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[DudiousMax at aol.com]

Yo Murthy,
                 I've been feeling that way about it for nearly thirty-five 
years.  I waffle about it.  It's good in spots.  It's real medium in spots.  
It never gets bad.  I think, from a letter I've seen written from TRP to 
Farina there was a blowjob in the garden that was deleted by the editors at 
the publishers' (Random House), on the grounds that it was gratuitous.  I 
felt that way about the VW bus-whipping.  It was evil and kinky, but 
gratuitously so.  The point was already made.  Those guys were a bunch of 
baddies.
                However, if you read TRP's promotional blurb, it seems he 
praises RF's notions of interconnectedness of University & State & Mafia 
which was a new twist on C. Wright Mills (Sorry Paul, but that's what's in 
the book.).  Well, TRP doesn't say so in as many words: he praises RF's 
ability to tease out what is politically important from what isn't.  Not too 
many were able to see that as clearly then, or were willing to write about 
it.  I remember reading it in the mid-'60s, at the height of the dissent.  It 
did offer an insight I hadn't had up til then.  Today it might seem a bit 
dated, what with undercover cops on every campus tracking the drug traffic.  
It might be fun to do a group read of Been Down So Long.  It may be less 
mythic than V., but it sure is topical.
                But what do I know...  I'm only...
                Max