Death In The Afternoon
(Ernest Hemingway)
Considered to be the greatest book on bullfighting
in the English language, this encyclopedic account of the sport, its
participants, and its fans is prerequisite learning material for any
person desiring to become a viewer of bullfights; and, for those with
more of an interest in Hemingway or great prose than in what Hemingway
called the "great tragedy," this book is filled with the author's
opinions on life, art, writing, and a host of other subjects. In
Death in the Afternoon Hemingway introduces his Iceburg theory, which
states that "the dignity of the movement of an iceburg is due to
seven-eights of it being underwater." This theory was one of his
major principles of writing, which, more directly, meant that in
writing fiction many important things can be left out and, rather than
detracting from the work, their absence, which should only be
superficial, will move the piece forward and hopefully make the reader
feel their truth more strongly than if they had been left in.
Also included in Death in the Afternoon is the debut of Hemingway's
short story A Natural History of the Dead, which later appeared in his
third collection of short stories, Winner Take Nothing.
Death in the Afternoon is very informative;
judicious and fair, although not lacking the personality of the
author's own opinions of types of fans and bullfighters; and often
entertaining. Hemingway throughout the book remains conscious of
the fact that many of the readers of it will be more fans of him than
of bullfighting, and will ocassionally pause and address the reader
directly, patronizingly apoligizing for the lack of dialogue, and often
proceeding, for the reader's enjoyment - and for his own as well, one
comes to believe - with anecdotes and tangential comments or diatribes.
As for the book's subject, one will be hard-pressed
to find a more accurate or exhaustive account of the sport in the
English language, and even in the Spanish and other languages it has
come to be considered as one of the standard and required guides for
any fan or aficionado.
Resumos Relacionados
- The Old Man And The Sea
- The Cambridge Encyclopaedia Of The English Language
- The Cambridge Encyclopaedia Of The English Language
- Narrative Techniche In ?old Man And The Sea?
- The Beautiful And The Damned
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