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A review by ghostboyreads
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
4.0
"Please I can't. Please no. Somebody come. Help me. I can't lie here forever like this until maybe years from now I die. I can't. Nobody can. It isn't possible. I can't breathe but I'm breathing. I'm so scared I can't think but I'm thinking. Oh please please no. No no. It isn't me. Help me. It can't be me."
Astonishing. Staggering. Harsh. Completely and utterly heart-breaking. Johnny Got His Gun is one of the single most affecting, horrific, and deeply unsettling novels that I have ever read. This is an entirely internal novel, you're stuck within the mind of the protagonist for the entire thing, and it's a fucking horrific and bleak place to be. This book is ruinous, it's torturous, it's an account of the worst, most depressing kind of existence possible. Johnny Got His Gun is the sort of book that will make shotting back bleach feel worth it, it's the kind of book that will ruin your life in the best possible way. Does a more horrible book even exist? Is there another book that can rival the scathing anger of this? It's a bestial thing, furious, a void-like pit of despair and pain.
When discussing disturbing literature, this should be the benchmark, because it's one of the most affecting and atrocious books out there. This is legitimately worth of the tag disturbing, it isn't gore for the sake of shock value - it's simply raw, real, unfiltered and horrifically vivid imagery. Johnny Got His Gun may not be a horror novel, but Lord is it terrifying. Real, actually bleak shit, absolutely not a fun reading experience to say the very least. Told in an experimental, stream of consciousness style, it's a little bit of a difficult book to navigate at times, certainly this is a strange approach to storytelling, feeling like some sick and twisted blend of McCarthy and Salinger. Intense, and feverish, ghoulish and nasty, there exists little as grim as this.
Astonishing. Staggering. Harsh. Completely and utterly heart-breaking. Johnny Got His Gun is one of the single most affecting, horrific, and deeply unsettling novels that I have ever read. This is an entirely internal novel, you're stuck within the mind of the protagonist for the entire thing, and it's a fucking horrific and bleak place to be. This book is ruinous, it's torturous, it's an account of the worst, most depressing kind of existence possible. Johnny Got His Gun is the sort of book that will make shotting back bleach feel worth it, it's the kind of book that will ruin your life in the best possible way. Does a more horrible book even exist? Is there another book that can rival the scathing anger of this? It's a bestial thing, furious, a void-like pit of despair and pain.
When discussing disturbing literature, this should be the benchmark, because it's one of the most affecting and atrocious books out there. This is legitimately worth of the tag disturbing, it isn't gore for the sake of shock value - it's simply raw, real, unfiltered and horrifically vivid imagery. Johnny Got His Gun may not be a horror novel, but Lord is it terrifying. Real, actually bleak shit, absolutely not a fun reading experience to say the very least. Told in an experimental, stream of consciousness style, it's a little bit of a difficult book to navigate at times, certainly this is a strange approach to storytelling, feeling like some sick and twisted blend of McCarthy and Salinger. Intense, and feverish, ghoulish and nasty, there exists little as grim as this.
"Here you are Joe and you're hurt worse than you think. You're hurt bad. Maybe it would be a lot better if you were dead and buried on the hill across the river from Shale City. Maybe there are more things wrong with you than you suspect Joe. Oh why the hell did you ever get into this mess anyhow? Because it wasn't your fight Joe. You never really knew what the fight was all about."
As if it couldn't get any worse, this story is based on some very tragic and very real accounts. It's hyper visceral, perhaps containing one of the single most harrowing and upsetting endings to any novel, ever. This is an insanely interesting book, penned by an equally fascinating man. Trumbo forces the reader to stare wide-eyed into the horrors of his story, there's no place to hide, it refuses to shy away from anything. There's this cinematic quality to it all, that somehow heightens how horrible and awful everything feels. Poignant, touching, gut-wrenching and sickening, Johnny Got His Gun will push you so far beyond your limits for the macabre and grotesque that you'll feel entirely lost. It's a deeply uncomfortable novel, but an extremely important one, too.
"There's nothing noble in death. What's noble about lying in the ground and rotting? What's noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What's noble about having your legs and arms blown off?"