Johnny Got His Gun: A Novel

It's that time of year again! That time of year when so many of us become stressed out trying to decide what would be an appropriate gift. One gift I am giving this year is a book that has been a favorite of mine since I first read it as a freshman in HS. It is one of the most compelling books ever written and its theme is very appropriate for these times. The book is entitled "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo. For those of you who have never read the book, it is a raw, riveting, gut-wrenching, anti-war novel that should be required reading for anyone advocating war with Iraq. This is an emotional book, which puts the reader face to face with the human cost of war. It does so without any of the slickness which we have come to expect from sources such as CNN, Newsweek or Time - all of which portray a possible war with Iraq in cold, detached, almost clinical terms. The realities of war are explored in this book minus the buzzwords, which are used today to elicit our unquestioning support for a war. Words like "weapons of mass destruction" "regime change" "terrorism" "protect our way of life" are all absent from this book. This is the story of Joe, "average American" Bonham and how his life was forever changed by the ravages of the war he was asked to go off and fight and did without question. The book is narrated by Joe and starts with a description of his life before the war. A rich life, which was, filled with family and friends as well a girlfriend. Like we all do, he had plans and dreams for his future. Then he was asked to go off and fight in order to "make the world safe for democracy". The publisher writes: "This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered- -not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives...This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome...but so is war." How chilling that paragraph becomes when you inject today's current buzzwords into that paragraph: "This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe from terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. And if the world was made safe from terrorists with their weapons of mass destruction, then nothing else mattered---not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives, not even our civil liberties." An excerpt from the book reads: "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." Those four sentences from this powerful book make crystal clear in a way nothing else ever has, why we as citizens, have an obligation to demand from our leaders that the case for war be made clearly and honestly. We are entitled to know, minus the buzzwords, what we are fighting for, what the desired outcome is and what the cost will be. By reading this book you will come to understand that when soldiers die in a war they are not "thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and of the safety of home and the Stars and Stripes forever." The loss of their lives and their families are probably first and foremost in their thoughts as they face death in a foreign land amongst strangers. The pages inside of this little book have the power to change the hearts and minds of people regarding war. They have the power to make people pay closer attention to the events unfolding around us and to demand better from those who would lead us into war. I believe it has the power to save lives. If it can do that, then this little book will be the most important gift I will ever give. Elizabeth Presley Moderator<BR

"Who is or was Dalton Trumbo you may well ask? Well, he was the writer behind some classic films including Spartacus and Papillon. He was also one of the many writers, directors and performers blacklisted by a paranoid regime in Hollywood during the 50s. He also wrote books. Johnny Got His Gun was written shortly before the Second World War and is set during the First World War. Aka The Great War; Aka The War to End All Wars. But actually this isn’t really the setting, as the entire book is set inside one man’s head. One man who wakes up confused and has to work out from data (or, more often, lack of data) that he has lost both arms, both legs, his eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The book mingles dream-like memories of his bodied life with the coming to terms of being trapped inside his own new body. It is written as a stream of (barely) consciousness, with very little punctuation to interrupt the thoughts. In fact I didn’t find a single comma in the whole 240 pages. It’s a much easier read than the lack of punctuation implies. However, the subject is NOT easy to digest. The book brilliantly explores what happens to a mind isolated from the outside world except for a sense of touch, pain and of vibration. What happens? It has no choice but to think, to latch on to every piece of information it is lucky enough to get, and to be patient. What it can’t prevent is the slow drift towards a kind of frustrated mania obsessing about every idea it has. At points it is a great amplified description of what goes on in the mind of a writer, or other person who tends towards thinking rather than doing. Johnny Got His Gun is a book against war, and even ends up being a pro-revolutionary polemic arguing for rising up against those who would send innocent young men and women off to be killed in the name of intangible ideas. But what other conclusion could the mind of a previously healthy twenty-year-old man come to, after finding that all that is left of him is his brain and his brain has almost no way to communicate with the outside world? Towards the end of the book, Joe does find a way to communicate. But he has been trapped for so many years with only himself to talk to, that he sends out the same stream of consciousness that has been his monologue for years. His early patience has been replaced by a desperation. Even he can only conclude they think he has gone mad. I loved this book. It was clever, insightful, inciteful, and gripping. A book against the terrors of war, without describing war very much. In fact most of the anecdotes about times at or near the battlefront were darkly amusing or even whimsical. The horror of war for Joe Bonham was not the actual war itself, but the terrible, isolated aftermath. And the fact that it should be allowed to happen at all. At the end, you are feeling Joe’s desperation to be heard, but instead of the opening of a communication channel being his salvation, it is something other than that. We are left with the conclusion that to the outside world he seems mad and probably not worth continuing the communication with. Or even worth keeping alive. This is an amazing book for its feat of taking you into a mind locked in that cruellest of cells – ones own practically dead body; tortured by that most evil of mental tortures – being allowed almost no sensory input and no movement; and having been put there by that most prolific dispenser of unjust punishment – War." -- Peter More

This is as relevant today as it was when it was written. It maybe even more since humans now have the power to completely destroy the entire planet. It is a shame that man has this kind of power and does not see, care or understand man will destroy the entire planet. One can see why this book was so popular during the Vietnam war. Total senseless war. Now they are trading partners and all those lost souls, living, dead and maimed have nothing to point to and say, see this is what I did for the good of mankind. History doesn't make a difference, man is too arrogant to learn from it. Book is on the mark.

I first heard about this when I was a teenager watching Metallica's video for "One" on MTV. Made my grandma take us to the movie rental place so we could watch it...not really thinking it was based on a novel. And while it's been so long since then and I can't say how close to the movie the book is, the book was certainly not disappointing. Maybe it helped that I still had some of the visualizations from the video in my head; hard to say. But the message remains unchanged and still carries weight today. Wars are fought by the wrong people and for terrible reasons mostly unrelated to what the people fighting them really need, and in a person's aftermath you're mostly forgotten, whether you live or die or barely survived.

I bought it because I've been told it inspired Metallica's One. Love the reading, an amazing book!

I'm not sure how the majority of people who read this book heard about it but for me it was through the song 'One' by Metallica. After watching the music video i was intrigued and fascinated by the lyrics and how harrowing the video was, and did a bit of research about the song. I found that both James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich (members of metallica) had read the book and found it powerful enough to write a song on the book alone, this furthered my intrigue. So after finding the book on Amazon i decided to buy it, and im glad i did ! The book followes the life of a young chap in the army who after a horrific accident looses his arms, legs, nose, mouth, eyes and all he has left are his thoughts. The book is a brilliant bit of writing from the author, and also is a very powerful anti-war document. The book has definately changed my opinion on war as it rises a point that i had never thought of before. It can be a challenging read at times as it changes from the soldiers conscious to un-conscious thoughts, the book also inspired me to buy the film which for me helped put face's to the name's in the book. Definately worth a read.

"I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive." The book is, in summary, an anti-war cry. It vehemently cries foul of the ill-effects of war. It is bleak and hopeful, heart-breaking and bright. But the story, essentially, is that of an American soldier stranded in some hospital somewhere after he lost all his senses, except one, having been hit by an explosive during the end days of World War 1. It chronicles his days after that accident, and takes us on a topsy-turvy journey of a lonely man's (and how lonely he is!) thoughts and an anti-war philosophy. It is a horror story of the existential crisis of a dead-man-who-is-alive who is fighting a war in his mind against the people for whom he fought a war and became the dead-man-who-is-alive. Read it for its beautiful depiction of the troubled human psyche. Don't expect any war action, just the story of a man who met with an accident and is dealing with its aftermath. PS: There is not a single comma in the story.

The print quality of this book is so bad, but it’s barely readable. I bought this book because I lost my first copy, and I wanted to reread it. The type of lettering was blurry, which made it almost unreadable. Don’t waste your money; look for a different copy.