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Synopsis
The powerful story of a young boy and his tragic fate in World War I makes a terrifying statement on the horrors of war and a compelling plea for peace.

book ray time!! hopefully we'll pick up some stragglers, but so far we have:

calvarez4
corry000
vcrain
goatgrrl

off today to calvarez4- enjoy!

Thanks, weeblet. Looking forward to diggin in. Will journal again soon.

Released on Monday, November 22, 2004 at about 3:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at Bookcrosser in Chicago, Illinois Controlled Releases.

RELEASE NOTES:

I just couldn't get into the author's writing style, so I'm going to pass this along, and hopefully revisit it later.

Off to corry000.

Recieved today. Will read as soon as i'm done with the book i'm reading now. Thanks for letting me read this.

This book was really good. I think everyone should read it, especially Bush supporters.The story is very sad and disturbing. I can see why calvarez4 could not get into the book at first. It's written as if the author wanted to say everything at once, with one breath. I had a problem with that at the beginning (just 20 pages or so) but then i really got into it and could not put the book down.

It's going to be on the way to the next person as soon as I get the address.

rec'd this tonight and will start reading tomorrow.

got all the way to page 50 or 60 and I just can't get into this book. will go ahead and send it to goatgrrl tomorrow by media mail.

This book arrived yesterday (Friday), and I was very happy to receive it. Thanks weeblet and vcrain for sharing it with me. I am in the middle of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (a phonebook-sized tome), and have one other ring book ahead of this one, but I promise to have Johnny Got His Gun back on the road by the end of January at the latest. Happy New Year to all!

Johnny Got His Gun is written from the point of view of a twenty year old WWI veteran, Joe Bonham. The novel progresses through a series of flashbacks to Joe's childhood and young adulthood in Shale City, Colorado (modeled after Trumbo's home town of Grand Junction), and as it does so the severity of Joe's wartime injuries becomes apparent: he's lost his hearing, most of his face has been destroyed and eventually his arms and legs must be amputated. Thereby we come to understand why the story is being told through an interior monologue.

As Trumbo points out in his two introductions to the book (one written in 1959, the other in 1970), the underlying message in Johnny took on different significance through each of the 20th century wars. Mostly, however, it is a caution to young men -- and now, to young women -- to think seriously, critically, about the wisdom of individual sacrifice through active duty.

In my view, Johnny is a totally worthwhile book, not so much for the quality of the novel as for its historical lessons -- it teaches us, by thinking about what happened to Johnny, to the novel itself in the years after it was written, and to Trumbo, what happens to Truth in wartime. A timely reminder, especially for Trumbo's fellow Americans in 2005.

Dalton Trumbo knew a thing or two about the cost of personal conviction. Along with other members of the Hollywood Ten, in 1947 -- eight years after Johnny was published -- he was brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was then investigating the alleged creation of Communist propaganda by Hollywood directors and script-writers. Trumbo, along with other members of the Ten, refused to acknowledge whether he was, or ever had been, a member of the Communist Party (something he later admitted), and was convicted of contempt. He was fired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (where he'd been working as a script-writer) and imprisoned for a year in 1950. (The photo is Trumbo in a 1950 US Bureau of Prisons mug shot.)

Other worthwhile novels chronicling WWI and its aftermath: Pat Barker's The Ghost Road; Timothy Findley's The Wars; Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong; Jack Hodgins' Broken Ground; J.L. Carr's A Month in the Country; and Frances Itani's Deafening.

Thanks for sending this on, goatgrrl. I've already read through Trumbo's 1959 introduction and his 1970 addendum to the introduction. The book's worth getting hold of just for that.

I'm looking forward to reading this, but I don't think it's going to be an easy or comfortable read.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This excellent book has been on my shelves for far too long. It's a little dog-eared and delicate, so I'm sending it on a RABCK rather than releasing it into the wild.

Goodness! I got this completely out of the blue as an exceedingly kind wishlist fulfilment! I've been wanting to give this a read ever since I heard it was the inspiration for the Metallica song "One" (a fantastic song). Also fascinated by locked-in syndrome having read around the subject recently. You must let me known if there is anything I can do for you, countless thanks!