posted by admin on Feb 8
Editorial Reviews
Some days you skewer the bull, and some days the bull skewers you: this is one of the many useful lessons to be learned from Gary Gray’s memoir of seasons spent in Pamplona, Spain, where life revolves around the rituals and realities of tauromachy.
Stockbroker and finance professor Gray caught the bullfighting bug twenty-odd years ago while vacationing in Spain, and swiftly advanced from rank turista to learned aficionado by, among other things, participating in (and surviving) Pamplona’s famed “running of the bulls.” For those interested in doing the same, he offers notes on how best to ensure emerging ungored and unscathed (walk the narrow course beforehand, he counsels, and “plan an escape route should you become a bull’s bull’s-eye”). Elsewhere he revels in other aspects of Spanish life, recounting travels throughout the country, impossibly rich meals, complicated political discussions, and all-night drinking sessions in the company of men and women who share his passion for the corrida.
Though no threat to Ernest Hemingway’s classic Death in the Afternoon, Gray’s book capably describes a most dangerous pastime–and some wonderful Spanish places. –Gregory McNamee
From Booklist
Written by a professor who has been visiting Pamplona for a couple of decades, this account won’t change the mind of anyone who thinks running with the bulls is the epitome of craziness. Avoiding the poetic, Hemingway-influenced approach to bullfighting, Gray takes a more realistic tack. He describes Pamplona with the verve of a good travel writer, making us feel as though we are there ourselves, befriending the people, but he doesn’t romanticize the bull run; in fact, he makes it clear that the experience of running with the bulls is more scary than poetic, as the many injured and mutilated participants can testify. Missing from the book, unfortunately, is any real examination of the vital question: Why, for crying out loud, would anyone want to deliberately step in the path of a charging, thousand-pound animal? Still, Gray offers a useful introduction to the history and culture of bullfighting and an evocative re-creation of the unique spectacle that is the Pamplona bull run. David Pitt
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