Welcome to the fourteenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.

This episode continues Hemingway’s exploration of bullfighting and violence through a study of Nicanor Villalta. In two short paragraphs, Hemingway masterfully captures the movement of matador and bull, leading up to the pivotal image where "Villalta became one with the bull." We discuss how Hemingway depicts good vs. bad bullfighters; we consider the stylistic function of so many present participles in the vignette; and we touch on connections to The Sun Also Rises, Death in the Afternoon, and Across the River and Into the Trees.

Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!

Welcome to the thirteenth of our eighteen shows celebrating the centenary of the Paris edition of Hemingway’s book of vignettes, in our time.

This episode continues Hemingway’s exploration of bullfighting and violence. This chapter is the second of the five consecutive bullfighting sketches Hemingway placed towards the end of in our time. A raucous crowd objects to a bad bullfight, leading to the humiliating cutting of a matador’s pigtails. We discuss the narrator’s relationship to the incompetent (but self-aware) matador, the notion of throwing things at sporting events, and the painful recognition of realizing you’re just not that good at something.

Join us as we explore in our time before it became In Our Time!

Stewart O’Nan, the prolific author of West of Sunset and other works of fiction and non-fiction, shares his one true sentence from “The End of Something.”