Hocus Pocus (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Hocus Pocus
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of first edition (hardcover)
author = Kurt Vonnegut
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Putnam Publishing Group
release_date = 1990
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 302 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-399-13799-8
preceded_by =
followed_by = "Hocus Pocus" is a 1990 novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

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. The character's name is an homage to American labor and political leader Eugene V. Debs and anti-war senator Vance Hartke, both from Vonnegut's home state, Indiana.

The main character's name-sharing with 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), is explicitly discussed in the book. The following quote from Eugene V. Debs appears several times: "...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."

In an editor's note at the beginning of the book, Vonnegut claims to have found hundreds of scraps of paper of varying sizes, from wrapping paper to business cards, sequentially numbered by their author (Hartke) 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 Vonnegut uses in Hocus Pocus is to consistently use numerals rather than words to represent numbers (e.g. "1" instead of "one" or "1,000,000" instead of "one million"). He explains this in an Editor's Note at the beginning of the book saying "...that numbers lost much of their potency when diluted by an alphabet".

Eugene is fired from his job as a college professor after having several of his witticisms surreptitiously recorded by the daughter of a popular conservative commentator. Eugene then becomes a teacher at a nearby overcrowded prison run by a Japanese corporation. His employer, and occasional acquaintance, is the prison's warden, Hiroshi Matsumoto. 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 into 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 Vietnam 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.

Themes

A key theme expressed in Hocus Pocus is the notion of "Time and Luck" -- that everything depends on past events and leads to a probable event. Vonnegut emphasizes this point throughout the book, linking events in the book to previous occurrences.

A subtheme stemming from the theme of "Time and Luck" is the influence of one's locus of control. Eugene has what is depicted as an internal locus of control, a sense of dependence on his own abilities, allowing him to persevere through the hardest of times while showing little signs of depression or impediment. His internal locus of control may stem from Vonnegut's own attribute of having a strong internal locus of control. In Vonnegut's life, he faced much adversity of which presumably involved elements of chance. Without a strong internal locus of control he would not have made it as far as he had. The point in relating his life to Eugene's is that Eugene was still imprisoned, regardless of his abilities. He was imprisoned by "Time and Luck", by genetics (i.e. the sanity of his family), by disease (i.e. his acquisition of tuberculosis), by international affairs (i.e. his involvement in the Vietnam War), and in the end, his physical imprisonment by the government. These occurrences in the book allude to the lack of power that an internal locus of control has on external situations while demonstrating that an internal locus of control allows on to persevere, and essentially, stay alive.

External links

"Still Asking the Embarrassing Questions" New York Times Books [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/lifetimes/vonnegut-hocuspocus.html]

Memorable Quotes

*"Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe."

* "That humanity is going somewhere really nice was a myth for children under 6 years old, like the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny and Santa Clause"

* "Another flaw in human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. And the worst flaw is that we're just plain dumb! Admit it!"

* "Rich people are poor people with money"