Rating: 
Summary: Engaging account of competition between Spanish Matadors
Review: Lacking the crisp focus of Death in the Afternoon this work still has many wonderful parts and should be read by anyone with an interest in Hemingway or bullfighting. Written near the end of his life the book rambles at points but still treats the principal subject, the competition between two legendary Spanish Matadors, with the studied Hemingway eye. His descriptions of Franco's Spain provides an interesting overall context for this account.
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: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Lovely
Review: This is a wonderful travel book. I read it and now I want to go to Spain and travel in a motorcar and eat in cafes and view bullfights. American sports only attain a large following if the participants do something with a ball. Bullfighting is clearly different because if you participate you can die. Like boxing, those who choose to fight bulls do so with their own free will. Hemingway gives us descriptions of the country, some of the culture, and most of all the temporada and the corrida. His language is clear, crisp and bright.
Rating:
Summary: literary non-fiction
Review: This is a wonderful travel book. I read it and now I want to go to Spain and travel in a motorcar and eat in cafes and view bullfights. American sports only attain a large following if the participants do something with a ball. Bullfighting is clearly different because if you participate you can die. Like boxing, those who choose to fight bulls do so with their own free will. Hemingway gives us descriptions of the country, some of the culture, and most of all the temporada and the corrida. His language is clear, crisp and bright.
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