In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

60 ARRAYS
authors like Montherlant do not seem to understand that it is the impossibility
of fulfillment which makes the desires underlying the bullfight so
strong, they give in to the temptation to transform it into a religion.
Thus, they return to the very dichotomy between immanence and transcendence
whose blurring makes the bullfight so fascinating. [see Immanence
vs. Transcendence] Les Bestiaires ends with the description of a
utopian future in which an ancient "cult of the bull" dominates society.
Montherlant even invents hymns in honor of the ancient and future bull
deity: "I am the bull that, from Asia I to the forests of Liguria, I has ruled
through Joy, Art, and Blood lover the peoples of the Mediterranean"
(244).
In D. H. Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent, the initial experience
of a Mexican bullfight ends in deep disillusionment for Kate, the female
protagonist: "The last of Kate's illusions concerning bull-fights came
down with a flop. These were the darlings of the mob? These were the
gallant toreadors? Gallant? Just about as gallant as assistants in a
butcher's shop. Lady-killers? Ugh!" (15). It is, however, this disappointment
with bullfighting which disposes Kate to accept a brutal yet intensely
fulfilling sexual subjection to her husband Cipriano, the founder
of a bull religion which is supposed to become the revolutionary future
of Mexico. Hemingway brings Brett's love affair with the young
bullfighter Romero to a very different conclusion. The more strongly
Romero's feelings correspond to the powerful sexual attraction that Brett
experiences, the more she understands how impossible it will be for him
to become part of her life, the life of a "lost generation" [see Americans
in Paris], without losing the purity of his desire: '''You know I'd have
lived with him if I hadn't seen it was bad for him. We got along damned
well ... I'm thirty-four, you know. I'm not going to be one of these
bitches that ruins children" (254). Brett-and Hemingway-understand
that bullfighting is neither immanence nor transcendence: it stages the
impossibility of ever bringing the oscillation between the two to an end.
Related Entries
Americans in Paris, Boxing, Dancing, Mountaineering, Murder, Revues,
Action vs. Impotence, Authenticity vs. Artificiality, Center vs. Periphery,
Immanence vs. Transcendence, Male vs. Female, Uncertainty vs. Reality,