Hocus Pocus (novel)

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Title Hocus Pocus

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Kurt Vonnegut
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Putnam Publishing Group
Released	1990
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	302 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-399-13799-8

Hocus Pocus is a 1990 novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

[edit] Plot summary

The main character is Eugene Debs Hartke, a Vietnam War veteran and college professor, who realizes that he has killed exactly as many people as the number of women he has had sex with.

In an editor's note at the beginning of the book, Vonnegut himself claims to have found hundreds of differently sized scraps of paper, from wrapping paper to business cards, sequentially numbered by the author (Debs) in order to form a narrative of some kind. The breaks between pieces of paper often signal a sort of ironic "punchline". This theme of an episodic narrative and scraps of information is echoed in one recurring feature of the novel, a computer program called GRIOT. By inputting certain characteristics of a person's life and current situation, the program can give an approximation of what sort of life that person might have had based on the database of lives the program can access. The main pieces of information required for GRIOT to work are: age, race, degree of education, and drug use.

Another unusual element of style he uses in Hocus Pocus is to let numbers stand for themself e.g. "1" instead of "one" or "1,000,000" instead of "million", which he uses consequently throughout the whole book.

Eugene is fired from his job as a college professor after having several of his witticisms surrepitiously recorded by the dimwitted daughter of a right-wing conservative commentator. Eugene then becomes a teacher at a nearby overcrowded prison run by a Japanese corporation. After a massive prison break, Eugene's former college is occupied by escapees from the prison, who take the staff hostage. Eventually the college is turned in a prison, since the old prison was destroyed in the breakout. Ironically, Eugene is ordered to be the warden of the prison, but then becomes an inmate, presumably via the same type of "hocus pocus" that led to his dismissal from his professorship.

The entire narrative is laced with Eugene's thoughts and observations about the Viet Nam war, history, and social conditions- especially class and prejudice.

Like almost all of Vonnegut's books, this is an account told in the past-tense by a character who shares his background with Vonnegut. It is also suggested that it mirrors some parts of the Attica Prison riots.

For reasons that are clearly made in the book, the main character was named after Eugene V. Debs, five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for President of the United States. One of his candidacies occurred while he was in prison. The following quote from Eugene V. Debs appears several times within the book: "...while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

[edit] External links

"Still Asking the Embarrassing Questions" New York Times Books [1]