I had never heard a close account of a Portuguese or French bullfight. Fabulous ritual but a celebration of cruelty to animals. I still am not a vegetarian, but I think about it sometimes.
I don't think bullfights are celebrating cruelty to animals. It's more like the cruelty to animals is just not considered important. I think it celebrates risk and danger, for the humans. Tormenting the animal is necessary to create the dangerous environment, which is celebrated.
As for being a vegetarian, I'm not sure why that relates to bullfighting, but I kind of see it. As I age, I digest meat less well, so it's easier to imagine being a vegetarian!
You have a good memory Alex. For I too saw a bullfight once in Spain when I studied there in 1986. I studied in Salamanca, like you, but I believe I saw the fight elsewhere, perhaps while traveling in Toledo . However, I really have no recall of how I felt at the time. Horrified, disgusted, entertained? Whatever my emotion, it is lost to the sands of time, like the blood-soaked sand of the arena (how do you like that flourish?). I am a Hemingway fan, and one day someone left in my LIttle Free Library, A Death in the Afternoon. Yet, unlike the fiction, I can't imagine enjoying this book or finding it interesting. He goes on at length about bullfighting in The Sun Also Rises and I think that is enough for me.
You have an informed comment, having lived there, and just a few years after me. I would like to read the Hemingway book, although I probably won't make the time for it. He clearly takes bullfighting very, very seriously and respectfully. Objecting to it on animal-cruelty grounds probably wasn't even on his radar, although I would have to read it to be sure. Hemingway is a very good writer (although not as good as my man W Faulkner), so whatever he said about b-fighting is probably well said.
Alex--great story--Polly
Thank you Polly!
I had never heard a close account of a Portuguese or French bullfight. Fabulous ritual but a celebration of cruelty to animals. I still am not a vegetarian, but I think about it sometimes.
I had forgotten that France also still has bullfights, and that they are different. Probably just southern France.
I don't think bullfights are celebrating cruelty to animals. It's more like the cruelty to animals is just not considered important. I think it celebrates risk and danger, for the humans. Tormenting the animal is necessary to create the dangerous environment, which is celebrated.
As for being a vegetarian, I'm not sure why that relates to bullfighting, but I kind of see it. As I age, I digest meat less well, so it's easier to imagine being a vegetarian!
Thank you for your multi-faceted comments, Paco.
You have a good memory Alex. For I too saw a bullfight once in Spain when I studied there in 1986. I studied in Salamanca, like you, but I believe I saw the fight elsewhere, perhaps while traveling in Toledo . However, I really have no recall of how I felt at the time. Horrified, disgusted, entertained? Whatever my emotion, it is lost to the sands of time, like the blood-soaked sand of the arena (how do you like that flourish?). I am a Hemingway fan, and one day someone left in my LIttle Free Library, A Death in the Afternoon. Yet, unlike the fiction, I can't imagine enjoying this book or finding it interesting. He goes on at length about bullfighting in The Sun Also Rises and I think that is enough for me.
You have an informed comment, having lived there, and just a few years after me. I would like to read the Hemingway book, although I probably won't make the time for it. He clearly takes bullfighting very, very seriously and respectfully. Objecting to it on animal-cruelty grounds probably wasn't even on his radar, although I would have to read it to be sure. Hemingway is a very good writer (although not as good as my man W Faulkner), so whatever he said about b-fighting is probably well said.