Book Review : Hocus Bogus

This is an absurd book for which there’s been a lot of praise, both for the writer and the translator. I think the author was very pleased with himself for writing this book. I don’t believe it’s as hilarious as some people make out in their reviews.

As I understand it, Romain Gary is the only person to win the Prix Goncourt twice, the second time writing under the pseudonym Emile Ajar. Once it became known that Emile Ajar was a pseudonym, people wanted to find out the real name of the author.

The story put out by Romain Gary was that he became stressed by the furore surrounding Emile Ajar and fled to Geneva, where he wrote a book called Pseudo, that became Hocus Bogus when translated into English.

What Gary did when writing the book, was to simulate schizophrenia and paranoid delusions while pretending to be Paul Pawlovitch confessing to be Emile Ajar. Pawlovitch is Gary’s first cousin once removed and, after the book was written, Gary did check with Pawlovitch that what he’d done in the book sat well with Pawlovitch.

I suppose the book is a fake autobiography about the mental illness of a writer and his interactions with various friends, family, and doctors.