It was a puzzle to Manolo Chopera that anyone should object to bullfighting. Was it not part of Spanish culture? When non-Spaniards continued to be unper-suaded, Mr Chopera would dig deeper into history. Bullfighting had played a part in the very foundations of European culture. Think of the story of the Minotaur, the creature with a bull's head and a man's body, which had the unfortunate habit of eating people until it was killed by Theseus. Was that not an early example of bullfighting? Mr Chopera would be heard out, usually politely, but he rarely won over opponents to bullfighting. The ceremony of killing the bull is either loved or loathed. There is no middle way. Ernest Hemingway became its most famous supporter in the Anglo-Saxon world, calling it an art: "not a sport but a tragedy". But he was already hooked on violence before he saw his first bullfight, and anyway admired just about everything about Spain. An earlier American writer, Mark Twain, was just as ferociously opposed to the bullring. In a bitter story, bereft of his usual good humour, Twain has a character saying of a Spanish bullfight: "Well, it is perfectly grand, perfectly beautiful. Burning a nigger don't begin."
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