Critics frequently complain that Vonnegut's antinovelistic short chapters, non sequiturs, and digressions either draw attention to themselves and thus defeat their purpose (to make the reader forget that he or she is reading a novel) or simply are not interesting or funny. The "editorial note" at the beginning of the book states that Hartke's diary was written in prison and therefore on scraps and bits of paper, so some of the entries are quite short. The diary was not put in order by its author, so the fragments appear at random. This "explanation" is Vonnegut's way of telling his critics that he is going to write as he pleases, although it does provide some justification for the novel's form.

Vonnegut's repeated catchphrase (like "So it goes" in Slaughterhouse-Five [1969], another trick that angers critics) in Hocus Pocus is a favorite expression of one of the characters, Jack Patton: "I...