As I write, Raoul Duke is standing blindfolded in front of an Iranian firing squad, haggling over the bribe he is offering. For Doonesbury's sake, I hope those atavistic waterheads grease the twisted little bugger; he hasn't been funny for months now. We would all be better off without him. Like Hunter S. Thompson's journalistic style, Uncle Duke has grown predictable….
Perhaps that is a harsher way to put it than Thompson's work deserves. Many people I respect consider Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas an American classic. Certainly parts of it are very funny in a deranged sort of way, mostly the parts that would fit into a George Carlin monologue under the aegis of "How stoned were you?"… I shall not masquerade as a grave literary moralist and deny that Thompson can make me laugh, nor that he knows more about Americans and the national condition than many of his sterner and more responsible colleagues in the press. (p. 342)
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