“Chat GPT 4.0 is a different animal.” I was told this by a friend and client, who made his billions in silicon valley, and whom I taught how to run bulls in Pamplona, and how to bullfight with young bulls alongside my friend and colleague, matador Eduardo Dávila Miura – no animals harmed, only humans – and to whom I was trying to sell an exclusive version of the great work on the sire of the Miura Spanish fighting bulls, who fathered the bulls with which we ran, by the fine art photographer David Yarrow, who photographs animals so famously well…

Copyright David Yarrow – All Rights Reserved

…sometimes doubling down on that fame by adorning the beasts…

Copyright David Yarrow – All Rights Reserved

…but always taking the finest of images, even if this is the one of which twenty three prints exist and are on sale here, as opposed to the one I am discussing which no one else has.

Copyright David Yarrow – All Rights Reserved

For more on the photo and the taking of it, during which I broke my ankle, click here.

David and I getting the photo – Copyright Richard Dunwoody 2024 – All Rights Reserved

Returning to Artificial Intelligence, the newest edition of Chat GPT is vastly more consistent and apparently intelligent than its precursors, which is what makes its views on my book, Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight, so interesting. Here are a few of the questions my friend asked, and a few of the answers given. (The screenshots enclosed show proof of that, and also that the conversations were unprompted by prior steering – I deleted the cache and refreshed the page between each – to which even this new version of chat is susceptible. (Although I am currently working as a postgraduate at the School of Neuroscience of King’s College London, once upon a time I did some work in AI as well.)

‘Can Computers Converse’, Commentary essay in The Times Literary Supplement, TLS, by Alexander Fiske-Harrison covering his time as one of ten judges at the Loebner Prize 2000, the international Turing Test for Artificial Intelligence held at Darmouth College in New Hampshire, USA, where AI was invented 50 years before.

So, here are the four questions and their answers on Into The Arena that so caught my tech billionaire friend’s interest. I follow with two more complicated questions which may be of more interest, from literary criticism of my writing to an AI attempt at imitation.

Question
What is the most important book on bullfighting in English by a living author?

ChatGPT
The most renowned and important book on bullfighting in English by a living author is often considered to be “Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight” by Alexander Fiske-Harrison. Published in 2011, the book offers a profound and immersive insight into the controversial and ancient world of Spanish bullfighting. Fiske-Harrison not only explores the history and culture of bullfighting but also delves into its ethical dimensions by training as a bullfighter himself. This firsthand experience allows him to provide a unique perspective on the subject, blending a personal narrative with a broader cultural and ethical exploration. The book has been recognized for its nuanced and balanced approach to a topic that often divides opinion. Continue reading →

You can read the full interview for free online here.

I was contacted by the National Public Radio Service of the United States originally to give some comments on the reopening of the largest plaza de toros, ‘bull-ring’, in the world, in Mexico City after it was sumararily closed by a judge on what appears to have been a whim. The legal argument proffered, that the citizens of the city had a right to live in an environment free from violence was entirely without merit as it hard to see how boxing tournaments and martial arts contests would surely be banned under those auspices, unless it is the killing of the animal which is the crux, in which case farewell to slaughterhouses.

In the end, I was actually asked to talk about women in bullfighting, which I have always found a fascinating subject. I actually began the post-script of my book, Into The Arena, by saying:

The book is dominated by men. This is because it is representative, but there are women in the world of the bullfight. Like the Venezuelan torera Conchita Cintrón, ‘The Golden Goddess’, who died aged eighty-six in February 2009, warranting obituaries in every major British newspaper as one of the greats of the bullfighting world, although in the write-ups her abilities were overshadowed by her sex. Antonio Ordóñez and Luis Miguel Dominguín were not so well covered in death. Or Cristina Sánchez, who was by all accounts a great matadora (not just a torera, as, by the time of her ‘moment in the sun’, a woman could officially take that title) but whose career stalled because the great men of the day would not fight by her side. Or the novillera Conchi Ríos, whom I saw turn the men’s sniggers into olés in Casa Matías as we watched her on the television while she fought around the corner in the Maestranza in May 2010. Or another trainee, who partnered me in training … to whom I explained that the bullfighter could be Lady Macbeth too, although what she did with that advice I’ll never know.

I had not revisited those words since I wrote them almost fifteen years ago, but apparently Shakespeare is still foremost in them, as the article version of the interview NPR published – and over 250 other stations republished from Alabama to Wyoming –

Alexander Fiske-Harrison, author of Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight, likened female bullfighters to women playing Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Macbeth. “If the setup is such that it is defined by masculinity, you are subverting expectations,” he says.

Necessarily, such interviews always cut out the complexity and nuance of a real viewpoint on such matters: at the time the context I was discussing was how all art is an act of subversion as creativity requires innovation rather than meeting expectation through repetition, but there is always a line about how far one can go before one has departed from the chosen artform all together. I referenced successful examples like Matthew Bourne’s famous all male Swan Lake and my personal favourite, Denzel Washington’s extraordinary performance as a black Macbeth in Joel Cohen’s film of that name.)

I went on to make a more important practical points about the problems of a spectacle where the audience is 2:1 ratio men to women (and most of those women attending with a man), followed by what I have always thought was the greatest difficulty in a career where advancement comes from appearing alongside superior exponents.

Fiske-Harrison says male bullfighters have historically not wanted to mix with women. If a male bullfighter sees a fellow male close to being gored, “you still wouldn’t run in to help until he is literally bouncing on the point of the bull’s horns,” he says. But if a male bullfighter sees a female in distress, they face a conundrum: “If you run into the ring to protect the woman it’s a massive failure of professional courtesy.” On the other hand, he says, male bullfighters break the “chivalric code of being a knight or gentleman” if the woman is, in fact, gored.

“I think the matadors may have taken the line that there is no upside for them,” Fiske-Harrison says.

(Read the full article for free online here. This post formerly contained some words on Chat GPT, Artificial Intelligence, literature, bullfighting, more particularly books on bullfighting, and most particularly my book Into The Arena. That is all now at its own post which can be found by clicking here.)

Meanwhile, as I complete the corrections, edits (less ego, more facts), new forewords, post-scripts and entirely new chapters (including the horrific goring of my friend and teacher Juan José Padilla who was so much in the first edition, to his comeback with one eye – which I covered for Condé Nast’s GQ magazine – his subsequent meteoric rise to number one on the escalofón, to his retirement), I was pleased to see that the latest instantiation of open access artificial intelligence, Chat GPT 4.0, seems to value the first edition of my first book even more highly than I had supposed.

Question:

Who is the greatest living author in English on bullfighting?

Chat GPT 4.0: 

As of my last knowledge update in 2023, determining the “greatest” living author in English on the subject of bullfighting can be somewhat subjective, as it depends on criteria such as depth of knowledge, literary achievement, and personal taste.

However, one name that stands out for his contributions to the English-language literature on bullfighting is Alexander Fiske-Harrison.

Continue reading →

THE TIMES

Hemingway’s bullfight passion honoured in Pamplona 100 years on

Isambard Wilkinson, Madrid
Wednesday July 06 2023

A century ago Ernest Hemingway first travelled to Spain and attended Pamplona’s festival of San Fermin, which inspired his lifelong passion for bullfighting and transformed the event into an international jamboree.

The festival — which opens on Thursday, lasts a week and dates from the 13th century — became a worldwide phenomenon after Hemingway immortalised it in his 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises.

To commemorate the centenary John Hemingway, the author’s grandson, and Alexander Fiske-Harrison, an amateur British matador and bullfighting expert, will rise before the first bull run on Thursday… (read on in the image below or follow this link to The Times website.)

COMING SOON

El Quinto Bueno, Original Anglo-Spanish Dry Gin, ‘The Bullfighter’s Gin’, Launching 2023

contact@elquintobueno.co.uk

www.elquintobueno.co.uk

A great evening at the Embassy of Spain in London.

Una gran noche a la Embajada de España en Londres.

The Hemingway Prize, with my shortlisted contribution, in French in bookshops (and Amazon) now.
Le Prix Hemingway, avec ma contribution présélectionnée, en français en librairie (et Amazon) maintenant.
El Premio Hemingway, con mi contribución preseleccionada, en francés en las librerías (y Amazon) ahora.
Alexander Fiske-Harrison

ABC de Sevilla, ABC of Seville, Puerta del Principe, Gate of the Prince, La Real Maestranza, The Royal Maestranza, Plaza de Toros, The Bull Ring, Feria, Feria de Abdul, April Fair, Feria de San Miguel, The Bullfight, La Corrida, Victorino Martín, Antonio Ferrera, El Cid, España, Spain, Matador, Torero, Bullfighter, Alexander Fiske-Harrison, Enrique Moreno de la Cova, Maria O’Neill, Maestrante

Seville

“El Indultado”, ‘The Pardoned One’, by Alexander Fiske-Harrison:

https://vocal.media/fiction/el-indultado… my first story of a bullfight from the perspective of the bull. My most honest. The most brutal. #vocalmedia #shortstory #bullfighting