Books, Arts & Manners: The Presence of Grace

The Dangerous Summer, by Ernest Hemingway (Scribner’s, 228 pp., $17.95)

Hemingway’s bible of bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon (1932), explains why he was drawn to this deadly ritual that emphasizes strict rules, extreme compression, skillful technique, pagan drama, and high courage. Hemingway—partly because he liked to kill animals and had nearly been killed himself—enjoyed the evocation of violence and the “sweet smell” of blood. He observed that bulls were the only animals deliberately bred to kill humans and that the corrida satisfied his need to study the elemental quality of death: “The only place where you could see life and death, i.e., violent death now that the wars were over, was in the bullring.”

About the Author

Jeffrey Meyers

Mr. Meyers is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the author of John Huston: Courage and Art.

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The Dangerous Summer, by Ernest Hemingway (Scribner’s, 228 pp., $17.95)

Hemingway’s bible of bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon (1932), explains why he was drawn to this deadly ritual that emphasizes strict rules, extreme compression, skillful technique, pagan drama, and high courage. Hemingway—partly because he liked to kill animals and had nearly been killed himself—enjoyed the evocation of violence and the “sweet smell” of blood. He observed that bulls were the only animals deliberately bred to kill humans and that the corrida satisfied his need to study the elemental quality of death: “The only place where you could see life and death, i.e., violent death now that the wars were over, was in the bullring.”