Rating: 
Summary: Bullfighting through the eyes of Hemingway
Review: Considered literary non-fiction, this is the account of the 1959
season of bullfighting in Spain and the intense competition between
two competing matadors for the glory of that season. It is his last
major work at age 60; he killed himself the following year.In an
introduction by James Mitchner, it is explained that this piece was
commissioned by Life Magazine. The assignment was for Hemmingway to
revisit the bullfights he had written about in his classic novel
"Death in the Afternoon" published in 1940. Hemingway was
supposed to write 10,000 words for the article. Instead, he submitted
120,000 words. It was edited down to 70,000 words and ran in three
installments. This book I read, however, was only about 45,000 words
and focuses specifically on the particular contests between two
competing matadors who happened to be brothers in law. Hemingway had
a personal relationship with both of them and brings the reader to the
dinners and the parties as well as to the infirmary after a goring,
the painful healing process in Spanish hospitals that do not
administer painkillers, the long rides on bad roads between bullfights
and the dirt and heat and fatigue and glory. I have not read much of
Hemingway and knew nothing at all about bullfighting when I started
reading. Yet, by the end of the book a portrait of the author emerges
as well as an understanding of the history, tradition choreographed
performance of skill that occurs in the bull ring. Somehow, I was
able to move beyond my personal feelings about the slaughter of the
bull, and get into the mindset of Hemingway and the people of Spain,
where bullfighting is a national passion. It has to do with courage.
And it has to do with facing death. Hemmingway said it all it better
than I ever could: "This was Antonio's regular appointment with
death that we had to face every day. Any man can face death but to be
committed to bring it as close as possible while performing certain
classic movements and do this again and again and again and then deal
it out yourself with a sword to an animal weighing half a ton which
you love is more complicated than facing death."
Rating: 
Summary: one of my favorite books
Review: During the 1959 bullfighting season, Hemingway travels with one of the matadors and his team throughout Spain. Hemingway's other book on bullfighting, "Death In the Afternoon" is more well-known and perhaps more informative, strictly speaking, but it is dry in comparison to "The Dangerous Summer," which has the pace of an adventure novel or a thriller. And in that respect it seems to capture the excitement of bullfighting better than "Death in the Afternoon." (I say "seems to" because I've never been to a bullfight.) I also loved the descriptions of Spain that Hemingway offers as they travel around the country.
Rating:
Summary: Last Hurrah for Papa
Review: Fortunately I had read Death in the Afternoon before absorbing this last encore. By the end, I was attached at the soul to both matadors, (Cain and Abel!?). I wish I could read the other 50,000 words edited from this work. Papa described everything that was behind the fragile curtain of honor, bravado, showmanship, and the pageantry of bullfighting. Like many musicians or athletes of our time, we cannot observe from behind the scenes all the work, travel and lack of sleep that these people go through, therefore we cannot fully appreciate the bullfighters of the "Lost Generation". I recommend this book to anyone who wants to experience this true American literary icon and Spanish culture and History. It is interesting to see the way Spain has changed over the years. This book is full of magic and it describes the drive and mild competitiveness that all men and women should have inside in order to suceed in today's harsh world. The introduction of James A. Michener is beautifully written by someone who knew Spain. The terms are helpful to any who is not familiar with basic bullfighting. This is one of Papa's most under-appreciated least-recognized works, but that's ok with me.
Rating:
Summary: Last Hurrah for Papa
Review: Fortunately I had read Death in the Afternoon before absorbing this last encore. By the end, I was attached at the soul to both matadors, (Cain and Abel!?). I wish I could read the other 50,000 words edited from this work. Papa described everything that was behind the fragile curtain of honor, bravado, showmanship, and the pageantry of bullfighting. Like many musicians or athletes of our time, we cannot observe from behind the scenes all the work, travel and lack of sleep that these people go through, therefore we cannot fully appreciate the bullfighters of the "Lost Generation". I recommend this book to anyone who wants to experience this true American literary icon and Spanish culture and History. It is interesting to see the way Spain has changed over the years. This book is full of magic and it describes the drive and mild competitiveness that all men and women should have inside in order to suceed in today's harsh world. The introduction of James A. Michener is beautifully written by someone who knew Spain. The terms are helpful to any who is not familiar with basic bullfighting. This is one of Papa's most under-appreciated least-recognized works, but that's ok with me.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed it..
Review: I am not one for bull fighthing but Hemingway, as always puts things in such wonderful words. I felt, I was a fan of the sport. Very wonderful book about his friendship with a bull fighter, Papa does a wonderful job explaining to someone whom knows nothing about bullfighting and allowing us to see it through his eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Faena by Hemingway
Review: I must admit that Hemingway is one of my fovorite writers. This book covers the bullfighting season of 1959 in Spain. More specifically it is about a mano a mano between two of the greatest bullfighters of the time. This book is very detialed in the descriptions of the bullfights. Being a big fan of Hemmingway's other bullfighting books (Death in the Afternoon and The Sun Also Rises), I really enjoyed his wonderful descriptions of the bullfights, and would recomend this book to anyone who enjoyed either of these. This book is also great for anyone who is interested in bullfighting and wants to read what one of the most respected aficionados on the subject has to say about it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Faena by Hemingway
Review: I must admit that Hemingway is one of my fovorite writers. This book covers the bullfighting season of 1959 in Spain. More specifically it is about a mano a mano between two of the greatest bullfighters of the time. This book is very detialed in the descriptions of the bullfights. Being a big fan of Hemmingway's other bullfighting books (Death in the Afternoon and The Sun Also Rises), I really enjoyed his wonderful descriptions of the bullfights, and would recomend this book to anyone who enjoyed either of these. This book is also great for anyone who is interested in bullfighting and wants to read what one of the most respected aficionados on the subject has to say about it.
Rating: 
Summary: The picture of an Aging Tough Guy!
Review: The Dangerous Summer has a terrible reputation among Hemmingways works, second only to "Across the River and into the Trees" as his most universally trashed piece of writing. Hemmingway is at his best (in my opinion)when writing about Spain, and his narrative has always been overwhelmingly beautiful and strong when he describes bullfighting. I am a great lover of animals and yet I am facinated by the Bullfights described by Hemmingway and Death in the Afternoon is one of his finest works. Hemmingways narrative, as beautiful as it is when it is working well, is prone to failure from time to time, and some of his work has been mildly excruciating as a result. Dangerous Summer was written little more than a year before Hemmingway put a bullet through his skull. A sense of overwhelming detatchment and sadness saturates this book. Unlike "A Movable Feast" (which was also non-fiction, and also written when he was a much older man) there is not the great sense of adventure and youth found in that work. In Antonio Ordonez, Hemmingway feels a passion it seems he has been missing for a very long time; in one passage, an old man sitting beside the author states: "He makes me feel the old way about bullfighting that I have not felt in years." In reality these fact it is Hemmingay who should be saying that because the statement reveals his own lost joy as vividly as if he had said those words himself. Although he is powerfully built for a man of sixty (a picture of him at the beach reveals a powerful and trim,man for his age) he posesses a weariness relieved for a short time by his friendship with a young and magnificent bullfighter. I think this novel is worth reading for the picture of the aging authors psyche and it's hypnotic descriptions of the rivalry between two gifted matadors. If he was more humble, perhaps Hemmingway would have felt this way about a young author, but in this case he is drawn to the tragic figure of the matador; an artist whose canvas is death, and whose period of greatness can only hold out as long as his fear does not catch up to him (with matadors it always does, but for Antonio we do not get to witness it here). As for the quality of the writing, Hemmingways worst work has been strangely scattered throughout his life, and this novel is by no means a desperate grasp at a lost narrative. The Green Hills Of Africa, was a greater narative failure, it revealed more pettiness and bitterness than this novel does, and yet that was written in his youth. This book is overshadowed by an awful introduction and the inescapable fact that the seeds of his suicide have already begun to bloom long before the author wrote the first sentence. I think he wrote the 110,000 more words than necessary for this book because it was one of the last times in his life that passion was revived for a short period of time. Perhaps if it was a woman or a dog that revived these feelings he would have not offed himself, but that is only speculation. This book is supirior to the picture painted by the introduction and all of the terrible things the critics have made it out to be. There is a great meloncholy to this work that runs beneath the words, this is not the rich sadness of his tragic stores and novels but the picture of a man for whom joy has been given a very, very, very, temporary reprieve.
Rating:
Summary: Vivid Hemingway
Review: The Dangerous Summer is truely a consuming work of Hemingways. Drawing you in a not letting go until he decides to let you go. Very colorful and descriptive the only draw back being the bias created by the friendship of Hemingway and Ordonez. This is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Mano a Mano
Review: This book portrays a true mano a mano which is a term widely used to describe a formal challenge or a dare. In bullfighting means that the matador which dares to fight the bull at very close range might just win all of the trophies and be carried on people's shoulders out of the Bullring or may get seriously injured. It is particularly interesting the fact that a woman in real life was married to one of the matadors and a sister to the other one. Hemingway gives us a little behind the scene stories, which makes the Bullfighting less glamorous and more real.
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