BOOK REVIEW: ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S "THE DANGEROUS SUMMER"

Then he raised his hand as he faced the bull and commanded him to go down with the death that he had placed inside him.

Having previously read Hemingway's rambling, overflowing, unforgettable book on bullfighting, DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON, I was uncertain as to whether I wanted to bother with THE DANGEROUS SUMMER, whose very existence violated Hemingway's own rule about never chewing the same cabbage twice. It was, after all, another non-fiction book about bullfighting, and one produced near the of Hemingway's life, when he was struggling with depression, delusion, and, I suspect, a feeling that he was a has-been living in the shadow of his own legend. There is actually an incident in the book in which Hemingway is told this in so many words by a young writer he encounters in a bar. Indeed, the book's fulsome but very interesting introduction, by James Mitchner, makes a curious point of...well, pointing out that this book should probably not have been written, pointing out that Papa's conclusions about both the bullfighters profiled in the book ultimately being proved completely wrong. Not since various Ernst Jünger book introductions have I been told more thoroughly warned about what I was about to read.

Despite all of this, I found THE DANGEROUS SUMMER one of the most readable things the old master ever put to paper. For my money, which does not amount to very much, I have always found Hemingway at his absolute best not in his novels, but when writing short stories, or reportage, or non-fiction work, where his cut-to-the-bone style and absence of dialog produce the most vivid imagery and flowing pace. Such is the case here.

Hemingway loved anything that he felt reeked of manliness, and the more blood and death were involved in the manliness, the better. Hence his love, one might say lust or obsession with, bullfighting, which pits men against bulls in a contest that always ends either in death (for the bull) or blood (for the bullfighter). THE DANGEROUS SUMMER chronicles the real-life competetition between Luis Miguel Dominguín, the former undisputed great of bullfighting come out of retirement to reclaim his crown, and his brother-in-law, Antonio Ordóñez, the classic young lion determined to put the old one back in his pasture, which took place in 1959. Though friends with both men, Hemingway made no secret of his favoritism towards Ordóñez, and the book is written from a perspective of an admiring hanger-on who accompanied the hotshot across the length of Spain and elsewhere during this epic conflict.

Hemingway was an "aficianado" of the bullfight, which to him was a tragic and beautiful dance with death, and he had a way of describing these contests which brilliantly balanced his very high technical knowledge of the spectacle with his gift of describing physical action. I know absolutely nothing about bullfighting beyond what Hemingway himself has told me, but he somehow makes this horribly macabre activity poetic and artful with his descriptions while more or less fully acknowledging its cruelty. And he does this, for the most part, without repeating much of anything he said in DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON, in which he tried to explain why he found bullfighting so glorious without whitewashing its essential, visceral savagery or offering a defense of the spectacle.

I read this book in three days, for its very much written in the style of a thriller, and while there are a few faults, a few discreet displays of a man possibly trapped within the rigid confines of his own highly distinctive and unique style of prose, trapped beneath the weight of his own reputation, and in a different sense, trapped beneath what were rather faulty conclusions about both bullfighters which were arrived at due to his rather shameless favoritism of one man over the other, none of this made any real difference to me in terms of enjoyment. Hemingway is a fascinating read as much for his willingness to explore the forbidden, the taboo, the deepest darks of the human condition without any fear or shame or apology, while seldom if ever coming across as a mere provacateur, as he is for the beauty of his prose, his jabbing wit, or his bon vivant love of all things connected to life. He was partictularly artiful in finding deeper meaning in simple actions, especially ritualistic actions, such as the hunt, sailing, boxing, fishing, and war. There is an almost Buddhist quality to his ability to hold onto a moment and pluck its meaning without damaging or diminishing it. (I say "almost" because his love of violence is hardly a Buddhist quality.)

In short, I thought this was one hell of a book, something that did not aim at any lofty goal but concentrated its entire might and passion upon a single objective and achieved that objective handily. There are distinct parallels between Hemingway and his depiction (accurate or no) of Dominguín as a great man past his best, yet so stubbornly determined to reclaim his former glory that he does in fact periodically and briefly reclaim it with advantages; a parallel Hemingway may or may not have been aware of since it only heightens his tragedy; in the end though it doesn't matter. Death is for the afternoon and this summer, with Papa, will always be dangerous.