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

JAMES A. MICHENER, Pulitzer winning author of Iberia
This book is the next best thing to going to Pamplona itself.

ROBERT TROUT, Former Senior Correspondent for ABC
After this no one need read nor write anything of Pamplona again.

JOHN FULTON, matador, artist, author of Bullfighting
This book will last as long as Hemingway’s and for the same reasons.

BARNABY CONRAD, author of Encyclopedia of Bullfighting
With this book there is no longer any need to attend the fabled fiesta for it is all here.

ROBERT OLEN BUTLER, Pulitzer winning author of A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain
The photos and Ray Mouton’s words are richly evocative. Papa Hemingway himself would have loved this book.

Book Description
PAMPLONA is the definitive book on this ancient fiesta. James Michener and other authorities and literary figures have echoed the sentiments of Senior ABC Correspondent Robert Trout, a forty year fiesta veteran, who wrote, "After this no one need read nor write anything of Pamplona again." At 256 pages with over 130 images taken by extraordinary photographers, the work is a chronicle in a contemporary setting, presented in a historical context, providing the history, customs, and traditions of fiesta. An exposition on the running of the bulls compliments an essay on bullfighting, and a portion of the volume is devoted to tracing the American experience from Hemingway's first fiesta in 1923 to the present. Michener wrote "This is the next best thing to going to Pamplona itself." Barnaby Conrad who has written more books on bullfighting than anyone, stated that "With this book there is no longer any need to attend the fabled fiesta for it is all in these pages." Ray Mouton, first attended fiesta in 1970, and he worked ten years on this book that writer Curtis Wilkie describes as "a rollicking dance in anarchy as well as a thoughtful meditation of life and death." Pulitzer winners Tyler Bridges and Robert Olen Butler endorsed the book with Butler adding, "Papa Hemingway himself would have loved this book." Writer Eammon O'Neill says "this book conveys fiesta in a way that no other book has ever done, including Hemingway's." Renowned novelist Ernest Gaines says he could not put the book down and that it "puts one in the encierro so immediately that he becomes one of the runners." A fan and friend of Hemingway's who fought bulls over forty years, Matador and artist John Fulton wrote that "This book will last as long as Hemingway's and for the same reasons."

From the Inside Flap
In a city centuries old, an unbridled explosion of merriment takes center stage for nine days each year. Danger and death dance in the streets each morning as six fighting bulls race toward the bullring where they will die in the afternoon. Champagne corks skyrocket as revelers celebrate a saint martyred hundreds of years ago. Bands play in the cobblestone streets all night, and barrooms swell with adventurous travelers from all corners of the globe. Pamplona's Fiesta has been described as "the best week you can live on the planet," and this book takes you to the epicenter of the grand festival in Spain's Basque country.

About the Author
Ray Mouton was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, received a law degree from LSU and practiced in his home state until 1988 before beginning to devote himself to writing full time. A novel, After Advent, was awarded first prize in manuscript form by The Deep South Writers Conference. He has written several film scripts and is at work on a novel drawn from his experience in the law. His relationship with Pamplona dates to 1970 when he camped on the river bank behind the bullring and he has attended Sanfermines every year since 1986. He lived in Sevilla for periods of time and spent winters on a bull ranch in the mountains of Mexico, places where he pursued his interest in the subjects and themes of this book. He has three children and a stepson. Mouton and his wife divide their time between Europe, Mexico, and the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Excerpted from Pamplona by Ray Mouton. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The average time span of the encierro is less than three and a half minutes, and it is often as much as a minute faster. The bulls run with the speed of thoroughbred horses at the beginning of the course. They run like lightning and sound like thunder, and throughout the course they sustain a pace no human can match in the madness of it all. The encierro is one of the most dangerous and exhilarating rituals on Earth. This is true even for spectators. The beauty of the running robs you of breath. It is a terrible beauty. Bulls and men racing together, blending in a moment in time, the animal relying on its primitive instincts in a man-made environment while man abandons the barriers that have separated him from the beasts for centuries. The running is a thing of great grace and of awful terror, and it can alternate between those two states many times in less than two minutes. The cheers of thousands in one section of the route can be drowned out by a wail of horror from spectators at another. The bravery, whether intentional or accidental, of a runner flashing in front of the horns of a bull for a moment is as dramatic as seeing a bull suddenly swerve in a microsecond of time, gore a runner, carry him up the street on his horn and shake him loose, without breaking stride. One glance expands the emotions of the observer and another brings those emotions to a hard, sharp edge. Hearts sing and sink only to sing again. When it is done, runners and spectators alike are spent. Then comes a rush of euphoria, replacing the exhaustion. As the remaining seconds to the rocket are counted down, the street is set like a stage poised for combat. During the encierro the street feels like war. The same emotions and instincts are present. It is in a true sense, a primal, savage ritual. There are no human controls. The sound, smell and horror of it all unfolds without any boundaries except the barricades which only contain the flow and insure that no one in the street shall be detoured from their appointment with the brute force of the bulls. In the midst of madness, in the center of the street, great runners are portraits of composure. While most feel as if fear is scraping their very soul, other's hearts swell with happiness. Some cling to walls and fight off instincts to use fellow humans as shields, regressing into their deepest survival instincts, the place within all of us where cowardice lies. While many frantically drown beneath the terror of it, great Navarran runners sail on the surface of it, running the center of the street, often with a bull's horn near their heart. There have been horrifying injuries inflicted on first-timers in the last few years and in 1995 a handsome young American runner was gored to death in front of the town hall less than thirty seconds into his first encierro experience. On any morning of any Fiesta, there are many local runners who run better than any American or other foreigner ever will. Navarrans begin to run bulls when they are boys and they run often in the long days of the late summer months in the pueblos of northern Spain. The young runners almost always run at the side of an older, more experienced runner, a master. The experience, expertise, emotional investment, and instinctive feel a Navarran has in the encierro cannot truly be matched or rivaled by those from other cultures. Why would any man at any time in history, past or present, voluntarily expose himself to danger and death? There are many theories. Author David Weddle, writing about the life of film director Sam Peckinpah, discusses "how at the very edge of death one feels life most keenly, even with a strange elation." As the encierro can bring one to the very edge of death, perhaps this is it. Maybe, as famous bullrunner Matt Carney once said, "The only reason to run with bulls is just for the lark of it." One who knows the encierro well and understands the incredible beauty of it is veteran Scottish runner Angus MacSwan. My first sighting of MacSwan in Fiesta was in the encierro. I first saw Angus running "on the horns" and a moment later he was part of the herd, surrounded by Miura bulls, racing up the center of Estafeta. MacSwan describes running bulls and the reason for running, this way, "If it is about bravery at all, the trick about being brave is not being too brave. If it is about ability at all, it is much more about luck. You run with the bulls for the feeling, because . . . if you can just get it all to come right, then for a few moments you feel as if you're flying on the ground and kissing the sky."


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