Hocus Pocus By: Kurt Vonnegut

I thought I found a new favorite author in Kurt. The librarian recommended this book to me. I read the outside jacket and thought sounds good. Well- I have to say - not my favorite. The first critique on the cover is "Terribly Funny..." I'm not sure if the the author of that remark feels the same way I do or not but, I didn't think it was so funny. Like- ha,ha, funny. I thought the story was sarcastic and sort of sad. Its about the life of a man named Eugene Debs Hartke, who as he goes through life seems to go from situation to situation rather easily. He just sort of flows from one situation to the next. "Manna from heaven," as Gene refers to it. He's a smart guy goes to West Point, graduates, and goes to Vietnam where he serves well. Becomes rather well known as "The Preacher," because he never curses. Everything in Gene's life seems to be sort of two sided. Like he gets the good and the bad together. Sometimes the sequence of things in this book were difficult to follow. Vonnegut jumps back and forth in Gene's life so that Gene's life is sort of told like it is a Picasso. Its all there all at once in the same place- its just sort of all folded in and outside of itself. So I'm not sure if Gene got married before he went to Vietnam or not,but he married a woman named Margaret whom he really did love and was very devoted to but, not in the way you might think. Margaret it seems is beautiful and very close to her mother, so they sort of come as a pair and they all live happily together, at first. What Gene finds out as life goes on is that both mother and daughter both have inherited some form of insanity and both go nuts (mother-in-law first) but Gene never leaves them. He always cares for them and never sends them away. Which causes a terrible rift between Gene and his two children, (who he secretly worries may have inherited the insanity gene), a son and a daughter, who can't stand that they have to live with these two insane women. They are totally embarrassed by them and leave home the second they are both able informing their father that they will never speak to him again for making them live in the asylum, better known as their home. When Gene comes home after the war decorated, a hero and all, he doesn't have any plans as to what he is going to do with his life when he runs into his old commanding officer who happens to now be the President of Tarkington College, in Scipio, New York in a beautiful valley. The college is situated next to a beautiful lake with a magnificent forest, and across the lake is a prison up on the hill, and down below the college is the sleepy little town of Scipio. This is a very special college. It seems all the kids are very well to do, but all of them are sort of special ed. They are not very smart but their mommies and daddies pay a lot of money to get their kids a special education. There are no papers to write. No text books per say, but yet the kids do get a good education, graduate with an associates degree in several areas, and some of them go on to do some very good things. Now Gene is pretty set. He has a good job teaching at the college which he truly loves, a nice house that comes with the job that he loves, is well respected, and expects that some day he will be laid to rest up on the hill on campus where the sun comes up. One of his favorite things is that he gets to play the Lutz Carillon, which are the bells in the tower of the school. So life's good except for the flip side. His mother -in-law and wife are nuts, and his kids hate him. Gene also has quite a flare for the ladies. He has lots of affairs with women like the Board of Trustees wives, fellow professors wives, female professors, some women in town, oh, and somebody that becomes important at the end of the story- a woman journalist that he met before he came home from Vietnam who he has a illegitimate son with named Rob Roy, that Gene doesn't find out about until much later. So, life goes on for Gene and then some interesting things happen. One of the members of the Board of Trustees secretly has his daughter following Gene around asking him stupid questions and taping them. She also tapes private conversations he is having with fellow professors in social setting where Gene is just kidding around. All these tapes get turned into the Board of Trustees where Gene is set up, and even though he is the most popular teacher on campus he is fired. Devastated really- Gene loves his job and his little insane asylum-ah- his house - he goes to town to get a drink or two when fate shines on him again. It just so happens the prison is hiring teachers. The Japanese warden likes him a lot and Gene gets the job and a new little insane asylum- house. One thing you've got to say for Gene is he never abandoned his wife or mother-in-law. Some people thought he was a saint for that, others thought he was nuts for that. Gene again becomes the most popular teacher, well respected, etc. Life is good. Then one night there is a prison break. The inmates blow up the prison, escape across the lake, sack the town and take the Board of Trustees of Tarkington College hostage. Oh, and because Gene had been working at the prison he has contracted TB. All the Japanese employees wore masks and gloves for that reason, Gene never did. So Gene's out of a job again. The National Guard come to get control of things and before they leave the town the commanding officer of the National Guard makes Gene the new Mayor of Scipio. Gene protests saying nobody would ever listen to him, so the commanded gets on the phone and the Governor of New York makes Gene a Brigadier General in the National Guard. Gene actually does a lot of good things as Mayor. He also now meets his illegitimate son, Rob Roy, before he leaves for Italy after being charged with child molestation. Rob didn't do it. So, now Gene's in pretty good shape again. One sad note-the night of the prison break is the last time Gene saw or spoke to his wife. As Gene left his house in the night amidst all the chaos, his wife opened the window and called him by name in her sweet normal voice. She hadn't called Gene by name for years. Its rather touching and sad that as Gene leaves her, even though Margaret was asking him if he was going to be with some woman, Gene honestly said he wasn't, and as she closed the window Gene called back to her-"I love you Margaret." That was the last he ever saw of her. So, like I said Gene did a good job as Mayor. Tarkington College become a new prison since so much of the other one had been destroyed, most notably all the toilets at the old prison were blown up so Tarkington had plenty of toilets and showers. Of course then, Tarkington became a new prison. Gene helped to set the prisoners there up in good housing. So, life is good again. Gene's wife and mother-in law had been relocated to a mental hospital during the prison siege, as a Brigadier General Gene mets his son Rob Roy (who by the way tells him the made up stories about Gene's family his mother told him, pretty funny-all lies), Gene's doing a great job, and is well respected once again. Then as Gene was being told by the Commander of the National Guard what a good job he had been doing, the Commander arrested Gene charging him with insurrection. It seems Gene was being blamed for the prison break because while he was a teacher in the prison he had told the prisoners about the lake, and the forest, the town and the college, where they all were and stuff. So, this book written by Gene is actually being written in jail as he is dieing of TB waiting for trial.

After re-reading this blog, I guess this story is pretty funny in a sarcastic, ironic way. There are a lot of details I left out like how the Japanese warden was in Japan when the A- Bomb went off over his head, and how all the prisoners felt bad for Gene because he only had a Mercedes and the prisoners all had better cars than him, oh and how germs are going to take over the Earth. Life certainly is interesting in Kurt Vonnegut's mind. I'm not really sure who would like this book. People with sarcastic scenes of humor for sure, and Kurt Vonnegut fans of course.


PS. Ms. O'Brien,
Don't forget that I did write a blog about Cat' Cradle but, it didn't transfer to blogspot. I e-mailed it to you a while ago.