Who has read this and what did you think?

[Randy]

Feliks wrote: "Because a recent chat on the 'boringness' of 'The Red Badge of Courage' is fresh on my mind, I'll just say this. 'Boring' is the last adjective that can be used to describe this work.

This is ano..."

Even the best narrative idea can be ruined by poor execution. Luckily that isn't the case here, but to argue that it's not even possible is outlandish. And I don't think the readers attention span or lack of sensitivity would have anything to do with it. I know many people who just couldn't get into the book. Some with a longer attention span than me and most with more sensitivity.

[Feliks]

Well, I'm not arguing that its impossible for 'any' work. Just this one. Not so outlandish.

I agree that individuals will vary in their ability to 'be moved' or 'be swept into' a given story. You can see me raising this point several times in the 'Gatsby' threads elsewhere in this portion of Goodreads. And lots of people over there resist this idea. They resist it vehemently.

But I also submit that if a society (as a whole) throws itself over into trivial distractions (internet surfing; video game playing, comic books, 1,000 cable tv channels, etc) and does so, non-stop..its going to lose its mental breadth and expansiveness. Less people are going to fathom history at all--develop a feel for it--if they're constantly living in the last fifteen minutes.

[John]

This is the most brilliant anti war novel written. Doesn't pull any punches but shows what happens or can happen to people in wars. Also has some brilliant insights in why we go to war and why we should not.

[Ezgi]

Not to dismiss anyone's opinion, but i think to really understand the book and appreciate it, you need to emphasize with the character. He lost, literally, everything, and for someone else's battle. (i won't discuss patriotism here, it was a different time, and i can't relate to the idea of sacrificing one's life for another's political gain). And he still tried to say something, to warn people against war. And to be honest, all he asked was a bit of air, and i think the book at that point, really captured the human nature, and how we may be unimportant in the big picture.(which, i disagree, 1 human life, or even a bug's life is important, but i agree that to go forward a lot needs to be sacrificed, i get that even though i can't feel it) If i was in Johnny's shoes, i would just wait for death, really what's there to hope for. But the fact that he struggled to be heard, it really effected me. So i don't think you should dismiss it because it's dark, war is dark, and most anti-war books focus on the big affects of it. Here i could actually understand how war effects 1 person/life. But, everyone is entitled to their opinion and there's not 1 true answer here. But i, personally, recommend this book to everyone who is looking for a real anti-war book, written with a naked opposition to the concept of it. It really made me realise that all those dates on our history books, and we never think what actually happened to those people.
- Sorry if this doesn't make sense, english is not my native language, so i tried to explain my opinion as best as i could:) -

[Feliks]

Well said. Beautifully said, actually. Don't change your language to English, its more powerfully stated in the way you just did.

What amazes me is that the USA is still filled with imbeciles and killers who think its grand to sign-the-dotted-line, put on a uniform, and go off to kill civilians in some feeble third-world country. We're more warlike than ever.

[Joanne]

Feliks wrote: "Well said. Beautifully said, actually. Don't change your language to English, its more powerfully stated in the way you just did.

What amazes me is that the USA is still filled with imbeciles and ..."
Thanks for the great post Feliks. Thank you too Ezgi.

[Donna]

I found this book to be disturbing while reading it. My family has a long history of serving in the military and this book, quite frankly scared me. I cannot say I enjoyed reading it but, I am glad that I did read it. The horror Joe went through made me sick but, it provoked a powerful set of images in my head that will never leave me. I think every adult should read this book at least once.

[Don]

This is to Jessica, who is wondering if she should read Johnny Got His Gun. I have taught (if that's the right word) to my high school juniors. This is one book they actually read and remains seared in their memories. JGH is probably the most powerful anti-war book ever written. Dalton Trumbo definitely forces his readers to reconsider their own values. Yes, the book is depressing and, at times, over the top. Also, the stream-of-consciousness sections can be challenging. But I think you'll find the book well worth the effort. I also believe Johnny Got His Gun should be required reading for every politician who wants to send young men into war. JGH is an achingly bittersweet about what it means to be human and what can happen when young, poor boys are sent to fight rich men's wars.

[Jeri]

I am usually anti-war, but for me, this book was too extreme to be believable. Joe could have been equally badly maimed from a car accident or even a barbecue gas tank explosion or some other catastrophe, at about the same odds. I found RED BADGE OF COURAGE to be far more effective, or ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. For that matter, the brief flashbacks to trench warfare in GODS AND MONSTERS or the scene in GONE WITH THE WIND where the soldier has to lose his leg made the horrors of war much more "near" to me in the sense that every single person who goes to war goes through hell, not just the less frequent totally injured people, though certainly their suffering is horrific. I found Trumble's narrative to be cliched in places, predictable, and so extreme that it ceased to make an impression. In a lot of ways, this book struck me as mere propaganda; whereas RBC, AQWF were genuinely novels.

Like any argument that rests upon a rare extremity of evidence, JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN fails in its logic. In Poland 1939, men and women who did not go to war were reduced to smoking hulks of flesh simply because they were Jewish or epileptic or dissidents. So Trumbo's argument falls flat. Men who take up the gun may suffer catastrophically, but men who do not take up the gun may also suffer catastrophically. War is a tremendous evil across the board. But Trumbo's depiction was too simplistic and propagandist.

[[deleted user]]

After reading this book I want to go get it put in my will that if I can't signal that I want to keep on living then I want to plug pulled.

[Barbara]

I read it many years ago and I still think about the impact it had on me from time to time. It's a powerful story and once you read it you will never forget it. It was made into a movie and the following contains SPOILER ALERTS and was taken from Amazon. Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo directed just one film in his career, but it was a doozy: Johnny Got His Gun, Trumbo’s 1971 adaptation of his 1939 novel and a work that has long been considered one of the most powerful anti-war movies ever produced. Ironically, though, there’s very little war in it, and nothing in the way of blood and guts. Instead, what we get is the tortured tale of one Joe Bonham (Timothy Bottoms), a callow 18-year-old who goes off to World War I because he believes that fighting for his country is the right thing to do. But when an officer orders some men to leave their trench and bury a dead enemy soldier, Joe is hit by a mortar shell and left without arms, legs, or a face (he can’t see, hear, or speak). Doctors assume that his cognitive brain function is gone as well, but in fact he can still think, reason, and feel (figuratively and literally); as a result, he has been consigned to a life far worse than death. The film intermingles scenes of Joe in an Army hospital as he gradually comes to understand his circumstances (we never actually see him, as he’s covered by a mask and sheets) with the various flashbacks, memories, and hallucinations he experiences during that process. The former, during which Bottoms supplies Joe’s thoughts in voice-over, are in black & white; the latter, which range from childhood memories (Joe’s father is played by Jason Robards) to bizarre fantasies like playing cards with Jesus Christ (Donald Sutherland), are in color, bathed in a kind of dreamy glow that’s countered by a heavy and persistent sense of dread. To be sure, Johnny Got His Gun has its heavy-handed, pretentious moments. But this is a smart, disturbing, and somber film that stands out in a genre (i.e., war movies) that unfortunately is never irrelevant. An excellent batch of bonus features includes an hour-long profile of Trumbo (who was jailed for contempt of Congress during the Communist witch hunts of the ‘40s and ‘50s, then blacklisted by Hollywood), a new interview with Bottoms, a 1940 radio adaptation of the story (featuring James Cagney as Joe), and even the Metallica music video “One,” which features extensive footage from the film. --Sam Graham
While I did see and appreciate the movie, it didn't hold the same power over me as the book did.

[James]

I read it a couple of weeks ago, and I would recommend it. It is pretty powerful reading, it made me appreciate life a little bit more.

[Papaphilly]

One of the great anti war-novels of all time. Johnny Got His Gun shows the great truths about what can happen. Whether you are pro or anti, it is a must read.

[Papaphilly]

Jeri wrote: "I am usually anti-war, but for me, this book was too extreme to be believable. Joe could have been equally badly maimed from a car accident or even a barbecue gas tank explosion or some other catas..."

Dalton Trumbo was fervently anti-war and never made bones about it. He focused on one soldier with devastating injuries, basically a living slab of meat and what it must be like not being able to make contact with the outside world and having to be stuck inside his mind. You are certainly right that his injuries could have been caused by any number of lightening strike type of accidents. Trumbo focused on war as the cause and shows injuries to the point of ridiculousness. It is the very unreality that shows the how real it all truly turns out. There is a perverse twist of fate when he is refused to be allowed to die because it is not the Army's way.

You do not like the book and that is your right. I will not quibble with your reasons, because who am I to say you are wrong. Not every book is going to cause a deep response in every reader. I do not agree with the simplistic criticism, but I agree with the propagandist criticism, but he was anti-war and would also agree. All Quiet on the Western Front, Catch-22, The Forever War, A Farewell to Arms, Slaughterhouse-Five were all anti-war and great books and you can call them propaganda.

It was his response to the drum beating of the call to war that sent innumerable men to their deaths.

[Simon]

There's a possible spoiler in this post because I'm going to point out what I think is a colossal flaw in the story which, for me, weakens it considerably. This is in paragraph six and I'll put a reminder just above.

Yes, this is a well written and worthy novel. Brave even, as it left the author open to vitriolic criticism from several sides including the anti-pacifists and many who accused him of writing just to shock.

But there's no doubting the author's sincerity. The anti-war message is perhaps a bit heavy-handed by today's standards but this novel was first published in 1939. With the world on the brink of another terrible conflict, Trumbo was desperate to convince as many people as possible of the horror, futility and terrible destructiveness of war and he'd long known that subtlety is wasted on the masses who confuse patriotism with aggression. So he introduced them to Joe Bonham, a typical, likeable patriotic American youth who is enduring a fate that many would feel to be truly far worse than death.

It feels churlish to criticise a moving (and harrowing) and obviously well intentioned work but that's the problem. When reading a bestseller of the Ludlum or Robbins type readers don't even notice the plot holes or implausibilities because we don't care. You know there will be loads and that's fine as long as the novel fulfils it's primary function of entertaining. But when you're really involved with a moving and very serious book then a real credibility humdinger really grates.

Now for the flaw, possible spoiler below.

What I refer to is the wholly unbelievable way in which, having spent such enormous efforts saving the life of this appallingly injured soldier, no one at the hospital then makes any effort whatsoever to communicate with him. There is of course a pivotal exception to this but that comes very late into the story and, up to that point, not a single doctor, surgeon or nurse attempts to comfort or reassure him, or even to ascertain if he is still sane. Instead he is just abandoned to the prison of his own mind. This is so nonsensical that just doesn't work for me.

I suppose this abandonment was a deliberate device used by the author to emphasise Joe's suffering and to heighten the anti-war message, perhaps pointing up the perennial anti-war grievance at the way in which soldiers are supposedly cast aside by their countries once they have 'done their duty'. Well, again no doubt well intentioned but also so utterly unrealistic that it crosses the border into untruthful. I'm sorry, but for me, in a book that is otherwise so sincere, a plausibility lapse of this magnitude, so obviously present for narrative convenience, actually damages the integrity of the whole novel due to its impossibility.

However, all that said, Johnny Got His Gun is still a powerful, moving book that deserves to be read. Just a pity that I can't find it as convincing as so many other readers seem to.

[Papaphilly]

Simon wrote: "not a single doctor, surgeon or nurse attempts to comfort or reassure him, or even to ascertain if he is still sane. Instead he is just abandoned to the prison of his own mind. This is so nonsensical that just doesn't work for me...."

I tend to agree with you analysis on the device employed by Trumbo. However, I want to point out that it may not have occurred to anyone to try an communicate with Joe. It was a different time during WWI and modern medicine was really just getting under way. Psychoanalysis was probably about 30 years old at this point and not well understood let alone practiced. Nobody would have been sure if Joe was even conscious because he couldn't communicate until he figured to use Morse code. It is a sad fact that our country does not treat the wounded well. This is not a new phenomenon going back to the very beginning of the founding of the country. Mostly they are patched up and forgotten. Plenty of documentation showing our soldiers suffering from PTSD and not receiving the treatment they need and that is happening right now. So while I do think it is a device, I still can see how it can really happen.

[Scott]

I also read it in high school and wrote about it in my college essays as the most influential book I had read. It still stays with me. There are scenes where the protatagonist desperately tries to communicate despite his injuries that are unforgettable. It did make me so much more appreciative of the horrors of war, in a way that was personal and felt very real. I agree with may on this thread that it should be a must read for anyone in a position to send others into conflict.

[Michael]

Utterly unforgettable. Piercing. Poignant. I agree with the others who believe everybody should read this book at least once.

[Jeri]

T.S. wrote: "It is definitely a memorable book, but read it alongside other books such as "Storm of Steel," and "Generals Die in Bed," and "A Farewell to Arms," "All Quiet on the Western Front," and then read s..."

Also, read RED BADGE OF COURAGE, a much better anti-war book, in my opinion, than this one.

[Beryl]

I agree, it should be required reading.