"The excrement has hit the air-conditioning, big time."

While I found Kurt Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus interesting, this might well be my least favorite Vonnegut book. Our protagonist, Eugene Debs Hartke is named for the political activitist, Eugene Debs, and anti-war Senator, Vance Hartke. Debs’ most famous quote, “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” appears numerous times in the book. As he awaits trial, Hartke admits that he is nothing like his namesakes. He’s a Vietnam War vet and college professor who gets into trouble for his views on history and apocalyptic events. Like Mother Night, this novel is a sort of confession from our protagonist; however, Hartke’s stated purpose is to name all the women he’s slept with and determine how many people he killed in the war.

Friend and fellow Vietnam War soldier, Jack Patton, hails from Wyoming. His rejoinder to nearly every situation, “I had to laugh like hell” is a refrain in the early going of the novel.
Hartke ends up marrying Jack Patton’s sister; insanity, which Hartke discusses in great detail, just happens to run in the family. This made me think about references to Wyoming that I’ve noticed in a couple Vonnegut novels. I’d remembered the reference in Slaughterhouse-Five. Wild Bob tells fellow prisoner, Billy Pilgrim, that, if he’s ever in Cody, Wyoming “just ask for Wild Bob!” Don’t know if Vonnegut had any connection to Wyoming or what his impressions of Wyoming might have been, but it made me curious. If anyone knows, I’d like to hear more!

That said, this Vonnegut novel didn't really take me anywhere I hadn't been before. It is full of Vonnegut’s insights and I was happy enough reading it until the ending just seemed to drop out of nowhere. 3.5 stars.

“Being an American means never having to say you're sorry.”

"The truth can be very funny in an awful way, especially as it relates to greed and hypocrisy."

In many ways, this is about hypocrisy and deception and so is one of Vonnegut’s most scathingly cynical and satirical works, and yet his scorn here is subtle, though rarely playful as he can be and has demonstrated in other novels. This most reminded me of his 1979 novel Jailbird. We have another unreliable narrator, but this is Vonnegut and so situational irony and complexity spice the topsy turvy perspective. We have a protagonist nicknamed “The Preacher” who does not curse, and yet is a killer and serial adulterer.

The title “Hocus Pocus” comes from the idea that words are like magic, creating illusions that can cast spells and create misinformation and can conjure up the idea of a good result when the opposite is actually true.

An observant reader of Kurt Vonnegut will note that imprisonment, of various kinds, is a ubiquitous theme in his work. As in Jailbird, we have a man who is in and out of institutions, not all of his choosing.

Another recurring theme is the military. Vonnegut was a forward scout in the Army and then a prisoner of war in Dresden Germany. The hero here is Eugene Debs Hartke who was a veteran of the war in Vietnam. I’ve read some reviewers who have opined that this is a book about Vietnam, I did not see that specifically, but a vehicle for Vonnegut to continue his ongoing anti-war message.

Vonnegut had sympathies with the common man and with socialist reforms and Eugene Debs was a hero for him. Having our narrator named after the famous leader and orator was another opportunity for KV to tell that story and we also get more Vonnegut social and economic commentary. We also are reminded of one of Debs’ most noteworthy quotes: “While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

Like his 1976 novel Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! and his 1985 novel Galápagos, this also describes an alternate history wherein there is an economic collapse, though here his description is understated.

What’s it about? Like all of his works, there is the surface story and then all of the various and sundry meanderings that make his writing so enjoyable. On the surface it is about a retired military officer who accepts a position at a small college in rural New York. His wife and mother in law are insane (another Vonnegut staple) and he loves loves loves to have extramarital affairs, especially with older women – including the wife of the college president. He is fired and gets hired on across the lake to a prison that has been privatized and owned by a Japanese corporation. There is a prison break and all of the poor, dangerous and predominately black inmates march across the frozen lake and invade the rich and privileged college town.

It’s also about hypocrisy, racism, love and war, insanity, social justice, honesty, culture, and the propensity of American society to destroy itself.

And there is an obscure reference to Kilgore Trout for KV fans to find, like an Easter egg!

Kurt Vonnegut is a national treasure and while this is not one of his greatest books (first published in 1990, this is one of his later works), it is another demonstration of his phenomenal ability.

ho·cus-po·cus
/ˌhōkəsˈpōkəs/
noun: meaningless talk or activity, often designed to draw attention away from and disguise what is actually happening. ~Oxford Languages Dictionary

Fans of Vonnegut know that he was against the Vietnam War and often used his books to point out the absurdity and evilness of the conflict and Hocus Pocus is no exception. 

Eugene Hartke used his gift of gab in the Vietnam War to encourage his troops to kill "the enemy". Afterwards, after the "excrement hit the air conditioning", Eugene took a position as a physics teacher at Tarkington College before ending up in prison.

I won't go into the entire plot. It won't sound as entertaining and humorous as it is. The more I read Vonnegut, the more I appreciate his gift, his insights, his satirical way of calling out bullshit.  

In Hocus Pocus, he not only derides the Vietnam War, but also institutional racism, capitalism, the gullibility of the masses, and the greed of the rich.  As always, he does it in the most amusing way. Vonnegut fans won't want to miss this one.

Here's a sampling:

About a man serving a life sentence in prison:
"He hadn’t killed nearly as many people as I had. But then again, he hadn’t had my advantage, which was the full cooperation of our Government."

"The lesson I myself learned over and over again when teaching at the college and then the prison was the uselessness of information to most people, except as entertainment. If facts weren’t funny or scary, or couldn’t make you rich, the heck with them."

"I think any form of government, not just Capitalism, is whatever the people who have all our money, drunk or sober, sane or insane, decide to do today."

There are a couple of authors who aimlessly write, sometimes attaching all this "drivel" to one profound, emblematic theme. None of that with Vonnegut, who writes about the Vietnam War like no one else: with the courage to mix in futuristic and antiquarian events, all fictional but lifelike, as well as merging composite psyches with individual personal histories. He has a beating heart, and it beats louder and faster, with a warlike violence and even more often with a human tenderness, as Vonnegut attempts to externalize all of his thoughts on this most miserable stage in American history.

He writes about politics, & sex, & human ties. He's a master at making the protagonist both blatant observer & Man of Action. "Hocus Pocus" is a gallow's song.

Vonnegut has taken the war and made it his, so that every single plot or narrative arc (because indeed, even with the masterful scatter plot-logic of this novel [the plot was written on pieces of paper later decoupaged to make better sense in a somewhat linear fashion:], there is much calculated thought mingled in with a raw emotion) returns always to Vietnam.

I haven't read a book I loved this much in a long time. In Hocus Pocus Vonnegut is at his best, walking the line between absurdism, satire, and tragedy with unsurpassed finesse. It's not a story for everyone, because nothing in this story is sacred. (Even the Kennedy assassination isn't off-limits.) The humor is grim, the characters often unpalatable, the outlook bleak. What makes it so compulsively readable is Vonnegut's skill and insight as raconteur. The non-linear narrative seems at first to jump from time to place at random, but in actuality leads the reader in smaller and smaller concentric circles until at last all the questions have been answered, the holes have been filled, the story has been told, and we've arrived back where we started. It's a narrative masterpiece disguised as a mess. But even more compelling is the author's ability to give equal empathy to opposite problems. On one page his narrator may lambaste the catastrophic lunacy of the Vietnam War, and on the next lament the plight of returning soldiers repudiated by their peers, with no less compassion. So maybe nothing is sacred, or maybe everything is. It's a testament to Vonnegut's tremendous talent that that's the question he provokes and leaves unanswered: Is anyone in the right or wrong or are we all just human and therefore, intrinsically, both?

I love  Kurt Vonnegut. It would be difficult to overstate how formative  Cat's Cradle was for me. I got a major kick out of  Slaughterhouse Five.

But this book was missing everything that made those great. There's no winking wisdom behind the satircal bitterness. No blindingly fresh observations from the mouths of fools and idiots. There's no fun.

If you took all the wit and imagination and irony and subtlety out of Slaughterhouse Five, you'd end up with this. I can see why someone would want to write this book. I'm not sure why anyone would want to read it. (Which is almost tragically disappointing from the man whose first rule for fiction was "Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.")

If you're thinking of picking this up, just go read Cat's Cradle for a second time. Or third. Or fiftieth. It's in a whole different league of awesome.

This truly was hocus pocus! The book is riddled with tiny anecdotes or pieces of knowledge that seem distracting or irrelevant at the surface but build to one incredible picture of an anti war vision that defaces the rich, the greedy, the prison industrial complex, capitalism and so much more. So funny yet heavy at the same time

I like one review that called this book a “gallows song”

"How embarrassing to be human."

Every time someone says "be a good human being", I think of two of my personal heroes, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and David Byrne (of the Talking Heads). Both of them create highly stylized art, and both of their creations generally have very human themes at heart. (To connect this book with a David Byrne song, see '"Every Day Is a Miracle"' which has the same vibes...)

This book was, at its core, incredibly human. It tells a story, but it also tells a million different stories. Confused? Good, that's what makes it oh so human.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this book up, but I know now that with Vonnegut books, it's ridiculous to expect anything you could possibly expect. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is alive. A wide range of people, I know, but it was just too good not to share.

Moj top 5 Vonegata:

1. Modrobradi
2. Hokus Pokus
3. Zatvorska pticica
4. Covek bez zemlje
5. Klanica 5

Could’ve been 100-less pages. Still thankful for those 100-more pages though, don’t get me wrong.

Have always loved Vonnegut (maybe because I so agree/lean toward his "politics" and take on things of all sorts). Again bought this novel at John Merrill's Bookshop in Hallowell. Long taught Welcome To The Monkeyhouse and other V. works as an English teacher.
Amazing journey of Eugene Debs Hartke, born in Indiana, who attended West Point, served as a commander in Vietnam where he "disposed" of many people, all the while being called "The Preacher," who ends up teaching learning-disabled college students in upstate NY at Tarkington College. He's fired after a huge inquiry by the daughter of one of the school's trustees (who's tailed him with a tape recorder over many months). The objection is he's encouraged students to think in alternate ways about things that history books and The Government say are true, including the US "incursion" into Vietnam.
So much more to this novel. Asks so many questions about industry/business/corporate "culture" and environmental degradation and destruction. Also refers to Shakespeare, ancient Biblical and Hebrew texts, and the American penchant for Bartlett's Quotation knowledge.
The reader is left with a ? mark on the last page which is a mathematical equation of the novel's themes, characters and plot. So cool. And so relevant. And such a good book.
Read it!

Încă mă uimește capacitatea lui Kurt Vonnegut de a aborda un subiect oarecum banal și a-l transforma într-o capodopera… Dacă n  Abatorul Cincin demonta cu abilitate și ironie mitul războiului onorabil, n  Hocus Pocusn e incredibil de vastă din punct de vedere al temelor abordate – discriminare, rasism, război, schimbări climatice, întregul sistem politic și educațional american este pus sub lupă; mă străduiesc și acum să înțeleg cum o carte atât de mică poate acoperi o întreagă realitate… Îmbinând cu măiestrie cea mai amară ironie cu tragicul întregii civilizații umane, cartea lui Vonnegut e GENIALĂ, îți taie răsuflarea și te lasă meditând la inutilitatea agitației cotidiene, la lipsa de sens și fragilitatea vieții umane. Deși a apărut cu peste 25 de ani în urmă, n  Hocus Pocusn e incredibil de actuală, e tare deprimant să vezi cât de puțin învață oamenii din greșelile trecutului și ce departe li se pare viitorul.

"—Ce cursă inteligentă ne-a pregătit Clasa Conducătoare, a continuat el. Mai întâi, bomba atomică. Iar acum, asta.
— Cursă? L-am îngânat nedumerit.
— V-au prădat în voie trezoreriile publice şi private şi v-au dat industriile pe mâna unor zevzeci, a zis el. După care, Guvernul vostru s-a împrumutat atât de masiv de la noi încât nu am avut altă soluţie decât să vă trimitem o Armată de Ocupaţie în costume de oameni de afaceri. Niciodată, până acum, Clasa Conducătoare a unei ţări nu a găsit o modalitate de a arunca întreaga răspundere pe care ar putea-o implica averea ei pe umerii altor ţări şi totuşi să rămână încă mai bogată decât în cele mai frumoase visuri ale celui mai nesăţios avar! Nu-i deloc de mirare că, pentru ei, comatosul Ronald Reagan a fost aşa un Preşedinte epocal!"

"Războiul din Vietnam n-ar fi durat, fireşte, atât cât a durat, dacă n-ar fi fost în firea umană să-i tratezi pe cei pe care nu îi cunoşti sau pe care nu doreşti să-i cunoşti, chiar dacă s-ar afla în agonie, drept insignifianţi. Câteva fiinţe umane s-au luptat împotriva acestei tendinţe extrem de naturale şi şi-au exprimat compasiunea pentru străinii nefericiţi. Însă, aşa cum ne arată Istoria, aşa cum urlă Istoria din rărunchi: „N-au fost niciodată prea mulţi!”"