Name: Hocus Pocus
Rating: 3.296875 (32 reviews)
ISBN: 9780425161296

Kurt Vonnegut

Tarkington College, a small, exclusive college in upstate New York, is turned upside down when ten thousand prisoners from the maximum security prison across Lake Mohiga break out and head for the college

Hocus Pocus

Greg Talbot

Hocus Pocus runs long, dry and a bit self-indulgent. The fantastical elements of "Cat's Cradle" are missing here, as is omnipotent perspective we get from "Galapagos". Vonnegut cuts up his story into brief paragraphs that loosely fit towardof a cynical, down-and-out veteran who has lost an academic career, and is serving as teacher to a prison. There is dark comedy to be found throughout the novel - the outrageous number of suicides, and general ennui of existence, the stupid administration and smart prisoners, and the ones that jarred me - the nearly identically long lists - of lovers and war causalities. <br /><br />We never stray far from the early brew of elements told early in the story. Vonnegut's writing felt particularly flat, and the narrator rarely steps outside his character or the reoccuring themes about post-Vietnam regret and shame. Putting together the undeveloped story and a cut-up stream of consciousness writing style, it makes for a particularly lengthy 300 pager. <br /><br />

Vietnam war, capitalism eating itself, private prisons, private everything, civil rights.

Up there with Mother Night and Cats Cradle for me.

Breadman

Vietnam war, capitalism eating itself, private prisons, private everything, civil rights.

Up there with Mother Night and Cats Cradle for me.

Hocus pocus

Patrick Book

All institutions are bad, be they microcosmic or entire nations. That’s the premise anyway! A solid 3.5, but doesn’t age particularly well.

Rakshith

Gabe Cortez

Dan Coulter

Atticus Cameron

Sveinbjörn Pálsson

The Rabid Geek

Jay Broadbent 

Fallstreak

In the year 2001, the illegitimate son of a West Point graduate embarks on a search for his father, becomes his partner in crime, and joins him in a series of subversive, picaresque adventures

edith w.

Patrick Terrein

Alyssa Mastrocco

Belle

Mundy Otto Reimer

Evan Hicks

Arun Raghavan

Mary Rose Luksha

Grace

Austin J Gotcher

Lauri

From the New York Times bestselling author of Slaughterhouse-Five comes an irresistible novel that combines “clever wit with keen social observation...[and] re-establishes Mr. Vonnegut’s place as the Mark Twain of our times” (Atlanta Journal & Constitution). Here is the adventure of Eugene Debs Hartke. He’s a Vietnam veteran, a jazz pianist, a college professor, and a prognosticator of the apocalypse (and other things Earth-shattering). But that’s neither here nor there. Because at Tarkington College—where he teaches—the excrement is about to hit the air-conditioning. And it’s all Eugene’s fault.

Hocus Pocus

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