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lanvutca's review against another edition
5.0
Just as devastating and haunting as I remember it being. An absolute must-read, anti-war novel.
kengore's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
kelishiaradhalal's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
georgewbscott's review against another edition
5.0
I read this years ago, while in high school, during the Viet Nam War era. It affected me greatly and helped shape my world view. This book was banned during the WW2 era, as I recall. If everyone read it maybe that and future wars would not have happened.
babs5005's review against another edition
2.0
“Johnny Got His Gun,” by Dalton Trumbo is supposed to be a powerful story that is antiwar.
I get it, poor people are used to feed the war machine, and it’s a machine that makes the rich get richer. To quote Guns N Roses, “[War] feeds the rich while it buries the poor.”
That’s the basic message I got from, “Jonny Got His Gun.”
While I whole heartedly agree with the message of the book, I have to say, I enjoyed the Guns N Roses song, “Civil War,” about million times better than I did, “Jonny Got His Gun,” because I think the premise of the book was based on emotional manipulation.
Here’s this guy, this kid we get to know through flashbacks, with his arms blown off and his legs blown off and his face blown off and he’s deaf and blind and that absolutely sucks.
But the whole time I was reading about his situation, I couldn’t help but think that people get physically messed up all different kinds of ways. This guy got blown up in war, sure, but what if he had been in a bad accident? Would the argument about war be valid under those circumstances? He could have gotten just as messed up being hit by a drunk driver, and then the book could have been complaining about drunk drivers instead. He could have been in a bad accident while cooking meth and blown himself up, and we’d have blamed him for his drug problem. He could have been shot with a firework on the fourth of July, right in the face and now he’s paralyzed and blind, and deaf from the blast and all we’d say is that the public should not be allowed to set off fireworks.
Just because you go to war doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to die or get your face blow off, so that part of this story just didn’t resonate with me.
And I really dislike it when people try to use emotional manipulation tactics on me; It always makes me feel some type of way, and it’s not the way the person is usually trying to make me to feel either.
I felt like I did when I tried reading this awful book called, “The Notebook,” where these people were in a relationship but they got all old and demented and it was supposed to really pull at your heart strings. I hate that sort of thing because it smacks of manipulation.
So I thought this book was too heavy handed in trying to make me feel some type of way.
Another thing I didn’t like about this book was that the main character had his arms and legs and his face blown off and he was deaf and blind and I think Trumbo could only speculate about how life would be like for someone in that condition, because he didn’t really know.
For all we know, the main character, Joe, could have been having lots of out of body experiences (OBEs). He could have been entering deep states of mediation that result in transcendental bliss, like Yogis report happening to them when they go on meditation retreats. Joe could have been lying there, reliving his past lives and projecting his mind into future states of awareness. He could have been developing his psychic powers and communicating with his nurses via telepathy. Forget morse code, and banging his head on his pillow, this guy could have been playing the game “Old Janx Spirit,” and developing his will and then using it to influence people telepathically, like Ford Prefect from, “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.”
So, I can’t say I’d recommend reading this book because I just didn’t like it very much. I can say that I think everyone should listen to the song, “Civil War,” by Guns N Roses though, and read the lyrics, which are much more profound and moving than, “Jonny Got His Gun."
Here they are in full:
Civil War
Song by Guns N' Roses
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands, time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars
D'you wear a black armband when they shot the man
Who said, "Peace could last forever"?
And in my first memories, they shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall in D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom when it's not in your hands
When everybody's fightin' for their promised land and
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich, while it buries the poor
You're power-hungry, sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh?
I don't need your civil war
Ooh, no, no, no, no, no, no
Look at the shoes you're filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more
My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still, the wars go on, as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
And all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich, while it buries the poor
You're power-hungry, sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh?
I don't need your civil war
No no no no no no no no no no no no
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
You're power-hungry, sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh?
I don't need your civil war
No no no no no no no no no no no no
I don't need one more war
Ooh, I don't need one more war
No no no, no whoa, no whoa
What's so civil 'bout war anyway?
I get it, poor people are used to feed the war machine, and it’s a machine that makes the rich get richer. To quote Guns N Roses, “[War] feeds the rich while it buries the poor.”
That’s the basic message I got from, “Jonny Got His Gun.”
While I whole heartedly agree with the message of the book, I have to say, I enjoyed the Guns N Roses song, “Civil War,” about million times better than I did, “Jonny Got His Gun,” because I think the premise of the book was based on emotional manipulation.
Here’s this guy, this kid we get to know through flashbacks, with his arms blown off and his legs blown off and his face blown off and he’s deaf and blind and that absolutely sucks.
But the whole time I was reading about his situation, I couldn’t help but think that people get physically messed up all different kinds of ways. This guy got blown up in war, sure, but what if he had been in a bad accident? Would the argument about war be valid under those circumstances? He could have gotten just as messed up being hit by a drunk driver, and then the book could have been complaining about drunk drivers instead. He could have been in a bad accident while cooking meth and blown himself up, and we’d have blamed him for his drug problem. He could have been shot with a firework on the fourth of July, right in the face and now he’s paralyzed and blind, and deaf from the blast and all we’d say is that the public should not be allowed to set off fireworks.
Just because you go to war doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to die or get your face blow off, so that part of this story just didn’t resonate with me.
And I really dislike it when people try to use emotional manipulation tactics on me; It always makes me feel some type of way, and it’s not the way the person is usually trying to make me to feel either.
I felt like I did when I tried reading this awful book called, “The Notebook,” where these people were in a relationship but they got all old and demented and it was supposed to really pull at your heart strings. I hate that sort of thing because it smacks of manipulation.
So I thought this book was too heavy handed in trying to make me feel some type of way.
Another thing I didn’t like about this book was that the main character had his arms and legs and his face blown off and he was deaf and blind and I think Trumbo could only speculate about how life would be like for someone in that condition, because he didn’t really know.
For all we know, the main character, Joe, could have been having lots of out of body experiences (OBEs). He could have been entering deep states of mediation that result in transcendental bliss, like Yogis report happening to them when they go on meditation retreats. Joe could have been lying there, reliving his past lives and projecting his mind into future states of awareness. He could have been developing his psychic powers and communicating with his nurses via telepathy. Forget morse code, and banging his head on his pillow, this guy could have been playing the game “Old Janx Spirit,” and developing his will and then using it to influence people telepathically, like Ford Prefect from, “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.”
So, I can’t say I’d recommend reading this book because I just didn’t like it very much. I can say that I think everyone should listen to the song, “Civil War,” by Guns N Roses though, and read the lyrics, which are much more profound and moving than, “Jonny Got His Gun."
Here they are in full:
Civil War
Song by Guns N' Roses
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands, time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars
D'you wear a black armband when they shot the man
Who said, "Peace could last forever"?
And in my first memories, they shot Kennedy
I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall in D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom when it's not in your hands
When everybody's fightin' for their promised land and
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich, while it buries the poor
You're power-hungry, sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh?
I don't need your civil war
Ooh, no, no, no, no, no, no
Look at the shoes you're filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more
My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still, the wars go on, as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
And all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich, while it buries the poor
You're power-hungry, sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh?
I don't need your civil war
No no no no no no no no no no no no
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
You're power-hungry, sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh?
I don't need your civil war
No no no no no no no no no no no no
I don't need one more war
Ooh, I don't need one more war
No no no, no whoa, no whoa
What's so civil 'bout war anyway?
jonibluez's review against another edition
5.0
I have read this very short story I don't know HOW many times. I am always sucked into it every time I open the front cover
cob412's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
dknippling's review against another edition
5.0
An American soldier is found on the battlefield during WWI, still alive but terribly wounded. Nursed back to health, he discovers he has no limbs, no face, no eyes, no hearing...
I wasn't looking forward to reading this one. I suuposed it would be one long, miserable acreed against war. It wasn't. The tragedy of this character is that he is so filled with life that not even injury and despair can destroy him.
Not a pleasant book to read, but a good one.
I wasn't looking forward to reading this one. I suuposed it would be one long, miserable acreed against war. It wasn't. The tragedy of this character is that he is so filled with life that not even injury and despair can destroy him.
Not a pleasant book to read, but a good one.
drkottke's review against another edition
5.0
Egads! Is there a more painful and heartfelt anti-war novel out there? Although set after WWI, Joe Bonham's story is as relevant today as at any point in American history - if not more so, given the state of modern medicine that allows many more soldiers who would have perished from their injuries in prior eras to survive (see the Joe Bonham Project for proof of the novel's continuing relevance at http://joebonhamproject.blogspot.com/). The edition I read had a forward by Cindy Sheehan and an introduction by Ron Kovic, both of which were startling complements to this powerful novel (as, of course, is Metallica's "One").
mgreer56's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75