The Horn and the Foolish Men of Pamplona

The Ghost of an Old Book

This year marks 100 years since 'The Sun Also Rises' was published. The book made this small Spanish town famous across the world. Now the tourists arrive with cameras and fear. They do not understand the tragedy of the ring.

The old romance is dead. The narrow streets are packed with tourists who do not know the animals. They fall over each other in cheap pileups. The text created a spectacle that the modern crowd cannot handle.

The Indifference of the Beast

The animals ran for 875 meters from the pen. Many runners did not see the bulls breathing down their necks. The beasts did not hate the men. They simply shoved the bodies out of the way.

The hospital counts the statistics every morning. The local leaders call it tradition because it brings money. A opened face is just the price of the weekend commerce.

The Cheap Illusion of Danger

Men run to prove their courage against the beast. Then the bullfighters kill the bulls later in the afternoon. The outcome is already decided by the state. There is no true glory in a fixed game.

The crowd watches the blood and calls it culture. The tourists take pictures of the gored face. They buy souvenirs and go home to their safe lives.

The festival will last for three more days in northern Spain. The crowd will drink wine and run from the horns again. The dead author left a story about courage. Did he mean for men to ruin their faces for a vacation photograph?