 First edition hardcover | |
| Author | Kurt Vonnegut |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Putnam Publishing Group |
Publication date | 1990 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) and eBook |
| Pages | 302 |
| ISBN | 0-399-13799-8 |
Hocus Pocus, or What's the Hurry, Son? is a 1990 novel by Kurt Vonnegut.
In an editor's note at the beginning of the book, Vonnegut claims to have found hundreds of scraps of paper of varying sizes, from wrapping paper to business cards, sequentially numbered by their author to form a narrative. [1] The breaks between pieces of paper often signal a sort of ironic "punchline".
The main character is Eugene Debs Hartke, a Vietnam War veteran and carillonneur who realizes that he has killed exactly as many people as the number of women he has had sex with. The character's name is an homage to American labor and political leader Eugene V. Debs and anti-war senator Vance Hartke, both from Vonnegut's home state, Indiana. [2] Upon his discharge from the military, Hartke becomes a professor at Tarkington College in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, but is later fired for sexual misconduct.
Hartke then becomes a teacher at a private prison in the nearby town of Athena, New York. The prison is run by a Japanese corporation and overseen by Hartke's occasional acquaintance, Hiroshi Matsumoto. The prison is populated entirely by black inmates, America having been resegregated by both race and class. Hartke sets about teaching the inmates how to read.
After a massive prison break, the escaped inmates occupy Tarkington College and take the staff hostage. With the old prison destroyed in the breakout, Tarkington becomes a prison with Hartke as its warden. When it becomes known that the breakout was led by one of his former students, Hartke is accused of collaboration and becomes an inmate himself. [3]
Upon completion of the riddle on the final page, Eugene's number of sexual partners and confirmed kills is found to be 82.
In March 2021, Uri Singer acquired the rights to adapt the novel into a film. [4]
The motif of the inhabitants of Tralfamadore influencing human history, here in a work of fiction within the story, recurs from Vonnegut's previous work The Sirens of Titan (1959). [5] The title of the fictional story is "The Protocols of the Elders of Tralfamadore", a reference to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . [6] : 169 Robert M. Philmus concludes that the author of the fictional story, not named in the text, is intended to be recurring Vonnegut character Kilgore Trout. [6] : 169 Kirkus Reviews called the presence of a brief reference to Tralfamadore "standard Vonnegut". [7]
Kurt Vonnegut was an American author known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works over fifty-plus years; further works have been published since his death.
Theodore Sturgeon was an American fiction author of primarily fantasy, science fiction, and horror, as well as a critic. He wrote approximately 400 reviews and more than 120 short stories, 11 novels, and several scripts for Star Trek: The Original Series.
Thora Birch is an American actress, producer, and director. She made her feature film debut in 1988 with a starring role in Purple People Eater, for which she won a Young Artist Award for "Best Actress Under Nine Years of Age". Birch rose to prominence as a child star during the 1990s through a string of parts in films, including Paradise (1991), Patriot Games (1992), Hocus Pocus (1993), Monkey Trouble (1994), Now and Then (1995), and Alaska (1996). Her breakthrough into adult-oriented roles came with her portrayal of Jane Burnham in American Beauty (1999), for which she was nominated for that year's BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress.
Eugene Victor Debs was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five-time candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. Through his presidential candidacies as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.
Philip José Farmer was an American author known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.
Cat's Cradle is a satirical postmodern novel, with science fiction elements, by American writer Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's fourth novel, it was first published on March 18, 1963, exploring and satirizing issues of science, technology, the purpose of religion, and the arms race, often through the use of morbid humor.
Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the life experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant during World War II, to the post-war years. Throughout the novel, Billy frequently travels back and forth through time. The protagonist deals with a temporal crisis as a result of his post-war psychological trauma. The text centers on Billy's capture by the German Army and his survival of the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, an experience that Vonnegut endured as an American serviceman. The work has been called an example of "unmatched moral clarity" and "one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time".
Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday is a 1973 novel by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. His seventh novel, it is set predominantly in the fictional town of Midland City, Ohio, and focuses on two characters: Dwayne Hoover, a Midland resident, Pontiac dealer and affluent figure in the city, and Kilgore Trout, a widely published but mostly unknown science fiction author. Breakfast of Champions deals with themes of free will, suicide, and race relations, among others. The novel is full of drawings by the author, substituting descriptive language with depictions requiring no translation.
Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut, first published in February 1962.
Player Piano is the debut novel by American writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr., published in 1952. The novel depicts a dystopia of automation partly inspired by the author's time working at General Electric, describing the negative impact technology can have on quality of life. The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. The widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class, the engineers and managers, who keep society running, and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines. The book uses irony and sentimentality, which were to become hallmarks developed further in Vonnegut's later works.
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine, Kurt Vonnegut's fifth novel, was published in 1965 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston and as a Dell mass-market paperback in 1970. A piece of postmodern satire, it gave context to Vonnegut's following novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, and shared in its success.
Tralfamadore is the name of a fictional planet appearing in the novels of Kurt Vonnegut in inconsistently described variations. It is variously depicted as being located outside of the Milky Way galaxy or being fictional within the fiction itself.
Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007). Trout is a notably unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels.
Eliot Rosewater is a recurring character in the novels of American author Kurt Vonnegut. He appears throughout various novels as an alcoholic, and a philanthropist who claims to be a volunteer fireman. He runs the Rosewater Foundation, an organization created to keep the family's money in the family. He is among the few fans of the novels of Kilgore Trout.
Robert William "Dabbs" Greer was an American character actor in film and television for over 60 years. Greer appeared in nearly 100 film roles and in nearly 600 television episodes of various series. He played Mr. Jonas in Gunsmoke, Coach Ossie Weiss in the sitcom Hank, and Reverend Robert Alden in Little House on the Prairie. Greer's final film role was as the 108-year-old Paul Edgecomb, the character played by Tom Hanks in 1999's The Green Mile.
"Welcome to the Monkey House" is a Kurt Vonnegut short story that is part of the collection of the same name. It is alluded to in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater as one of Kilgore Trout's stories.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fabricated text purporting to detail a Jewish plot for global domination. Largely plagiarized from several earlier sources, it was first published in Imperial Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. It played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy.
The Ghosts of Watt O'Hugh is the first in a series of novels by Steven S. Drachman (2011). The books fall into the category of science fiction Western and tell the story of an American Civil War veteran who becomes a dime novel hero while engaging in various fantastic adventures. The books also feature true life characters such as Oscar Wilde, J.P. Morgan, the first-century Chinese emperor Wang Mang and the mathematician Leopold Kronecker, who appears as a villain.
Hartke is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Lorna Morello is a fictional character from the Netflix dramedy series Orange Is the New Black, played by Yael Stone. Stone was initially contracted for one episode, but was quickly promoted to series regular. Morello is based on two real-life inmates featured in Piper Kerman's 2010 memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison. Morello is Italian-American, and is portrayed as being a positive, bold, opinionated person and "a hopeless romantic". She has a distinctive accent, which is a mix of Brooklyn and Boston. Morello made her first screen appearance during the season one premiere episode "I Wasn't Ready".