Johnny Got His Gun

Trumbo's classic of enduring horrors immortalizes the brutality of war in a way no other antiwar writing ever has. The main character is a soldier who is forced into isolation by injuries that prevent him from communicating. When he eventually learns to communicate again, no one wants to listen to what he has to say. Using a forced tone of nostalgia and a hollow "epicness," narrator William Dufris turns this classic into a gimmick. The rolling pitch and yawl of his inflection force the listener into elated highs and sappy lows, making this listen quite tedious. The poignancy, respect, and craft of the novel seem to have been ignored. M.U. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

May 26, 2008
This audio edition of Trumbo's classic 1939 novel of war's insanity begins as a bit of a slog because of the lengthy padding at its start. With two introductions, from Cindy Sheehan and Ron Kovic, that attempt to place the novel in the context of more recent armed conflicts in both Iraq and Vietnam, it is the better part of a disc before the book properly begins. Once it does, though, the slog ceases. Trumbo's novel is spine-tingling in its immediacy and horror, and William Dufris (while occasionally fumbling around in his bag of voices) mostly gives the words room to breathe. For this book, little more is necessary. A Citadel paperback.