهداری میکنم؛ نویسنده: ارنست همینگوی؛ مترجم: سمانه نیک سرشت؛ تهران، انتشارات فراموشی؛ 1396؛ در 176 ص؛ شابک: 9786009746613؛
کتاب «مرگ در بعد از ظهر»؛ در سال 1932 میلادی نگاشته شده، و یک کار «غیرداستانی» درباره ی «گاوبازی اسپانیایی» است. «همینگوی» در باره ی گاوبازی: «تورئو»، در بیان درست یا نادرست بودن آن، چنین نگاشته‌ است: «تنها این را می‌دانم که کارخوب، کاری است که پس از انجام آن احساس خوبی از خود داشته‌ باشی، و کار بد آن است که پس از انجامش، احساس بدی به‌ شما دست بدهد». ا. شربیانی

Definitely helped me to understand what exactly was happening the corridas I went to in Madrid last month. Hemingway gets technical very fast - but the book is worth a read unless you already have a strong negative opinion on bullfighting without ever seeing one.

I didn’t finish this… I read this because I needed details about bullfighting for my book about my grandfather. In one of his numerous letters he describes seeing a bullfight in Mexico City in 1940, and his description of the paradox between death and art is on par with Hemingway (not to compare my grandfather’s folksy Kansas prose to his… but they were both sort of cut from the same hyper masculine cloth). My grandfather writes about getting swept up in the crowd and being mesmerized by the violence, which is Hemingway’s primary point. Violence is strangely seductive.

Anyway Hemingway does make me kind of want to see a bullfight—or wish I had seen one back in the day. And I feel totally awful for admitting that. Which is what makes this book so fascinating. It really has more to do with art, writing, and the creative process in general. But I got a little bored with all the details of bullfighters from the 20’s and 30’s… and the details… so many details. The subtitle should be “Everything You Wanted to Know About Bullfighting but were Afraid to Ask.”

Surprisingly digestible for 500 pages on bullfighting. It's always enjoyable to see someone passionate about something. Hemingway has some clear disdain for other writers, which is odd when it crops up. Last few pages are genius writing.

Hemingway's frank, highly readable and quite engaging explanation of bullfighting as it was practiced in Spain in the early part of the last century. Dealing with the mechanics of the bullfight, the ring in which it occurs, the breeding and selection of the bulls, several celebrated matadors, and a little bit on the development of the practice and the supposed degeneration of the sport. Or rather, the tragedy. As he points out early on: bullfighting is NOT a sport, it is a tragedy. The bull always dies.

Somewhere, I have no idea where, I read Hemingway stating that 'Only bullfighters and boxers are truly brave'. To have seen over three hundred bulls (at another point he counts it as 1500) die, Hemingway certainly was drawn to the spectacle of such man-against-beast confrontations in which the bravery of both was so tested as to provide for, at its highest manifestation, the description of having been 'very emotional'.

A matador's cuadrilla consists of two picadors on horses, four banderilleros with long barbed sticks and then himself, armed with cape, muleta and swords. First, the picadors try to get the bull to charge them so that they can stab it with pics - pointed lances - in the heavy neck muscle. Damage to the horses was so extreme that mattress-like wrappings now protect their undersides from gorings, so that the display of a dying horse running around, trailing his internal intestines, is no longer seen. While they proceed to do so, the matador uses his cape to perform veronicas, holding
the cape with both hands and getting the bull to pass him as close as possible before turning and getting him to do the same motion in reverse.

Then the four banderilleros each stick the bull with two barbed lances (banderillas). Finally, the matador moves in for the kill, using his muleta -a red piece of serge wrapped around a stick - to get the bull to put its head down so that the killing blow can be administered by a word thrust between the shoulder blades. The term faena describes the passes with the muleta the matador performs preparatory to the final kill. All three elements of the entire operation must be completed with fifteen minutes. A bull fight involves six bulls and three matadors with their respective cuadrillas.

Hemingway describes the different seatings available in the bull ring, and their advantages and disadvantages, as well as the different reactions to the spectacle on the part of the audience - ranging from jubilant accolades and shoulder-carryings of their heroes to ugly scenes of physical violence against those who have displeased them. Certainly, it would appear that 'emotion' is a large part of the practice.

His description of the degeneration of the sport largely relates to the changes in the bulls brought to be so ritually slaughtered. Instead of four- to five-year old bulls of large size and much intelligence, the use of three year old, smaller bulls who are less wise in their dealing with man has become the practice, as is the use of tricks by the bullfighters who make it appear they are working close to the bulls when in fact they are taking few real risks. Bull breeders have to assess their bulls when they are calves to see if they will charge - otherwise they are good only for the slaughterhouse. As well, they must be kept to a minimum of human contact, or they will learn too well how to kill their antagonists.

The matadors Belmonte and Joselito radically reformed to the practice with their exaggerated movements during their faenas, and for several years carried on a strong rivalry which was good for the business. Then, Joselito was killed in the ring (this after being gored three times while killing 1557 bulls) and Belmonte retired a year later. As well, the stories told of Freg, a Mexican bullfighter who from 1910 to 1931 received 72 severe horn wounds and was four times given up for dead; of Gitenello, who was gored in both thighs and then through the stomach and died three months later weighing only 63 pounds (he'd weighed 128 when gored); and Maera, who repeatedly encountered bone while trying to kill a bull but kept at it ('Fuck the wrist!) even through his wrist was dislocated, are true marvels of human bravery and tragedy.

Hemingway lets the story get away from himself at several points and could have used a stricter editor. Not really belonging are the short story 'The Natural History of the Dead', which I've read in another collection of his, as well as a seemingly pointless story of two arguing guests in a hotel room. As well, there is adulation of Faulkner, and criticism of Aldous Huxley (a popinjay), Andre Gide (moral arrogance), Oscar Wilde (conceited debauchery) and Walt Whitman (sentimental pawing). There is also a stricture on novel-writing, indicating that novelists should create people, not characters, since the latter can only hope to be caricatures. All these are quie interesting, but somehow out of place.

There is also a 60 page glossary of bullfighting terms, explaining the original Spanish expression in sometimes excruciating detail. An appendix gives a short analysis of the bullfighting skills of Sidney Franklin, an American who became a bullfighter in both Mexico and Spain. Hemingway's refusal to include any particulars of Franklin's personal life made me curious to find out more.

Then, there is Chapter 20. It includes eight pages of Hemingway's glorious stream-of-consciousness, impressionist type of writing ostensibly describing all the sights, smells, taste, sounds and feelings of Spain (this 'country I love so much'), that he would have included to make this book complete. As in his rhapsodic passages in The Green Hills of Africa, this is Hemingway at his best. Any writer should marvel at his ability to see and feel the land and people he was living in and with.

All-in-all, a highly commendable, and reasonably objective analysis of a practice (I've had to fight the inclination to call it a 'sport') that certainly is relatively unique in human experience. The author's objectivity is never more apparent than in his self confession that 'rarely will you meet a more prejudiced man nor a man who tells himself he keeps his mind more open.' Well done.

Quisiera ser Hemingway para hablar de temas polémicos. Jamás me ha llamado la atención la tauromaquia pero tampoco he querido entrar al debate con la gente que opina a favor o en contra. Por eso, juzgar este libro desde la perspectiva moderna que se tiene de los toros puede resultar una mala idea.

Después de leer "Muerte en la tarde", uno puede darse cuenta de que el asunto ha sido polémico desde hace muchisimo tiempo. En la época de Hemingway había intentos por parte del gobierno español de cancelar las corridas de toros y sin embargo, ¿qué hace Hemingway al respecto? se declara apasionado de la fiesta y escribe un libro que, más que una apología, es un intento de explicar su pasión por los toros y sus puntos de vista como observador extranjero.

Hemingway en ningún momento trata de convencerte que te gusten los toros. Es más, comprende perfectamente que a la gente no le gusten y respeta sus gustos. El problema quizá es que le gusta algo que moralmente es mal visto por mucha gente y sin embargo, no se acobarda en dar sus puntos de vista y tratar de explicar paso por paso el ritual de toros y toreros.

Es definitivamente una lectura que vale la pena para todos, pro taurinos o no.