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Taurus
‘I can see myself – I can see the large black shape planted on short legs, the thick shoulders and neck and the huge broad head with horns pointing skyward. I swish my tail and snort and stamp and I can see a bull, doing these things‘
Under a blazing sun a bull paces back and forth, his skin flickering in the heat. Weighed down by his own mass he is corralled between the repetition of barn and paddock, his senses dulled by the dust and lethargy of the farm.A boy tends him from a distance, and in this boy he senses the possibility of a different path: of swirls of colour and movement, of his own power and strength – a premonition of what he might create through violence.
In vivid writing we are with the bull as he emerges from dormancy, inside his head, observing his parched surrounds and the things and people that inhabit it. We are also drawn in to his mind, his past, and to the impulses and memories that propel him, that create in him the conflict between power and the consequences of its use: a battle that will inexorably lead the bull to his fate, and to a greater and deadly battle within the corrida.
Following on from his acclaimed debut novel The Wolf, Joseph Smith returns to once again transport the reader wholly into the mind of an animal, exploring the violence of the bull-ring from a new perspective, in writing both immediate and incandescent.
Taurus is a second novel of extraordinary power and poise, the work of a unique voice within contemporary fiction.
Under a blazing sun a bull paces back and forth, his skin flickering in the heat. Weighed down by his own mass he is corralled between the repetition of barn and paddock, his senses dulled by the dust and lethargy of the farm.A boy tends him from a distance, and in this boy he senses the possibility of a different path: of swirls of colour and movement, of his own power and strength – a premonition of what he might create through violence.
In vivid writing we are with the bull as he emerges from dormancy, inside his head, observing his parched surrounds and the things and people that inhabit it. We are also drawn in to his mind, his past, and to the impulses and memories that propel him, that create in him the conflict between power and the consequences of its use: a battle that will inexorably lead the bull to his fate, and to a greater and deadly battle within the corrida.
Following on from his acclaimed debut novel The Wolf, Joseph Smith returns to once again transport the reader wholly into the mind of an animal, exploring the violence of the bull-ring from a new perspective, in writing both immediate and incandescent.
Taurus is a second novel of extraordinary power and poise, the work of a unique voice within contemporary fiction.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published June 6, 2013
4 people are currently reading
307 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Smith
5 books20 followersJoseph Smith is the author of the novellas The Wolf , Taurus and a collection of short stories Finally My Ambulance. He is a dad and a husband, and lives and works in France.
He is passionate about great books that he has read, some of which are reviewed on this site.
In his time he has been an administrator, a student of philosophy, a secretary, an estate agent and a professional gambler.
Inspired by Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men, he wrote his debut novella The Wolf while living alone in the snowy north of England. It is a tale of a lone animal facing an increasing struggle against nature, a mixture of nature writing and fantasy. The villain of fairytales and traveller's myths, turned hero of his own adventure.
The Wolf was Irish Times Literary Event of the Year 2008, and was published worldwide.
Taurus is the opposite story: the shadow of the wild wolf, the tale of a domesticated fighting bull trapped in routine and boredom, slowly becoming aware of his own power, and what he might do with it.
Joe Smith's most recent book is Finally My Ambulance, a coherent flow of short stories, best read as a whole, linked in theme and tone.
He continues to write.
He is passionate about great books that he has read, some of which are reviewed on this site.
In his time he has been an administrator, a student of philosophy, a secretary, an estate agent and a professional gambler.
Inspired by Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men, he wrote his debut novella The Wolf while living alone in the snowy north of England. It is a tale of a lone animal facing an increasing struggle against nature, a mixture of nature writing and fantasy. The villain of fairytales and traveller's myths, turned hero of his own adventure.
The Wolf was Irish Times Literary Event of the Year 2008, and was published worldwide.
Taurus is the opposite story: the shadow of the wild wolf, the tale of a domesticated fighting bull trapped in routine and boredom, slowly becoming aware of his own power, and what he might do with it.
Joe Smith's most recent book is Finally My Ambulance, a coherent flow of short stories, best read as a whole, linked in theme and tone.
He continues to write.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 9, 2013
Joseph Smith's Taurus is a beautiful book and is as masterful as his first book, The Wolf.
Displaying 1 of 1 review