(-- removed HTML --) Hocus Pocus (-- removed HTML --) is another utterly in-a-room-by-itself novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

It is told through the variegated, extremely cynical lens of Eugene Debs Hartke, who expresses his outlook on humanity through a jumbled recounting of his life.

Hartke skips back and forth between different epochs of his past—his childhood, his time serving in the Vietnam War, and his time spent at Tarkington College and afterward. His life is a giant puzzle, becoming more complete with each chapter. Hartke endlessly searches for the meaning of his life, obsessed with completing the puzzle. When he realizes he can never find the last piece, he decides to instead believe in fate, which has controlled his entire life. …show more content…
Hartke is later fired for some “hocus pocus” reasons and goes to the prison across from the college to teach there. Eventually, the prisoners break free, subjugating the college. Later, the Army easily regains control of the college and converts it into an annex prison. They mercilessly slaughter the prisoners from the coup, the majority of whom are black, hinting at a prejudice embedded deep within our society. The staff turns Hartke into an inmate, wrongfully accusing him of instilling the idea of the rebellion.

But Hartke’s life is far from innocent. In actuality, he is guilty of many other crimes. During his time in Vietnam, he slaughtered many innocent people—in fact, as many people as he had had affairs with. In this case, the motive may have been simply an impulse of survival—the most natural, selfish instinct that we, as humans, own. But Vonnegut may hint at other, darker qualities of humanity—our ceaseless ability for corruption, hatred, and violence.

The genre of this novel is very hard to pinpoint; we cannot just put it in a box and give it a label. It can be described as a retrospective first-person satire—a multifaceted blend of unconventional realistic fiction and fictitious