Johnny Got His Gun

Immediately I was struck by the book's unique prose and style. There is an almost stream of consciousness theme to the writing to the point where early on I was operating under the assumption that the different sections were not actually about the same character but disparate individuals sharing common experiences. The scenes are all very vivid. The scene where his arm is being removed in particular was extremely lifelike. I think this was the case due to the fact that it wasn't an extremely dramatic scene. In many ways it was the least chaotic sequence in this part of the book. Instead of pushing his description of the scene over the top, it was rather low key. He felt a hot pricking and peeling, and then realized his arm was gone. This description was able to be both vivid and vague; vague in that he wasn't quite aware of what was going on. This section worked so well because it didn't try extremely hard to convey the emotions it needed too, it just presented them and let the audience make up its own mind.