Johnny Got His Gun Dalton Trumbo Book
by Dalton Trumbo

Book Comments & Discussion (2)

UnknownOPMar 2010

Written on the eve of World War Two and based during World War One, this book has been made into a movie; of which segments were used in the Metallica music video, "One", and, more recently, a one man stage show, this book centres around an American soldier who "wakes" up in an unknown hospital and slowly comes to the realisation that not only is he blind, deaf and dumb but he also has no limbs, effectively becoming just a living piece of flesh that is kept alive by tubes and machines.

Written from the first person, this book contains little or no punctuation giving the impression of a single stream of thought as the protaginist slowly descends into madness with his condition. It is an extremely harrowing read and segments had me drained and unable to read on as the realisations come thick and hard. It is a definite must read for everybody.

midianiamJul 19, 2010

can't find this bloody book anywhere

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Storyline

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.

Praise for Johnny Got His Gun

“Mr. Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury accounting to eloquence.”—The New York Times

“[It is] very hard to write about Johnny Got His Gun without being guilty of understatement or hysterics. It is a terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity.”—Washington Post

“An extraordinarily agitating book, passionate in its language, potent in its emotional effect, a novel that tells in unsparingly honest words what a wickedly gruesome business war is, and how wickedly wasteful. Johnny Got His Gun, full of horror and hurt, will be a terrific and vivid experience for anyone who reads it.”—Boston Herald

“It is hard to imagine a more persuasive argument for staying out of war than this smooth, savage, brilliant tale.”—Chicago Daily News