Johnny Got His Gun (1939)

A Powerful Anti-War Novel. ( )

What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs in the water?

Bob.

What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs on a porch?

Matt.

What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs on skis?

Skip.

What do you call a novel about a guy who has no arms and no legs because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Johnny Got His Gun.

***

This works best as a character sketch. As poor Jon Bonham's consciousness recalls the events of his childhood, he simultaneously realizes he has missing appendages (and a missing face). And when the two threads meet, we are put in his mind alongside him. He is an inert trunk tucked away in a hospital because a German shell blew him apart in the horrifying attrition of WWI. It's like epiphenomenalism in reverse with a double shot of God is Dead.

What I have difficulty with is:

1.) his sophistication. He seems quite exceptional for Dalton's purpose of representing an average American Doughboy. Did your typical twenty-something male have a knowledge of Carthaginian history back then?

2.) his sanity. He goes insane at the end, but could someone in complete isolation keep it together for several years? I doubt it. (And my mom always told me that I'm exceptional, so there.)

3.) the dissolution into didacticism. The final few pages are a screed on par with Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator. The difference is, I buy Charlie's speech because he's knee deep in satire and it's not as jarring when he steps out of that satire. Maybe this is unfair, but Trumbo's effort is affected and, dare I say, as unnatural as the devices that conspire to keep his protagonist's body alive while neglecting his mind. Maybe Trumbo believes he has captured the reader to the extent that he can preach to him/her. I guess most people coming to the novel are looking to be preached at. I was not.

4.) it won't convince today's youth about the horrors of war because they've been inured to such things with their Xbox 360s. Besides, Bonham is eventually able to communicate with hospital staff through Morse Code. Unless salvation can be texted, kids these days aren't interested.

All the same, war can suck it.

And somebody give these hippies a haircut. ( )

This is a powerful, gut wrenching tale.

Johnny is a boy who went to war...and got wounded. We meet him in the hospital, where we expect him to be safely recovering. I will not give away the reality that Dalton Trumbo gradually reveals to the reader. I will only tell you that Stephen King, the master of 'make it worse', could learn a thing or two from Trumbo.

Be sure you have a good supply of Kleenex. ( )

Ah, hell. Thanks a lot, El. When am I supposed to fit this in? Also, is this going to be more or less boring than [b:The Diving Bell and the Butterfly?|193755|The Diving Bell and the Butterfly|Jean-Dominique Bauby|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320404533s/193755.jpg|565494] Maybe they would make a nice pair. I could make a shelf for "Books in which the author certainly ain't doing shit." I could put [b:A Confederacy of Dunces|310612|A Confederacy of Dunces|John Kennedy Toole|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1322246785s/310612.jpg|968084] on it too.

Seems a good anti-war book I have never heard of.