Mel Owens Should Get Facts Straight

Mel Owens is full of bull. Hemingway didn’t romanticize the running of the bulls in “The Sun Also Rises”; he barely mentioned it. And when he did, he focused on the senseless death of a 28-year-old farmer who had a wife and two children.

But what is totally ludicrous and definitely inaccurate is to claim that Hemingway shot himself to coincide with the cannon shot that starts the running of the bulls. If Owens had done his research, as he says he did, he would know that a great writer has more on his mind than bulls. Can anyone believe that Hemingway, 35 years later in Ketchum, Ida., waited for noon on July 6 to roll around so he could shoot himself? Hemingway wasn’t that dramatic; he shot himself at 7 a.m. on July 2, 1961.

If the adventures of Mel Owens aren’t attached to truth and understanding, what are they worth? Only a collection of cheap souvenirs.

MARTIN WILLIAMSON

Santa Monica