Bullfight writing an art of its own

Press, 28 September 1988, Page 27

Bullfight writing an art of its own

NZPA-Reuter Madrid The phrases “Lap and ears” and "Silence, row” in a newspaper report might mean nothing to some readers — but to those in the know they convey the difference between triumph and shame. In the language of those who report bullfights, the first phrase means a bullfighter was awarded a lap of honour for killing his first bull of the day in style, and the animal’s ears, a coveted trophy, for the second. The second phrase means the other bull-

fighter met icy silence and jeers. The men who report on the bullring for Spain’s daily newspapers and specialist weekly magazines are not always fulltime reporters and among the best-known are a bank chairman and a former Secretary of State for Information. Mariano Cruz, the regular critic for the country’s second largest daily, “La Vanguardia,” is a psychiatrist. Their reports have a space of their own in their journals, apart from sports or entertainment

sections since “aficionados” regard bullfighting as more than sport or mere entertainment. “It is entertainment with a difference: that a man may die,” said Cruz who has reported on some 1500 bullfights. This makes the task of the bullfight critics all the more difficult, said an American, Bill Lyon, who reckons he is the only foreigner to have reported for Spanish readers from Madrid’s Las Ventas bullring whose public is reputed to be the world’s most demanding. “How much can you

criticise bullfighters who are risking their lives?” he asked. Ever since Ernest Hemingway wrote about bullfighting, daily reporting on it has become more literary. Joaquin Vidal, who writes for the leading daily, “El Pais,” won praise for his reports from a well known author, the late Argentine exile, Julio Cortazar. “Reporting now tends to be more impressionistic than factual,” said Lyon. Reflecting the mood of the writing, illustrations of bullfights in newspapers are sometimes drawings,

which capture the flowing line of a bullfighter’s body eluding the bull, rather than photographs. The world of bullfighting employs 170,000 people and draws some 40 million spectators a year in Spain, but is coming under attack from animal lovers supported by some foreign politicians since Spain joined the European Community two years ago. But bullring writers agree that the main threat to Spain’s national passion comes from within: paradoxically, they say, it is boredom.

They say that breeding practice for years aimed at making bulls easier to handle produced weaker and less combative animals who tired quickly, stumbled and shied away from the pain of the bullfighters’ lances and darts. Vidal recently described a fight where one bull just sat down. All efforts to pull it up by the tail and horns failed and it had to be killed sitting. He said bullfighting lacked big stars and would decline unless it found a crowd-puller like Manuel Benitez, "El Cordobes,” in the 19605.