Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida: The Saga of Cesar Rincon [Hardcover]

Allen Josephs (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

No subject generates more controversy in all of Spanish culture, or is more misunderstood in the non-Hispanic world, than bullfighting, or the corrida. Taurine expert Josephs presents the graceful and bloody ritual as an important part of Spanish culture and art illustrated through the career of one of the sport's recent superstar matadors, Cesar Rincon. Exploding onto the scene in 1991, Rincon created a buzz on the circuit by executing moves in a classical style. No new ground had been broken, but the purity of his style became his trademark--something Josephs believes was missing from the sport for many years. After his first triumph in Madrid, Rincon unconsciously became an ambassador for his homeland. Josephs followed Rincon's career for four years, documenting his rise to fame in a country where no foreigners ever participated in the corrida, to a near fatal goring in the ring. Always engaging, Josephs' romanticized accounts of the matador's life may not convert the opposed, but it will reveal some of the beauty behind the brutality. Carlos Orellana
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Publisher

Probably no other Western tradition has greater force to deflect understanding and provoke aesthetic scrutiny than the Hispanic corrida, or bullfight. In Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida, Allen Josephs paints an accurate and intimate portrait of life in and around the world's most prestigious bullrings to demonstrate how and why the corrida remains a sacred and integral part of Hispanic culture.

Josephs' unromanticized account is the result of four seasons spent on the corrida circuit with Cesar Rincon, the most esteemed matador in Colombia. Following Rincon through Spain, France, and South America, through the highs and lows of his career, Josephs develops a close relationship with him and is able to reveal an insider's view of the bullfighter's life and of the Fiesta Brava ("Wild Feast") itself, never seen by the spectator.

From his boyhood in the slums of Bogota to his extraordinary breakthough 1991 season in madrid, Rincon is challenged not only by the bull but by the circumstances of his life. A national hero in his native Colombia, he is nevertheless the subject of frequent prejudice as a non-Spanish matador. Re-creating the atmosphere of life on the road, Josephs details all-night drives across the Spanish countryside, meals in roadside cafes, and conversations with fellow aficionados and taurine writers. Readers come away with not only an understanding of the art of bullfighting, but an appreciation of Spanish culture, society, and its psychology and traditions.

Drawing on more than 30 years of personal participation in the culture of the Spanish Fiesta Brava, Josephs brings an intimate knowledge of taurine technique to his account. Over 150 photographs, most in full color, enhance the text. The reader is in the ring with Cesar Rincon, both visually and textually, through afternoons of great peril and of great triump. Through this experience, Josephs conveys the deep, abiding--and ultimately mythic and religious--significance of such afternoons and why this ritual still flourishes today as it has for centuries.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Florida; 1st edition (May 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813024625
• ISBN-13: 978-0813024622
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,348,281 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bravo!, August 31, 2003

By 

G. Brewer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida: The Saga of Cesar Rincon (Hardcover)

I knew the subject matter of Ritual and Sacrifice would hold some general interest, but I had no idea that the book would be so lively, so entertaining, and so damned dramatic, from Rincon's opening of the Madrid gates to the story's heartbreaking "surprise" coda. Josephs makes what was obviously a Herculean literary undertaking seem easy and natural, and the writing's terrific--fluid, confident, passionate. Equally thrilling are the hundreds of superb photos, also by the author. Aside from Hemingway's masterpiece--an inevitable but impossible comparison--this is the best book on toreo I've ever read, as well as being a provocative and engrossing cultural study.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gets no better than this, February 15, 2003

By 

Stanley R. Conrad (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida: The Saga of Cesar Rincon (Hardcover)

As made clear by the subtitle, this is the story of the César Rincón, arguably the best Colombian torero in history, one of the best ever to emerge from the Americas, one of the best -- without respect to origins -- performing anywhere in the second half of the twentieth century.

This is the story of César Rincón the torero (not a biography; we learn little here about César Rincón the man -- quite possibly the only aspect of the book that leaves the reader wishing for more, though we learn plenty about César's view of toreo, his personal take on its hows and whys, the nature and price of the vocation and its demands) who, in 1991, burst onto the taurine scene from nowhere (or, seemingly so -- he was so little known on the day of his first triumph in Madrid that the program listed him as Venezuelan), managing performances that saw him carried out through the Puerta Grande in Las Ventas on four consecutive appearances, a feat unequaled by anyone, before or since.

Just how good was César Rincón? The inescapable impression given by this book is that he was a taurine epiphany:

Josephs is without doubt a full-blooded Rincóncista, but Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida is no tendentiously edited hagiography. The judgments it contains are not just his -- they're from the pens of some of the most important taurine critics of Rincón's day (Andrés de Miguel, Vicente Zabala, Norberto Carrasco, Joaquín Vidal, Michael Wigram and José Carlos Arévalo), writing with Rincon's performances still vivid from the previous days' events. Josephs gives us his eye-witness accounts whenever possible, but generously supplements them with the opinions of other commentators.

This is a stunningly successful book, unlike any taurine work published in English in decades. Without question, Josephs has given us a work that will, for years, sit comfortably alongside the best of Hemingway, the best of Conrad, the best of Fulton and Tynan -- destined to be one of the more re-read works in any taurine bibliophile's library.

Rincón was essentially unknown to Josephs in 1991, and the germ of this book took root slowly as Rincón began to stun the Spanish afición (and Josephs) with his performances during that year's Iberian temporada. The idea for the book chrystalized in the spring of 1992, in Plaza Santa Ana -- a Madrid neighborhood dripping with taurine history and activity -- during a chat with Michael Wigram. Josephs set out to follow Rincón, documenting his career trajectory, from Spain back to the Americas, back to Spain, to the Americas, over and over until the end of the 1995 season when Rincón, suffering from a resurgence of hepatitis "C," announced his retirement, intending to swap the role of torero for that of ganadero.

Written with the aid of unusual access to a torero's inner circle, this is not simply an insider's view of the taurine circuit (as might be, for example, a detailed diary kept by a torero). Josephs didn't travel as part of Rincon's entourage. But it is likely as intimate a view as anyone will soon provide. Josephs shadowed Ricón, his manager and cuadrilla for four years -- benefitting greatly from their assistance, attending every corrida he could manage, describing in great detail what he saw (how the public reacted, and how the authority and critics judged). He had access that only a personal relationship with a torero can provide -- to hotel suites before and after successful and disastrous corridas, to sorteos, to the callejon, to tientas, to family gatherings on ganaderias and in Rincon's home, to hospital/infirmary rooms, to post-corrida de-briefings with critics and ganaderos, and more.

Faenas are described in near photographic detail, both the good, the bad, and the all-too-commonly mundane. Although the degree of taurine detail may prove more-than-a-little daunting for anyone outside or new to the mundo taurino, Josephs has seized on a clever way of avoiding bad translation of taurine terms while simultaneously keeping the narrative clear of repeated explanatory asides. All terms that would not be done justice by clumsy translation into English are left in their Spanish forms, accompanied by explanatory asides only the first time they appear in the text. Supsequent appearances remain in Spanish and an index of defined appearances is provided for readers who didn't absorb the meaning of a term the first time around.

Althouh this is Rincón's saga, Josephs' eyes aren't focused on Rincón alone. Had they been, no proper assessment of Rincón would have been possible. Though bullfighting isn't a contest between matador and bull, one can't really judge a matador's mettle without seeing him alongside his peers, each trying to tease the best out of the unpredictable complexity of the animals drawn each afternoon. Fortunately, Josephs doesn't slight Rincón's rivals (most noteworthy among them, Enrique Ponce and Joselito), giving everyone their due. We're provided a very balanced view of years of performances, the good and the bad, solidly retained in the natural context. To back every judgment we're given dates and locations (no need to take Josephs' word alone for the quality of performances observered; we're everywhere pointed to sources that can confirm the observations made) and detail that could only be noticed by one steeped -- as Josephs is -- in Spanish history and geography, taurine lore and fact.

All this is done without any of the dry, ponderous, academic heaviness that made Josephs' last major work (White Wall of Spain (c) 1983) so nearly impenetrable. Here the writing often seems to dance along with the improvisational pas de deux between Rincón and his partners of the afternoon.

I can't recommend this book too highly.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Into the heart of the corrida, May 25, 2004

By 

Hairy Larry (Toronto, Ontario) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida: The Saga of Cesar Rincon (Hardcover)

There are many ways to explore and come to begin to understand the fascination that many find in the corrida. It absorbs those that have come to know the bravery exhibited through ritual that lies at the heart of the corrida. The best way to reach some understanding is the way found by Alan Josephs. Josephs tightly focuses on the life of an individual, great torero. Josephs provides an intimate and satisfying examination of Rincón. Along the way, he brings all into the spirit and essence of the corrida.