Johnny Got Aides

Johnny got his Gun

Few books are as thought provoking as Dalton Trumbo’s epic novel Johnny Got his Gun. Johnny Got His Gun was written shortly before the Second World War and is set during the First World War. Aka the Great War; Aka the War to End All Wars. But this actually this isn't really the setting, as the entire book is set inside one man's head. One man who wakes up confused and has to work out from data (or, more often, lack of data) that he has lost arms, legs, his eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The book mingles dream-like memories of his bodied life with the coming to terms of being trapped inside his own new body.
It is written as a stream of (barely) consciousness, with very little punctuation to interrupt the thoughts. The author displays his mad literary skills by exploring what happens to a mind isolated from the outside world except for a sense of touch, pain and of vibration. What happens you say? It has no choice but to think, to latch on to every piece of information it is lucky enough to get, and to be patient. What it can't prevent is the slow drift towards a kind of frustrated mania obsessing about every idea it has. At points it is crazy amped up description of what goes on in the mind of a writer, or other person who tends towards thinking rather than doing. (Cough me cough)
Johnny Got His Gun is a book against war, and even ends up being a pro-revolutionary manifesto arguing for rising up against those who would send innocent young men and women off to be killed in the name of “intangible” ideas. But what other conclusion could the mind of a previously healthy twenty-year-old man come to, after
Finding that all that is left of him is his brain and his brain has almost no way to communicate with the outside world?
Towards the end of the book, Joe does find a way to communicate. (Morse code) But he has been trapped for so many years with only himself to talk to, that he sends out the same stream of consciousness that has been his monologue for years. (SOS) His early patience has been replaced by desperation. Eventually he has to accept that he has gone stark raving mad.
To be honest I thought that most of the anecdotes about times at or near the battlefront were darkly amusing or even whimsical. However I also think that at times this book is entirely boring. Who wants to enter the mind of a raving amputee for hours at a time? The stream of consciousness kinda gets to you after awhile and it becomes hard to tell what the story is actually about. However, I think that Mr. Trumbo is no fool. He most positively did this intentionally to give the reader a taste of what it’s like to be left alone with yourself.
This is a rather messy and confusing read, but I’m going to go ahead and recommend it anyway on the grounds of originality. It’s a short read. So you might as well.

Overall Rating: *** dismembered limbs up.