Hemingway’s Grandson Attends Running of the Bullshit In Pamplona

It’s Ernest Hemingway Day in Pamplona, Spain, where they’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the final visit paid by the one and only reason anyone in the entire city has two euros to rub together. Grandson John Hemingway, (pictured at left), is on hand as their guest of honor, visiting all of Papa’s old hotel rooms and judging a lookalike contest, which is either sweet and touching or terrifyingly ghoulish.

Hemingway’s notoriety in Pamplona cannot be overstated, and deservedly so: the running of the bulls was just a fun way for the locals to get their kicks before a certain American literary genius immortalized the event in The Sun Also Rises and Death in the Afternoon.  Since then it’s become a worldwide obsession, bringing excited foreigners waving money around for the privilege of being trampled and later mocked on CNN.  The affection ran both ways, as Hemingway returned often throughout his life (it is said that tickets to the festival were found in his desk drawer after his death in 1961.)

So for the big 50th anniversary, festival organizers reached out to 47-year old John, a respected author in his own right. They’ve got him watching the running of the bulls from a balcony that offers “privileged views” of the gore, attending ceremonies honoring his grandfather and posing for pics at the Hotel La Perla. (It cost Papa 60 pesetas a night in 1959, but goes for 1500 euros these days.)  John apparently attended last year, too, but according to his own blog, he didn’t see anything for being crammed in with “a zillion other people.” Not this year! Outta my way!

There are a couple of things that just feel a little wrong here. One is John judging that lookalike contest thing, which must have been a little bizarre even if his grandfather was an instantly-recognizable global celebrity. Entrants from all over the world drank wine from a “bouda” and mimed a bullfight before each of the three finalists were given one minute to “display his Hemingway character.”  The winner, American Tom Grizzard, (pictured, right), shot a bull elephant and wrote about it in perfect curt prose. (We kid. He told a story in character.)  Imagine the responsibility on poor John Hemingway’s shoulders: “Check out this gallery of dudes who look and act exactly like your dead grandfather.  Which one is the most eerily similar?  Why are you crying?”

And, OK, we’d be remiss if we didn’t make some mention of the larger, underlying awfulness of all of this: that an outdated paragon of Latino macho bullshit is celebrating an outdated paragon of American macho bullshit, for romanticizing said Latino macho bullshit in the first place. And the guest of honor is an author whose most popular work details the ways in which said American macho fractured his family for generations, (and how the whole macho thing was much more complicated than first glance.) But, whatever.  Subtlety is the first victim when thousands of people get wasted and start taunting animals.

So, yes. Hooray!  Go out there today and throw back a stiff drink for one of our greatest Americans.  And start pricing tickets to Paris, because next year is the 85th anniversary of the first time Hemingway got wasted with F. Scott Fitzgerald and that festival is gonna be a doozy.

The day of the American writer who turned the fiestas upside down [Sanfermin.com]
Hemingway graces the Sanfermines bullfight [Expatica]
Tom Grizzard takes another ‘Papa’ title [DailyCommercial]