Customer Reviews

Pamplona: Running the Bulls, Bars and Barrios in Fiesta de San Fermin

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I have been to the Fiesta of San Fermin every year since 1976. I studied and worked in the city, speak Spanish and know the place quite well. This is quite simply the best thing written on the fiesta of Pamplona in the English language since Mitchener put pen to paper. Why? There are three reasons.

It is accurate. Here you will find ancient history and modern day lore that is plainly written and true. Mouton has gone back to the historical sources and not relied on hearsay. Of course there are anecdotes about the lives of Americans known to him who have passed through fiesta, such as the legendary Philadelphia born bullfigher John Fulton. But in this book the City of Pamplona and its inhabitants are the stars of the show. He describes the Amercian influence as "a drop of Coca-Cola in a barrel of wine". Perfect.

It is beautifully written. The reader will find plain language but also subtle and moving prose poetry. He makes the whole experience come alive. Not just about the bullfight and the daily bull running but also the little things such as the booming of the drums and the way the dawn creeps up on the unsuspecting revellers. Page after page I smiled and thought.
" I wish I had written that".

It is superbly edited and designed. The photographs are world class.

My advice is simple. Don't buy a copy. Buy three. One for yourself, one for a friend who loves Spain and one for a friend who has never been.

"A Day in the Life of Fiesta" is another way to think of Mouton's account of the sometimes-overwhelming sensory experience of the Fiesta of San Fermin, a.k.a. the Running of the Bulls. The author's descriptive and literary talents allow one to vicariously experience both a day and the entire week of the infamous fiesta. It is perhaps cliché to say that Mouton has hit a home run or a bull's-eye with this book, but it is also highly accurate. I've attended fiesta many times over the past two decades and can confidently say that Mouton has brought this world-renowned fiesta to life with words - and as any veteran fiesta-goer will tell you, this is no easy accomplishment.

In reading this book you will come as close as possible to feeling the immense energy of fiesta, of smelling, tasting, dancing, hearing and rejoicing in the fiesta experience without actually being there. For veterans it will spark fiesta flashbacks and a longing to return. For potential fiesta goers it may just provide enough of a description to catalyze you into finally buying that plane ticket.

I first attended fiesta upon graduating college and those first few years were a blur of collegiate-style binging and revelry. Luckily I could remember enough about each year that I kept coming back. I had been infected with the fiesta spirit. In hindsight my only wish is that I had had a book like this one to read back then. What has taken so many years to learn and appreciate about the joys and beauty of fiesta would have been learned much faster with this account of and guide to the fiesta experience.

Most people who have attended fiesta will usually avoid trying to explain the experience to the potential traveler and will respond with "Just go and see for yourself. You will love it." At last there is an excellent piece of writing to do justice to the "what is it like?" question. Mouton's literary accomplishment is highly commendable. The benchmark has been set. Veteran fiesta goers will have many "ah-ha" moments as they read and potential newcomers now have a starting platform from which they can maximize their first fiesta experience.

Some come to Pamplona in early July and fall in love with a festival, the Festival of San Fermin. Some poor souls go away without San Fermin capturing their heart. Many arrange their lives around their return to the eight days of Fiesta. This book is almost a love letter to Fiesta.

I recognize the feeling. I have not missed a day for over 25 years. Although slower, I still run with the bulls at every opportunity.

Ray Mouton enthusiastically came the first time and now returns time after time. Mouton presents a mix of factual and personal comments, reminiscences, and anecdotes about some of his friends. Through a personal prism, this book provides a good way to understand the attachment that someone can come to have to an annual event.

To say that I merely enjoyed the book is an understatement of epic proportions. Everything about the fiesta is in the pages of Mouton's book and the wonderful photographs that illustrate the work are as beautiful as the author's prose.

For those who have celebrated this fiesta, this book will be a treasured memento of their experience - the book truly explains things that we have seen, thought and felt in Pamplona in a way in which we have not been able to explain them to others, or even to ourselves.

For those who have not been to Pamplona but have an interest in attending the fiesta, this book will enhance their fiesta experience immeasurably. One should not consider planning a trip to Pamplona without first buying and reading this book.

This book is difficult to describe and impossible to categorize. To me, it is at the same time - documentary, fiction, essay, travel, adventure, and philosophy. The photographs could stand alone as a photo essay of fiesta. The writing is excellent.

Anonymous
Los Angeles, CA

This book is a must for anyone who has been to, or has the desire to experience Pamplona's fiesta and the "Running of the Bulls." Ray has been able to tell the story so that you actually feel like you are in the Plaza De Toros or standing on Estafeta moments before the Bulls are released. Above all,Ray captures the true meaning of the fiesta and why it is so important to the locals and helps you understand the reason so many foreigners have embraced it. As Ray states, " for the next eight days all that matters in the world will seem to exist only here." This statement couldn't be truer!

Whilst unavoidably orientated to North American aficionados this is a brilliant book which goes behind the scenes to tell the story of why thousands are drawn back to Pamplona from all corners of the world for 9 days in July. Beautifully presented and written Ray Mouton has done the Festival proud. This publication renders Michener's section in "Iberia" obsolete and brings Pamplona to the contemporary world giving those of Generation Y who are the future long term serious runners a narrative that lives and breathes the Fiesta.

As anyone who has ever seriously experienced the fiesta of San Fermin can attest, Hemingway is not exactly the comprehensive guide you may have hoped for. Nor is Michener. Trying to describe the total gamut of the fiesta experience tends to reduce people to frustrated short hand cliches - "world's largest non stop party etc etc". Pamplona contains so many intertwining and contrasting elements that the not so simple attempt of trying to convey it in words becomes rather like the blind committee vainly struggling to get a collective notion of the elephant. One touches and describes the trunk. One checks out the ears... You get the idea. (Or, more precisely, you don't).

Well, finally - here really is the guidebook. This is not the list of pensions, useful numbers, times of events reference book (for that, seek out the excellent "204 Hours of Fiesta"). But if you are looking for the one book that nails the experience, tells you what the whole thing is really about, what kind of journey you are facing, and how you will probably feel at the end of it - then look no further. Ray Mouton's book comes trailing a clutch of endorsements and a prefatory fistful of tall claims. It lives up to every one of them. As to form - the book is superbly designed. As to content - it never takes its eye off the ball. This is the richest and most illuminating account of fiesta that you can find. A remarkable feat.

Some come to Pamplona in early July and fall in love with a festival, the Festival of San Fermin. Some poor souls go away without San Fermin capturing their heart. Many arrange their lives around their return to the eight days of Fiesta. This book is almost a love letter to Fiesta.

I recognize the feeling. I have not missed a day for over 25 years. Although slower, I still run with the bulls at every opportunity.

Ray Mouton enthusiastically came the first time and now returns time after time. Mouton presents a mix of factual and personal comments, reminiscences, and anecdotes about some of his friends. Through a personal prism, this book provides a good way to understand the attachment that someone can come to have to an annual event.

Those who return to Pamplona for the Fiesta of San Fermin year after year are a difficult group to describe. They are not macho thrill-seekers, though that's the way most of the Anglo world sees them. If you have ever been to Pamplona you will know that they are complex, articulate, friendly, acerbic, hospitable, loving, vainglorious, philosophical, generous, noble and maddening. That's the ex-pats, the genuine aficionados, the Hemingway-wannabees and the college-age wanderers in full backpacker regalia ---- Mouton has painted them exactly.

And what about the people of Pamplona-- grandmothers, fathers and sons who host this mad feria, this test of endurance, this descent and ascent into madness, year after year? It's their festival, after all, and they provide the energy and allegria that so many Americans, Germans and Frenchmen have found irresistably intoxicating. Allegria-- the spirit of Fiesta-- Dance, Song, Wine, Ceremony, Music, Food,-- Apartado, Encierro, and Corrida-- Mouton has got it all down here in this book. This is better than any guidebook, since Mouton tells you not the outward details of this eight-day flight into an Alternate Reality, but something of the soul of the Feria, and of Navarre, and of Life itself. This is a loving book, full of advice and humor and good spirits. A glance though its magnificent illustrations (photographs by some of the best, genuine lovers of the fiesta) will tell you that Mouton wants us to glimpse something more that a travelogue or a guidebook. Anyone who has visited Pamplona during Fiesta will recognize it all instantly. Mouton's love and enthusiasm are infectious.

Not a nostalgic fantasy, not a mere celebration of the corrida this is the Best Book to read before going to the Fiesta, --- "Pamplona" catches its shimmering essence.

For years, dilletante pedestrians have either tried to explain the fascination of Pamplona or attempted to drape themselves with the mystery and sophistication implicit in the experience. Finally someone has coalesced these meanderings in a single volume.
Pamplona is not bulls and bullfighting. That's just what attracts the curious. Bullfighting, or rather bull chasing, does not lend itself to endless mock-poetical allusions to the grace and courage of man, even though the odd duck still continues to cloak the rite with enough mist as to coax the non-believer.
Mouton, on the other hand, has given us an excuse to flirt with the topic and in fact become fascinated with the culture which produces such a questionable activity. The act of reading is the act of broadening and this volume reaches far into that distance. The mystique of Pamplona is undeniable and Mouton shows us why. This book finally gives us a primer on this faraway place; he has been there, he has experienced there and he has translated the people and place to the page. This is one of those "if you only read one book about a subject, read this one" book. Read this one.