Book Five of the Book a Week Quest
Hocus Pocus
by Kurt Vonnegut, 1990
I'm not really gonna waste too much time on this one.
I had read two previous Vonnegut novels (Slaughterhouse-Five and Slapstick) when I was in high school and I remember liking them...this one, though, I didn't like one bit.
The forward to the book states that Vonnegut found thousands of numbered scraps of paper of different sizes written by the "author" of the book Eugene Hartke. Vonnegut organized Hartke's thoughts in order and published the book.
But that's the thing...it's just random thoughts. There was no cohesion here...names were thrown about here and there, were forgotten about for a hundred pages, and then mentioned again as if I was supposed to remember them.
I really didn't care a bit for the "author" or his family or his job or his friends or his tales of Vietnam or his too numerous to mention trysts with ladies...
This one was a bust.
I had read two previous Vonnegut novels (Slaughterhouse-Five and Slapstick) when I was in high school and I remember liking them...this one, though, I didn't like one bit.
The forward to the book states that Vonnegut found thousands of numbered scraps of paper of different sizes written by the "author" of the book Eugene Hartke. Vonnegut organized Hartke's thoughts in order and published the book.
But that's the thing...it's just random thoughts. There was no cohesion here...names were thrown about here and there, were forgotten about for a hundred pages, and then mentioned again as if I was supposed to remember them.
I really didn't care a bit for the "author" or his family or his job or his friends or his tales of Vietnam or his too numerous to mention trysts with ladies...
This one was a bust.
I liked bluebeard. but then again, I liked hocus pocus...
ReplyDeleteMeghan (I'm assuming that's you "anonymous") -
ReplyDeleteI actually laughed out loud (well, chuckled, at least) a couple times while reading it. However, I just didn't really "get" it. Perhaps I was a little too harsh -- I didn't hate it, but I just really didn't "get" what it was trying to say and I can't help but think that it was trying to say something (about war, about global economics, etc).
I'm certainly not giving up on Vonnegut.