Review of 'Johnny Got His Gun' on 'Goodreads'
At the risk of being indicted by the inevitable reiteration of the House Un-American Activities Committee, I read and I'm now reviewing Johnny Got his Gun by Dalton Trumbo.
I have read several classics of anti-war literature, but Johnny Got his Gun is the most pointed, unveiled, and unapologetic piece I have read so far. Joe Bonham is a calculated average American man of the 1930s who is hit by an artillery shell. The rest of the book follows the limbless, deaf, blind, and dumb soldier as he drags the reader through his pain only to tie it up as a reason to oppose all war.
After it was published in 1938 but "Trumbo and his publisher decided to suspend reprinting Johnny Got His Gun until the end of the war. During the war, Trumbo received letters from individuals "denouncing Jews" and using Johnny to support their arguments for "an …
At the risk of being indicted by the inevitable reiteration of the House Un-American Activities Committee, I read and I'm now reviewing Johnny Got his Gun by Dalton Trumbo.
I have read several classics of anti-war literature, but Johnny Got his Gun is the most pointed, unveiled, and unapologetic piece I have read so far. Joe Bonham is a calculated average American man of the 1930s who is hit by an artillery shell. The rest of the book follows the limbless, deaf, blind, and dumb soldier as he drags the reader through his pain only to tie it up as a reason to oppose all war.
After it was published in 1938 but "Trumbo and his publisher decided to suspend reprinting Johnny Got His Gun until the end of the war. During the war, Trumbo received letters from individuals "denouncing Jews" and using Johnny to support their arguments for "an immediate negotiated peace" with Nazi Germany; Trumbo reported these correspondents to the FBI. Trumbo regretted this decision, which he called "foolish". After two FBI agents showed up at his home, he understood that "their interest lay not in the letters but in me."[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Trumbo]
Johnny's Got His Gun has been unearthed over and over during the endless wars that America profited from by parents of maimed soldiers.
While Johnny Got His Gun is extremely blunt, so are the horrors of war.