An intriguing tale of the life of a man currently awaiting trial for masterminding the greatest prison break in American history. His reminiscence takes us back to his high school's science fair, which led him to a career in the US Army that took him to Vietnam; then as a professor at a school for the learning-disabled; then as a teacher, then a warden, of a prison. During his life he fathers a son about whom he does not find out until the day he is arrested; marries a woman with a strain of insanity on her mother's side of the family, which becomes evident when her mother, then herself, becomes crazy at middle-age; he has numerous affairs with women (the number of women he has slept with is exactly the same as the number of people he killed during the war in Vietnam, which happens to be a lot).
Vonnegut's impeccable sense of dry humour makes this book a joy to read: World War II is referred to as "Finale Rack of so-called Human Progress"; foreign businesses buying American land, enterprises and facilities are called "an Army of Occupation in business suits"; and the modern times are descibed as human beings "killing the planet with the by-products of their own ingenuity". Here's my favourite: Harvard Business School is full of "movers and shakers who were screwing up our economy for their own immediate benefit, taking money earmarked for research and development and new machinery... and putting it into monumental retirement plans and year-end bonuses for themselves". It thus comes as no surprise to find that Vonnegut was a humanist and has criticized the Bush administration and the Iraq war.
I only became interested in Kurt Vonnegut's books after I read his obituary after his death earlier in the year: it turns out that we had two things in common: one, that both of us had obtained our MA in anthropology; and two, neither of had decided to get a PhD in anthropology. I found "Hocus Pocus" an enjoyable read, much more entertaining than his more famous "Slaughterhouse-Five". I look forward to reading more of his books.
Vonnegut's impeccable sense of dry humour makes this book a joy to read: World War II is referred to as "Finale Rack of so-called Human Progress"; foreign businesses buying American land, enterprises and facilities are called "an Army of Occupation in business suits"; and the modern times are descibed as human beings "killing the planet with the by-products of their own ingenuity". Here's my favourite: Harvard Business School is full of "movers and shakers who were screwing up our economy for their own immediate benefit, taking money earmarked for research and development and new machinery... and putting it into monumental retirement plans and year-end bonuses for themselves". It thus comes as no surprise to find that Vonnegut was a humanist and has criticized the Bush administration and the Iraq war.
I only became interested in Kurt Vonnegut's books after I read his obituary after his death earlier in the year: it turns out that we had two things in common: one, that both of us had obtained our MA in anthropology; and two, neither of had decided to get a PhD in anthropology. I found "Hocus Pocus" an enjoyable read, much more entertaining than his more famous "Slaughterhouse-Five". I look forward to reading more of his books.
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