So, my last book review on the site was Maus, which is not a new book. Today, we’re delving even further back into history with one that was published in 1939. And it’s an anti-war novel, too. That timing was something.
Reminder: don’t buy books from amazon, shop locally or buy from bookshop.org instead! (That’s my affiliate link, so it’s a great way to support your local B. Berry if you’re curious about this old classic.)
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo is an anti-war novel set during WW1 that was published just in time for WW2. (The version I read had updated author forewards about post-WW2, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. War sucks and pacifist messages stand up no matter what decade it’s in—who knew?) It was also made into a movie in the 70s, though I haven’t seen it. It was also also featured heavily in Metallica’s music video for “One”, so that helped the movie gain some cult status and keep relevant.
I actually only heard about Johnny Got His Gun in a Twitter thread, where it was compared to I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, which is one of my favorite short stories, and has a very evocative title. I like body horror! I like existential, helpless, desperate horror! So I was like: yep, this is what I’m going to start reading before bed.
Johnny Got His Gun is about a young soldier named Joe Bonham who went through WW1. The novel is technically set afterward, though it is intertwined with flashbacks about his life before the war, to the point where it is almost unreliable narration. Surreal for sure.
The actual plot is that Joe wakes up (if he can even be sure he’s awake) after getting injured. Gradually, he finds out the extent of his injuries: first, he notices that he can’t hear a thing, so he must be deaf. He feels bandages all over, including his face. He finds out he’s lost an arm, and comes to terms with that, but then realizes he’s lost both arms.
Then, he finds out he’s lost both legs, and his face—his jaw and tongue are gone, his nose is gone, his eyes are gone. It’s described as a large hole in his face. He wonders, in increasing despair, how he can even be alive. He has no method of communication or being communicate with, no knowledge of where he is or what’s happened or how much time has passed.
A particularly emotional section of the novel has to do with how he manages to tell him, with a mixture of counting nurse visits and trying to feel a difference in temperature to know if it’s day or night. It’s an arduous, long process, but you share in Joe’s visceral triumph when he figures it out at last. This doesn’t tell him what day, month, or even year it is, but it’s time, and he has a sense of the world again.
The frequent delves into various memories of his time before the war (though there are a few of during the war) only reinforce how trapped the main character is. I wouldn’t call it a horror novel by any means, but it is certainly a horrifying premise. At the end—and the novel does an excellent job at showing how arduous and time-consuming all of this is for Joe, while not bogging down the pacing or making it seem like a slog to read—we ultimately share in Joe’s complete and overwhelming joy when he gets to communicate someone, via Morse code. He asks to be put in a glass case and to tour the country to show off what war really is; he genuinely means it as a method to pay his way, gladly turning himself into a freak show, just to have the thought of being near people again.
And then, of course, even that doesn’t work out for him. He’s told it is against regulations.
In the movie (that I haven’t seen, but I’ve read the synopsis and wish to see) it adds on that after he is denied this one request, he next asks to die. That, too, is denied. The novel describes several times the despair Joe feels, especially as he doesn’t even have the choice to end his life. He is trapped within his body and isolated from the outside world. And that is where he must stay, for the rest of his remaining life, with absolutely no chance of reprieve. See what I meant by horrifying premise?
I enjoyed the novel overall. I consider myself a pacifist, though I enjoy reading about themes of war and destruction, and this functions excellently as an anti-war novel because it’s not about being anti-war. It’s about a single man and his life, and what little life remains after war has taken it from him.
