Johnny Got His Gun

Rating:
Summary: MANDATORY READING
Review: I decided to pick this book up after reading of it in Newman and Jones' excellent overview volume, "Horror: 100 Best Books." While the overwhelming majority of the books discussed therein deal with ghosts, the supernatural, werewolves, vampires and the like, Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" (1939) deals with horror of a different sort: the horror of war, or, more specifically, war's aftermath. In this unforgettable novel, we meet a young man named Joe Bonham, a normal guy from Colorado who has been severely injured toward the end of World War I. And I do mean severely. Joe is now a literal basket case. Both of his legs and arms have been amputated and his face has been blown off. He cannot see, hear, taste or talk, and he lies in a hospital bed in an unknown country. His plight makes Helen Keller's seem enviable; indeed, his condition might well be the worst of any character's in any book ever written! Pretty gruesome horror fare, indeed. As Joe lies in his own world, he flashes back to happier days, and we learn of his family experiences, his love conquests and disappointments, his jobs and his friends. We sense that Joe is a sweet, likeable, um, average Joe, which makes us feel for him all the more. We also see, through his stream of consciousness, some hellish glimpses of the battlefield, but for the most part, those fighting scenes are kept to a minimum. Trumbo is more concerned with what war does to men, and unlike Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front," the scenes in the trenches are downplayed. In one intense section, Joe realizes that, deaf and blind as he is, he can no longer tell the difference between his waking moments and his horror-filled dreams, and Trumbo really makes us feel his plight. And toward the end of the book, Joe, after many attempts to communicate with his nurses, does succeed in breaking through, and delivers one of the most scathing indictments against warmongers that one could ever hope to read. Trumbo writes in a hot fury, fully aware that the world was gearing up for another global duke-out as he penned his words. And the result is perhaps the best antiwar novel ever written. H.G. Wells, in his 1908 masterpiece "The War in the Air," treated us to some brilliant passages in which he decried the savage waste that is war, but Trumbo's book is far more passionate, more savage, and the excoriating, blasting denunciations much more prolonged. There IS one thing that Trumbo's book lacks, however, in all its 243 pages, and that is...commas. Imagine that: a 243-page book without a single comma to be found! Such is the breakneck pace with which Trumbo writes; such is Joe's uninterrupted stream of thought. The book is simply written--a junior high school student would have no trouble zipping through it--and yet devastating at the same time. Joe's communication breakthrough, after many years of trying, may very well have your eyes misting up with tears; if not, what happens as a result surely will. This is a book that should prove pretty hard to forget, and that is a good thing. Its message is one that we would all do well to incorporate. Truly, this book should be mandatory reading for all politicians, heads of state, dictators and other public officials, the whole world over...not to mention all thinking adults. It's just that important.

Rating:
Summary: Unrefined War
Review:
In this heart wrenching story the reader will learn about the inner workings of a young man who has been permanently disfigured, without arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose or mouth; he is left as he puts it "the link between the dead and living." During this story you will learn about this man's "life" post-combat and his comparably glorious past . The story is told by this painfully optimistic man, who braves all news with a heart wrenching grace. Trumbo does not spare his readers he tells the story as it is painful, real, and full of fear in honor of the horrors of war.


Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: I orignially read this book as a high school sophomore in 1971. I recently re-read it and it had the same powerful impact. In fact, its message - that war, regardless of its genesis, is phsycially, mentally and emotionally brutal - is as important today as it has ever been, especially as the realities of the Iraq war remain obscured from us.

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone, but especially to teen agers and their parents who need to think seriously about what going to war really means.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful & Enlightening
Review: Johnny Got His Gun is without doubt the most startling and powerful anti-war book I've ever read. This book is not for the faint of heart and it will change the way you feel about international conflict and it's impact on the individual.

Trumbo's book drives home the gravity of the decision that our leaders face when they go to war.

Rating:
Summary: A Mortifying Read
Review: A deep and gripping book. Even though at times it may seem a little unrealistic and out-dated, believe me; it still is very relevant today (especially with the current Iraq/Middle East situation). A "man what would I do or feel if I was in that situation" book that leaves you numb but thinking at the same time. A well written and easy to read book that plays well on settings, flashbacks, and personal stories and tradgedies. On top of that, this was written before WWII. An overlooked book that must not be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding. This is THE anti-war book. A must read.
Review: A disturbing tale of a soldier wounded so severely (in WWI) that he would quite literally have been better off dead. Since there are so many outstanding reviews here, I will share what I feel was the most powerful passage. This occurs, I believe, in the final chapter.

"If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make cloths and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down in a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you.

It will be you---you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who only wants to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.

We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within or own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

Put the gun into our hands and we will use them.

Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars and point us the way and we will point the gun."

Dalton Trumbo --- Johnny Got His Gun