I do not place such pursuits as mountain-climbing or motor-racing in the same category as toreo since in those cases, risk is something to be assiduously avoided, whereas it forms the very basis of what a matador does, and the degree to which he courts it and elegantly evades its consequences is used as a yardstick of his success.
Bill Cranfield
In the Anglo-Saxon culture, death is something we try not to mention, let alone celebrate. It is almost as great a taboo as money. Yet here it was common parlance. Just as “How old are you? How many kids do you have? How much do you earn?” was standard conversation on a Spanish train in those days, so the corrida de toros was a twice-weekly event in Barcelona (how times have changed!)
Anachronistic? Yes, thank god. In the homogenised world we in the West are increasingly forced to live in, where all the dirt and shit and blood and old-fashioned agonies and ecstacies have been airbrushed out so that we can delude ourselves that life is not, in fact, a tragic lottery, and that true art doesn’t require any real risk, it is indeed a glorious anachronism. Or as Espla put it: “The bulls are an antidote to the banality of modern life.” If I mentally float above myself for a moment and forget all that I know about it, I still marvel at the fact, as I did that first afternoon in Barcelona, that in this 21st century, men can be found who are prepared to dress up in heavy, antiquated costumes and stand under the broiling sun for a couple of hours, dicing with death to “express themselves” (which is how they all refer to it) in such a way that their creation will live in the memory banks of those watching.
My own memory bank is full of such creations, or snippets from them, and el toreo is something that has added immeasurably to my own intellectual and emotional development, to say nothing of the many felicitous moments it has afforded me, both watching it and talking and reading about it. I don’t expect you to share my pleasure and if, after a proper and reasonably thorough investigation of the facts of the matter, you wish to decry it — even campaign against my right to enjoy it — you’re welcome. But please don’t call it a “bullfight”.
