Johnny Got His Gun Review

I love this book. I understand how generic that overused that four-letter word seems, but the deep feelings that this cautionary tale of the devastation of war provoked in me are unlike anything I have felt before. I loved it. Johnny Got His Gun did what every great book does; it shifted my entire world view. I could write endlessly of the unparalleled struggle in the first half of the book, “The Death”, but that portion of the book only gave me sadness. The second half, “The Living”,  gave me resentment but also hope. When Joe Bonham cannot find a way to die he finds a way to live. Every day, he tries to image a sunrise and even though he will never see one again, he revels in its unseen glory. This part of the book touched me the most. It made me realize just how lucky I am to stare at a crimson sky as dawn breaks. It made me hate America for taking that from fictional Joe, and non-fictional veterans from all wars. Every person should read this book. It isn’t particularly well written, and the plot is not at all satisfying, but the message is too important to ignore this work. Nobody should be forced to die for a word, whether it be liberty, unity, or democracy. Life is too precious and too fleeting to waste it fighting.

"Bet I know something else you don’t. There’s dew on the grass in the morning."

Clarise is one of my favorite characters in literature. She is so quirky and weird compared to the brainwashed people she is surrounded by, but nothing she says would be particularly strange in our world...or so it seems.
The thing I love about Ray Bradbury is the same reason why his work terrifies me. He predicted the worst most dystopian technologically reliant future, and it mirrors our reality so closely.
Dew on morning grass. How could a grown man not know about it? At one point I thought Montag was so ignorant, but then realization dawned on me. I can't remember the last time I saw dew on morning grass. Bradbury holds a mirror to his readers. He shows us a narrator and convinces us to judge and mock and fear and eventually look at ourselves. He shows us the warped scars that the modern world has given us, that we have given to one another. We are not Clarisse. We are the firemen, destroying a truth because it is unpleasant. We are Millie, listening to walls and waiting for another device to drown out our consciousness and shame.

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. " Letter 73.

       This is most likely the most famous quote from Alice Walker's "The Color Purple". I figured rather than simply write about the quote, I would write about the letter it comes from as a whole.
       Letter 73 is a particularly low point for Celie. Her entire life she was devout, and she time and time again placed her faith in God. Through every trial and tribulation, she still remained faithful. After Mr. hides Netties letters, Celie loses faith. She wonders how God could be so awful to her, why he never gave her any joy. If I'm being quite honest, she deserved to feel that way.
       This is my favorite letter for two reasons. One is that, of all people, Shug Avery is the woman who preaches that Celie should remain Faithful to God.  Shug Avery embodies all sorts of sins throughout the book, but that is also why her perspective on religion is so suiting. The second reason why I love this letter is that it is the only time that Religion is something I connected with. The faith Shug describes fits into the lens I view the world with. She believes that God is not some spiteful, bearded, old white man in the clouds, but rather all of the beauty and joy in this world. "God is what connects people with all living things. As much as we serve God, he serves us double. He put everything beautiful like trees and music and the color purple here so that we could enjoy it."

"Until you do right by me, I say, everything you even dream about will fail. I give it to him straight, just like it come to me. And it seem to come from the trees."

This scene, without a doubt, is the most jaw-dropping scene in the entire book. At so many points, It feels like Celie will never stand up for herself. She endures abuse after abuse from every man in her life, and at times it got hard to read. When she finally realizes her self worth and leaves her terrible, good for nothing husband I re-read the scene at least twice. It was one of those moments in literature where iI wasn't reading a book, I was a fly on the wall. It felt like I witnessed her strength first hand. Celie is one of the most remarkable and genuine narrators I've read. She is fallible and flawed. Whether it is her lack of education, her reluctance to feel valued, or her acceptance of a life without love, her vulnerability made her feel so real.

"Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgetful and lowdown." Letter

Celie goes through a multitude of transformations over the course of "The Color Purple". In my last entry, I discussed her spiritual transformation. Now, I want to focus on her evolving opinions regarding feminism. The Celie at the beginning of the book is unrecognizable to the Celie at the end. That is mostly due to her growing self-respect.

"I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie you are a tree. That’s how come I know trees fear man." Letter 13

Based on my former blog entries, it probably comes as no surprise that Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" is my favorite novel. Celie's revelations about spirituality really resonate with me. In fact, reading the book and taking in her perspective has completely altered the way I view the world around me. Through the help of Celie's confidant and Lover Shug Avery, Celie learns to appreciate and connect with the beauty she is surrounded by. This beauty is rooted in nature, as in mother nature and human nature. 
However, this specific quote comes into the story long before her spiritual revelations. Even though she does not broadly believe that all living things are connected, she has already found a (for lack of a better word) bond with nature. well...trees at least. That kinship she forms with trees is re-visited throughout the entire novel. At every point of her story arch, trees are the thing Walker use to demonstrate Celie's growth and opinions on life.

"I just try to live every day as if I've deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life."