Johnny Got His Gun

Rating:
Summary: Greatest book I've read in a long time!
Review: I am a student and last summer I decided to take an AP history course. The teacher gave us a list of books to choose from, Johnny Got His Gun being one that he highly recomended. I decided to read this book because it had the fewest ammount of pages. I thought that like all other summer reading, this would be hell, but from the first page of the book I was sucked in! I became attached to the character Joe, and realized how truely destructive war is. This is deffinitly the best book I have read in a long time. I would highly recomend it to anyone! If you are looking for a good book deffinitly pick this one up!

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars but somewhat spoiled by author's own intrduction
Review: In his introduction to his own book the author implies that the book might have been valid for World War I but not for World War II. "If the book had been banned {in World War II) I doubt that I should have protested very loudly," he says. He follows this up by saying "World War II was not a romantic war." He seems to feel World War I was a "romantic" war. Is he saying that soldiers are not injured in this way in non-romantic wars but are injured like his Johnny only in "romantic" wars? Is he saying that it's alright to be a pacifist during a "romantic" war but not in a non-romantic war? In any case, I found his introduction dismaying. The book itself I regard as a protest against all wars. It's hard to understand how someone could write a great book like this and have such a split attitude.

Rating:
Summary: 5 stars but somewhat spoiled by author's own intrduction
Review: In his introduction to his own book the author implies that the book might have been valid for World War I but not for World War II. "If the book had been banned {in World War II) I doubt that I should have protested very loudly," he says. He follows this up by saying "World War II was not a romantic war." He seems to feel World War I was a "romantic" war. Is he saying that soldiers are not wounded in this way in non-romantic wars but are wounded like his Johnny only in "romantic" wars? Is he saying that it's all right to be a pacifist during a "romantic" war but not in a non-romantic war? In any case, I found his introduction dismaying. The book itself I regard as a protest against all wars. It's hard to understand how someone could write a great book like this and have such a split attitude.

Rating:
Summary: "Lying like a side of beef"
Review: As the drum incessantly beats, accompanied by the "word" ("there is always a word"), which at the moment alternates between Iraq and terrorism, I thought it might be a good idea to try and balance TV news, the newspaper, Newsweek and the rest, to get a little broader idea of what we're talking about than the ever-present buzzwords, "mass destruction," "regime," and the rest. Could I have picked up a better book than Johnny Got His Gun?

Johnny Got His Gun is the gut-wrenching, anger-inducing story of Joe Bonham, average American citizen, "tapped on the shoulder and told we're going off to war." The book begins with an introduction and a look at the everyday life of Joe, who lives a life like most of us do, dreaming big dreams, camping and fishing with dad, falling in love. As the book goes on one reads about the horrors of war, thereafter spending the rest of the time primarily inside Joe's brain, which in various chapters, my personal favorites, becomes Trumbo's pessimistic and unapologetic soapbox. The reader lies there with Joe, obsessed with accomplishing the most mundane of tasks, such as figuring out the time/year, what country he is in, and finally, triumphantly, communicating with the outside world through the only possible means -- tapping his forehead on the bench in morse code. Of course, the quintessential rat that is always present in any really shocking book, stops by to nibble on armless, legless and nearly motionless Joe. The reader weeps at the realization that Joe, like so many others, is not going home, will never kiss his girl and will never fish with his dad.

As already mentioned, my favorite chapters were ten and twenty, where Trumbo shares his philosophy on war. I'll share what I thought were a couple of the most insightful thoughts:

They were always fighting for something, the bastards...if they weren't fighting for liberty they were fighting for independence or democracy or freedom or decency or honor or their native land or something else that didn't mean anything...the most important thing is your life little guys. You're worth nothing dead except for speeches. Don't let them kid you anymore. Pay no attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come along we've got to fight for liberty or whatever their word is there's always a word.

The reader will either appreciate the refreshing, and unrelenting, stream of consciousness in which Trumbo wrote the book, or find it annoying. Not a comma to be found in the entire book. Contrary to what some may think, Trumbo seems to be the ultimate soldier's man, for the draftee, turning his wrath more upon those who so easily declare war and then send the nation's sons off to fight. He's obviously completely against the idea of war and goes to great lengths to try to dissuade participation by anybody, but ultimately does not place the blame with the soldier, but the establishment. Little wonder Johnny was banned for as long as it was, especially with WWII occurring soon after its writing.

I actually tried to simulate Joe's condition. I closed my eyes, plugged my ears, reached my pinkies around to cover my nostrils, laid down on my stomach and hiked my legs up into the air. Not a position I'd want to spend the rest of my life in, nor any part of it.

A figment of Trumbo's imagination? Not reality?

I'll close with Trumbo himself:

If there are no concrete figures, at least we are beginning to get comparative ones. Proportionately, Vietnam has given us eight times as many paralytics as WWII, three times as many TOTALLY disabled, 35% more amputees. Senator Cranston of California concludes that out of every hundred army veterans receiving compensation for wounds received in Vietnam, 12.4% are totally disabled. TOTALLY.

"You patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans," please, let's be damn sure of what we're marching into this time around.

And check out All Quiet on the Western Front.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best
Review: This book is the reason why I'm so anti-war.

I cannot add to what others have said so much more eloquently, but I can help people realize why things were done.

1. The run-on style: Do you think in true English sentences? Can you type as well as you write as well as you speak as well as you think? This was done to show the insanity of Joe Bonham and that it was all in his head.

2. The ending: This was done to give the reader some leeway in the story. You choose the pessimism as the end.

3. The lack of plot: Plot was not a main goal in this book; shock value was. Before a time of Steven King, Tom Clancy, and all the thrill writers, there was this book. It is meant to scare you, not with cheap thrills, but with true and utter primal feelings.

4. The gore: This is a book about war. War is disgusting, war is intolerable, war is gory. Get that knights in white armour fighing the evil dragon vision out of your head and think walking bombs made of six-year-old girls. It was a part of the book put in to placate the masses.

However, the reason why it does not receive five stars is the fact that it will not satisfy everyone. There are always the people who will not get it, refuse to get it, will get it and disagree so strongly that they ignore the book, and the people like me, who have been changed by it to agree wholeheartedly.

It is neither a book for everyone, nor is it something that should be missed is given the chance.

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 but it will change the way you feel about international conflict and it's impact on the individual. In my opinion good nations sometimes find war necessary but Trumbo's book drives home the gravity of the decision that our leaders face.

Rating:
Summary: An Incredible Eye-Opener
Review: Johnny Got His Gun will do nothing more than send you soaring through the ugly and brutal realities that most of us deem "honorable." It will open your eyes to the often forgotten truths of war and stick with you for quite possibly the rest of your short and fragile live. Perhaps Mr. Bush should read this book?

Rating:
Summary: Whose Liberty and Whose Death?
Review: This book makes a strong case for liberty, the in-the-air, tangible freedom of ordinary people, not the abstract variety that politicians are fond of talking about (and sending other people to fight for. On page 114-115: "You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else' life."). In Chapter 10 Trumbo especially makes cogent arguments for the "little guy" to be wary of wars. Instead of argued about as "principles," the case for a war ought to be made "in facts like houses and tables. Make it in words we can understand." (113) Yes, Trumbo says, there are principles worth fighting for, but that the case for war needs to be made honestly, with frank and hard admissions of what the outcome will be for those who fight them. When soldiers die in war, they are not "thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever?" (117) The losses of life, family, etc. are probably bearing most on their thoughts. And they might just trade "democracy for life," when facing death. (118) This may not be correct or true, but certainly the discussion of wars ought to include these questions, and without any name-calling and impugning of people's patriotism that so often occurs. While Chapter 10 is not as beautiful and piercing as Falstaff's dissection of honor in Henry IV, Part I, it is not a bad corollary on the same theme.
The rest of the book has been well-covered by other reviewers.
A word about the style. Throughout the book, sentences have been shucked of commas. The repetitions of words and phrases are not exactly poetic, but are often rhythmic. For me, it was highly effective writing
A good and highly relevant book.

Rating:
Summary: the best,nuff said!
Review: The ultimate anti-war book to end all anti-war books.The graphic description of life before the war makes anyone envious to want to live such a life.The feelings of the ultimate disabled war veteran are spelled out in such detail that even a "hawk" would want to tell all that war has never been,never is,and never will be a solution to anything on earth.

Rating:
Summary: How To Weep Without Eyes
Review: Joe Bonham is one of literature's greatest figures. Based, most horribly, on a real person, Joe does not let us forget. Trumbo has done a most amazing thing--he has somehow gotten inside the mind of a man who is as close to dead as he can be, but who still thinks, still exists, albeit in such mangled form. Trumbo has created a passionate, artful, scream that cannot be argued with.

One critic has written it is impossible to review this book without being guilty of hysterics or understatement. Indeed. It is so. Joe is nightmare and reality and dream, and it is a book of tempered pain, as well as a suggestion in the cold dead war field, of how to get by the rest of one's life without having to buy a pair of shoes ever again, or clothes, or glasses, or existence.

To be captured in a box of blackness. To know. To realize inch by inch what has happened to him. To be filled with the uttermost reaches of hell. To say this is what war is. What war always is. And the silenced man thus makes his plea. It is finally heard. And he is silenced even a little more.

With war talk and with war all around us, it is good to remember Trumbo's Joe Bonham who only wanted to live his life, to marry his girl, to find a place in the world, to strive for happiness. Trumbo says old men have always made war, then they send the young men out to die for God usually, or something else they've made up. And young men die, or almost die, or die beyond what is death. And they remember Kareen who wants them to put their arms around them and never go because they won't come back.

And Joe, realizing too late, too late, that when you're dead, you're less than a bug, less than anything. Trumbo has written the novel of a lifetime. I've read he wrote it in two weeks of fury. How he got into the mind of such a man in such a place shows how shattering imagination is, how profound is the mind of one of our great writers, and how a book will last forever. Because the leaders of war never change. Different names, different accents, different languages, but it's always the same.

Johnny is full of blood and loneliness and isolation like I've never read before. Trumbo ends his novel with the admonition to men who dictate war--and how the little guy is always the one to get it in the neck, and someday he will be the one who points the gun. The spare parts "boys" who don't count and it's okay.

I read Johnny first during the Vietnam War. I wanted to scream from the housetops, "READ THIS BOOK!" I still do, even now, especially now. If there is a God somewhere, and if he is not another warlord, if there is compassion and tenderness and empathy anywhere in the world, and one finds it lacking wherever one turns, I suggest read this book, and be somehow comforted by a man whose face has become the face of war. Take this book into the churches and court houses and the places where men make laws and hand down edicts, and say, here, here is all the proof any sane man will ever need.