Book Report: HOCUS POCUS - KURT VONNEGUT
No, Wilder’s America is founded on the illusion of perpetual motion.
The title of the book, Hocus Pocus, refers in one way to the myth of perpetual motion. The idea, of course, is that a machine can power itself by its own motion. For example, a fan-powered car, whose fan turns by gears connected to the rolling wheels. Ain’t that America.
Here’s my take on a few points in Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut. It’s a book well worth reading, though I can’t quite put the whole thing together, here a few things that stand out:
Hartke being fired from the school is the realist’s run-in with established fairy-tale America.
They don’t like him teaching their kids because he’s a pessimist, not keeping afloat the American virtue of hope, and they say his pessimism itself is anti-American. Ultimately, Vonnegut’s termination is after the board of trustees is blackmailed by a right-wing talk-show host named Jason Wilder who threatens to denounce the school if Hartke isn’t fired. Indeed, he might have good reason to denounce it from his standpoint, because independent thought is not part of his America.
No, Wilder’s America is founded on the illusion of perpetual motion.
The title of the book, Hocus Pocus, refers in one way to the myth of perpetual motion. The idea, of course, is that a machine can power itself by its own motion. For example, a fan-powered car, whose fan turns by gears connected to the rolling wheels. Ain’t that America.
But Hartke, as we see, is not quite the faithful disciple. “I used to tell classes that anybody who believed in the possibility of perpetual motion should be boiled alive like a lobster”.
