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Summary: One of the greatest books ever!!!
Review: Johnny Got His Gun is a superb work. If you haven't read it, do, and if you have, buy it and read it again. it's message is as resoundingly clear today as when it was written. It is a masterpiece not to be overlooked by any generation. Particularly powerful and always enertaining, I did not put this book down until I got to the end. each time I reread it, I love it even more. So much so that it has become one of my top 10 favorite books of all time.
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Summary: I'd rate the book 10 stars if Amazon would let me
Review: Only the bible tops this book
Rating: 
Summary: A very good book, but one that is not enjoyable to read
Review: Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun is one of those books that tries to show how war is more than a romantic, honorable spectacle in which men gallantly march to face their foe honorably. As such, it succeeds - the book does a great job of showing how terrible war can be for one person fighting in it, rather than the entire country. In that sense, it kinda reminds me of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, albeit a lot more darker and pessimistic. The author does a great job of shifting back and forth between the present and flashbacks, and it shows how drastically this person's life was affected by deciding to go to war. The book tries to show that soldiers are also people, with pasts and futures - and it's successful at that. And while I don't agree with a lot of Mr. Trumbo's antiwar sentiments (which seem to be thrown haphazardly into the text a few times, making the book seem like an editorial), it's still a book that should be read, if only to prove that war can affect a person a lot, and while the country is celebrating victory and honoring dead, there also are injured people forgotten in military wards, not celebrated or being honored.
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Summary: one of the greatest books ever written
Review: This has to be one of the greatest novels ever written. No matter what your age is or what kind of books you like this is a must read. You can't read this book and not be affected some how.
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Summary: Should be REQUIRED reading for every American.
Review: I read this book first almost 25 years ago, when in my early twenties. Recently, I nagged a friend into reading it, and decided to again read the whole book to determine if the considerable effect it had on me in the 70s was simply a reflection of my age at the time.It wasn't. The book is still as powerful as it ever was. I do not see how anyone can read this and not be profoundly affected. A line in the synopsis on Amazon.com indicates the book was written about World War I. Actually, no specific war is ever mentioned - only the initial publishing date would infer that. Rather than 1939, it could have been written in 1959, 1969, or even 1869 - war is war and only the technology changes. The copy I have has an addendum dated 1970 by the author. Read it - it enforces the notion of the waste of war. If I were a high school English teacher, my seniors would HAVE to read this to graduate. Same if I were a college professor. But even more than that, this should be required reading for ANY politician at the national level. Rereading this book at the age of 46 has not changed my opinion - absolutely no other piece of literature has had such a profound effect on my life. Buy it, read it - then pass it on.
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Summary: One that begs to be read and thought of indefinitely...
Review: This book of Trumbo along with Remarque, Yeates, Sasson, and Lawrence are essential post world war literature. I read this book at the advice of one of my teachers at the close of my high school years and it is as thoroughly potent now as it was then. No mistake about that. It is indellible. Neither is it I believe a pacifist's book. It is simply too pristine in its integrity to be presented as nothing other that as an indictment of war and its protagonists. No mere slogan or quaint remark will do to bind its experience. This story begs to be told wherever a young man glosses over volumes of Kipling and Tennyson.
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Summary: A touching book from the heart to the heart
Review: This book is, without a shadow of a doubt the most touching book I have EVER read. Trumbo certainly wanted the world to be aware of the horrors of war through this book, and he succeeded with flying colors. This is the only book that has made me cry, and might be the only. Oh My God is all I can say.
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Summary: Brilliant and disturbing
Review: This book should be required reading for the human race. Trumbo forces the reader to examine some of the most fundamental and disturbing aspects of warfare. If everyone would take the time to really understand this book the world would truly be a better place.
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Summary: A Startling, moving, terrifying book
Review: It's a shame that the teachers in Leigh, Nebraska allow their students to run rampant on amazon.com , spouting off about books that very obviously elude them. Such is the case with the reviews for this wartime masterpiece, 'Johnny Got His Gun.' I'm not sure if it says more about the teachers or the students that most of them failed to grasp the concepts and emotion behind this marvelous work...either way, any and all reviews bearing the source of Leigh, Nebraska should be disregarded as the ramblings of those far too young to really grasp the majority of this book. 'Johnny Got His Gun' is as disturbing a story as you will find, never reveling in gratuitus violence or gore, instead immersing the reader in the horrors a mind must endure when the body is all but ruined. Through chaotic hospitol bed ramblings, interlaced with flashbacks and memories of home, Trumbo's anti-war message hits home in the hardest of ways. Whether you agree with his stance or not, the tragic emotion cannot do anything *but* overwhelm the reader. 'Johnny Got His Gun' is a dark, hopeless book that is disturbing, moving, and above all else, enthralling. Recomended to all readers of any age.
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Summary: Better than Sparticus....
Review: Mr. Trumbo's JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN is a depressing, horrid, troubling book that you will read over and over and not put down until finished. This story of the humanity involved in war not only rung true in 1939, but did in '45, '65, '70, and today. An outstanding statement about war and our humanity, JOHNNY deserves a place on every shelf in America and the world. Now, if only the movie were more available....
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