User:KForeman/sandbox

THE BULLFIGHT: A PHOTOGRAPHIC NARRATIVE WITH TEXT BY NORMAN MAILER, as the title reads on the cover and the title page presents some interesting problems for the aficionado of the corrida. To begin with there is the ambiguity of the title: Is it a photographic narrative with text, both by Norman Mailer? Or is it an authorless photographic narrative, with accompanying text by Norman Mailer? More logically the latter, since the essay by Mailer, which bares its interior title, “Footnote to Death in the Afternoon,” deals with one Mexican torero, Amado Ramírez, who used the nom de guerre, El Loco, while the photo section portrays the corrida exclusively in Spain, the photographs and the text do not correspond. Non-aficionados may not appreciate the gravity of this impropriety to get an idea imagine an essay about an Indy car driver at the Indianapolis 500, with photos from Le Mans, Monaco, and the Mille Miglia, or an essay about the Atlanta Olympics with photographs from the Beijing Games. The mix—awkward from the point of view of the aficionado—does not compute.

In between the essay and the photos appears a ten-line excerpt from Federico García Lorca’s taurine poeticmasterpiece,“Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías,” translated woodenly by Mailer and his daughter Susan, not that the quality matters, since the excerpt has nothing to do with the essay or the photos, nor does it serve as a transition from one to the other. The overall effect of this haphazard mixture is one of ineptitude. It is not even clear who claims to have published the book. J.Michael Lennon’s bibliography of first editions, published in the second volume of The Mailer Review, lists Macmillan (515), but the copyright appears as belonging to CBS Records and Macmillan are only credited with distribution. The dust jacket begins by saying “This is the most unusual book to be published about the bullfight.” I tend to agree with that statement but not for the reasons the publisher sets forth, and the resulting irony for the aficionado or the critical reader is most certainly unintended.

Works Cited

Brand, Anthony. "'Far From Simple': The Published Photographs in Death in the Afternoon. "A Companion to Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. publisher = Ed. Mirian Mandel. Rochester, NY:Camden House, 2004. Print. CS1 maint: Missing pipe (link)