Johnny Got His Gun
Ratings58
Average rating4.1
Possibly the most powerful anti-war book ever written. Ever since first reading it, in high school, the story and images have stuck with me.
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
You're less than a dog less than a rat less than a bee or an ant less than a white maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You're dead mister and you died for nothing.You're dead mister.Dead.
i feel so ill
Look, I don't know how I feel about this book but I think about it way more than I want to and the images are seared in my brain. In that way it's a masterpiece
One sentence synopsis... An antiwar novel following a young American soldier as he wakes up in hospital and slowly realizes he's lost his arms, legs, mouth, nose, sight and hearing.
Read it if you like... as weird a comparison as this is I think if you liked ‘A Little Life' you'd like this. Both are books you'll be yelling out loud about as you read. Just when you think things can't get any worse - they do. Both have main characters who somehow manage to keep their humanity and evoke so much sympathy.
Dream casting... the entire novel is inside the mind of Joe Bonham and apart from the occasional flashback he's ‘a piece of meat that keeps on living'... so not the easiest to cast but I did think someone like Josh Hutcherson fit the bill of flashback-Joe. Though that could just be because Joe worked in a bakery à la Peeta Mellark.
This was a tough read for me. The book was extremely dry and I found myself not caring about the main character. The story takes place in the 1930's and we are supposed to believe that in the 1930's a person can survive a blast from a shell and be living torso basically. The only person with a brain was the new nurse towards the end of the novel who seemed to care about Joe.
War is bad, but this book was horrible.
1 star gone for being dull.
1 star gone for the slut-shaming of Ruby. I know it was the 1930's but still.
Edited to add that I read this with Josh and he hated it more than I did!