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Wednesday 27 March 2013

Bull.

One night last week, we got the babysitter in and ventured into town to go to the theatre:




Up in the cheap seats at the Theatre Royal (Australia's oldest, no less), where the chandelier is almost at eye level, you wouldn't want to suffer from vertigo as it is dizzyingly high. We went to see The Select (The Sun Also Rises) by an experimental New York theatre company brought to Hobart as part of Tasmania's International Arts Festival, Ten Days On the Island. Amazingly, a sizeable chunk of the dialogue was lifted directly from the pages of Hemingway's novel Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises  which was narrated predominantly by the main character and acted by the cast.  A play within the pages of the novel was revealed and it was long, almost three and a half hours....if you were a fast reader you could a almost read the book to yourself in that time (I read in on the two planes between Hobart and Brisbane). The production was witty and clever, which managed to save it from being a tad on the dull side, and used a pastiche of words, music, sound effects and....trestle tables, which did duty as.....trestle tables, beds, trout and most dramatically.....a bull:


Yes, a bull, because you need a bull/trestle table for a bullfight. And there was a bullfight, just before the promiscuous Lady Brett Ashley ran off with the bullfighter, having shagged most of the other male characters, except for Jake....because he was impotent due to wounds sustained in WW1. Hemingway, of course, loved bullfights.....after he committed suicide in 1961, two tickets to the upcoming Pamploma bullfights were discovered in his desk.

I can't say that I share his appreciation, as I don't like bullfights. All of that testosterone dressed up in pink tights and gilded, garishly hued, tight costumes......the absurd stances, pelvic thrusts and floppy hair. Not to mention the overwhelming barbarity and the blood and guts.

I went to a bullfight at the arena in Beziers in 2010....coincidentally, it was just around the corner from the hospital where I had my baby four months later. My overriding impression, from what I saw through my tears, was a cruel attention seeking display of virility. The odds are stacked against the bull from the minute that it runs, confused and scared into the arena. It is never going to get out of there alive. It is going to be taunted and formulaically stabbed, until it can barely hold it's head up and then some egotistical maniac is going to utterly humiliate it and kill it in an attempt to show off. Don't be fooled...it is nothing like the children's classic storybook The Story of Ferdinand.

Occasionally, a bullfighter gets gored:



.....good on the bull I say.

Peversely, outside the arena before the corrida, it was almost how I imagine going to a Tom Jones concert would be like.....lots of giggly, excited women....young and old, clutching flowers, cards and notes to throw at the bullfighters feet as an act of infatuation. If the judges want to show their approval, they don't present a trophy and fizz up the champagne...they award one or two of the beasts severed ears and if they think it was particularly good, it's tail.

Bullfighting in the Langudoc area of South West France continues to grow in popularity...in may have been outlawed by an act of parliament over the border in Spain's Catalonia, yet in France it attracts a massive crowd and various towns have a week long hard sangria drinking, paella eating, bullfighting focused Feria associated with it.

In just over three weeks we are heading back to the Languedoc. The closest sizeable town to the village where we will be living and our children going to school, is Nimes, which boasts several important remains from the ancient Roman Empire including an amphitheatre which was built around 70AD. In the late 19th century it was remodelled as........a bullring, which is still in use today. Needless to say, I won't be going there to see a bullfight however I am tempted to maybe get tickets to see Depeche Mode perform there in July.

Rx

14 comments:

  1. Hate bull fights. Horrible. Years since I read Hemingway. I need to revisit.

    Very exciting re France! What a wonderful experience to all go back again.

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    1. Horrible. Exciting! It will be a wonderful experience one we endure the v long flight with a bossy 2 year old! Rx

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  2. Bull fighting is horrid, makes me so sad for them. Are you really going back? What fabulous news! So, so envious of you all. How long are you going back for? x

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    1. Going back for term 2...3.5 months. Children all booked into school in the village....if we can toilet train the two year old she can go too so we are diligently working on it! Rx

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  3. I read The Paris Wife last year, the first bullfight Hemingway went to was a pivotal plot development point with their marriage, supposedly built on fact. Hate bullfights too. As for bullfights in Nieme's amphitheatre, that seems like an awful travesty for an ancient structure. I'd definitely go to see Depeche Mode there though. How fab that would be. V. envious of your upcoming trip, even if it did entail an arduous declutter to get your house in order! xx

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  4. Yes, Depeche Mode sounds much more tempting! The arduous declutter has moved up a notch now that we are running out of time! Last time we went we were still shoving stuff up into the attic at 2am the night before our flight....let's hope we don't repeat the performance! Rx

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  5. How wonderful to take your family back to France! I think I would much rather Ferdinand I don't wish to see a real bullfight!

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    1. No, bullfighting not recommended. Went to try and understand the local character yet it was like anticipating going to the dentist for an extraction and from the minute it started I sobbed uncontrollably. Didn't stay for long. Rx

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  6. This post also made me think of A Paris Wife... While living in France we visited the coast, and part of the experience was a bullfight. Actually, it was a matador training school, so no one, not man or bull, was harmed in any way, it was pure showmanship. That I can watch, the real thing turns my stomach.

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    1. They're mad for it in the south down where we were....most villages had some bull related activity culminating in the full blooded corrida in Beziers. Was stunned by the huge posters covering famous local buildings of the local torero who was celebrating 10 years in the biz, all tricked up in his glitzy gear, winking and holding......a bloody ear. I loved the book 'A Paris Wife'.....Hemingway was a complex character to put it mildly! Rx

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  7. hello romy! i'd like to introduce myself, i'm janet from the gardeners cottage in california. i'm friends with k of faux fuchsia fame. so nice to meet you!

    i love hemingway but hate bullfights. you describe it well, just as it really is which is barbaric and criminal in my mind.

    i would much prefer to see depeche mode while there too.

    xo
    janet

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    1. Hi Janet, lovely to touch base....believe I may be meeting you in person in London?! So looking forward to it. Flowers are much more my thing too and can't believe that I actually went to a bullfight.....I didn't stay long and my instant reaction was uncontrollable weeping. Never again. Rx

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  8. Romy! Despite being a very poor commenter of late I have been diligently reading. Super envious of the upcoming trip, how exciting. The journey there will obviously be dire but so well worth it and how nice to be able to see your friends again (esp the one who lost her little boy, I still think of her despite knowing nothing of her aside from your poignant post on Loss). I see you were recently in my old hood in Bris. Did you dine at Montrachet? Hope you're well and keeping up the yoga to maintain sanity amidst packing / trip coordination. Jx

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  9. Yes, it will be wonderful to see our French friends again....can't wait. Dreading the packing and interminable flight yet once have survived that we'll be in Paris! Worth it I say! Had a v fleeting & last minute trip to Bris on the weekend. Can't tell you where we had dinner however I don't think it was Montrachet....it was nice through and they gave us free bubbly! As usual the yoga is the only thing keeping me sane.....Rx

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I LOVE hearing your thoughts! Rx