The composer of film music? Rather, a novel published in the 60s by a dead American I'd never heard of. And then the title: But there was an introduction and therefore a recommendation by John McGahern , so it got the first-page test. And the prose was clean and quiet; and the tone a little wry.
And the first page led to the second, and then what happened was that joyful internal word-of-mouth that sends a reader hurrying from one page to the next; which in turn leads to external word-of-mouth, the pressing of the book on friends, the ordering and sending of copies.
William Stoner, we learn in the book's first paragraph, was a lifelong academic, who entered the University of Missouri as a student in , and went on to teach there until his death in The value and purpose of academe is a key concern of the novel, while one of its main sequences describes a long and savage piece of departmental infighting.
So Williams was perhaps a little naive, or at least over-hopeful, in thinking his novel wouldn't, or shouldn't, be labelled "academic". In the same way, Butcher's Crossing to be reissued by Vintage in January is indeed a "western", being set in a Kansas frontier town in the s, with its main action a buffalo hunt in a lost mountain valley as winter approaches. It is so historically and anatomically precise, I am confident that, if you gave me a sharp knife, a horse and a rope, I could now skin a buffalo though someone else would have to kill it first.
Stoner is a farm boy, initially studying agriculture and a requirement of his course is to take a class in English literature. The students are set two Shakespeare plays, and then some sonnets, including the 73rd. And he understands also that there is a continual battle between the academy and the world: Stoner is a son of the soil — patient, earnest and enduring — who moves unprepared into the city and the world. Good things do happen in Stoner's life, but they all end badly. Though he is allowed small victories towards the end of the novel, they are pyrrhic ones.
Writers often disagree with readers about the emphasis of their work. The sadness of Stoner is of its own particular kind. Except — since you are a reader — you can at least defer it. I found that when reading Stoner for the first time, I would limit myself most days to 30 or 40 pages, preferring to put off until the morrow knowledge of what Stoner might next have to bear. The title — suggested by his American publishers — remains unexciting though better, probably, than Williams's first attempts: Do not strive for pleasure.
Only a fool tries to impose his own selfish desires upon reality and is the plaything of his emotions and desires. The consolations of philosophy applied to ordinary life. Amongst the teachers I know, there is a bittersweet running joke, when talking about the essence of their profession.
Why does someone chooses to become a teacher? And, bursting with self-mockery laughter, they sing in unison Those who can, do. Imagine yourself living together with Stoner. However wise and admirable his stoicism, there is also a solipsistic aspect to it. According to his creator, Stoner is altogether a happy man: He had a better life than most people do, certainly. He was doing what he wanted to do, he had some feeling for what he was doing, he had some sense of the importance of the job he was doing.
His parents, wife, daughter, lover? Does he really care? Coming no further than these personal musings, I feel not able to do justice to this poignant novel, hitting a little too close to home, for more than one reason. Yes, Stoner is as unforgettable a character as many reviews point out. Yes, in many respects, I have known a Stoner. We were married for 16 years. He was, like Stoner, the most stoic person I ever met.
He illustrated his philosophy lectures with a cartoon from D.
Stoner - Wikipedia
The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter ; afterwards showing it to our children to teach them equanimity when things didn't work out as they would like they did. As I am not that stoic like he was, because of its ending, I didn't have the heart to pass the book to him.
Michael Perkins Just re-read your review. It's the best review of this book I've read. I usually went away scratching my head wondering what the appeal was. Perhaps, Just re-read your review. Perhaps, for some of us, there isn't much of an appeal at all. You see, my family also had a stoic, my mother. She was a self-described "cold fish," who grew up in New England. There was no affection, which was very damaging to the kids. After we moved to California, she became a shut-in because she decided she didn't like people and, finally, agoraphobic.
And for me, she became a kind of negative example of what kind of parent, and person, not to be. I have no interest in being sucked back into that, even in a novel. Ron I love this review for two reasons: Thanks Ilse for this wonderful review of a book I I love this review for two reasons: Thanks Ilse for this wonderful review of a book I only discovered a couple of years ago and thought a masterpiece and while you were married to a "Stoner" I too can say I was 'married' to a number of them, and half made it and half found it as you described and bailed out on academia.
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View all 53 comments. Aug 27, Maria Headley rated it it was amazing Shelves: Devastating novel of academia, unfulfilled hope, and a life not-entirely-lived. Gorgeous writing, heartbreaking plot, and if you're a fan, as I tend to be, of stories set in the dark halls of libraries and universities, this is one to read. The love story within this book is suddenly out-of-nowhere rapturous, and the marriage is brittle, delicate, insensible and perfectly done. The book feels so modern, though the bulk of the action is set in the 30's and 40's.
I kept stopping to check that this Devastating novel of academia, unfulfilled hope, and a life not-entirely-lived. I kept stopping to check that this was true - the love affair, in particular, feels like something that might be happening this moment in an office at, say, Middlebury. Stoner's marriage, in contrast, is painfully frozen in time and in the cultural expectations of women in the early part of the last century, but even so, Stoner's wife's personality feels very real to me, and the way it is written about feels revolutionary.
I don't know why this book doesn't stand with, say, Revolutionary Road , as a massive classic. By the end, I was holding a hand over my mouth, because I kept moaning in sympathy for poor Stoner. I never felt that way reading Yates - whose characters, though foiled totally by their self-involvement, seem somehow to deserve what they get. Reading this felt more like reading someone like Andre Dubus - full of people making destructive choices, but nevertheless, you feel for them, and feel their humanity the whole time you're reading.
View all 8 comments. In the manner of the protagonist's iron stoicism in the face of misfortune and persecution, the narrative revels in its own lacklustreness, its state of diffused melancholy. William Stoner, first student and eventually English professor at fictionalized University of Missouri lives a life of flawed choices, unrealized potential and innumerable regrets, witnessing the world go through a period of tremendous sociopolitical ferment in the 20th century, and remaining invisible in the eyes of history. He breathes his last, just as silently, alone in a hospital ward, feebly flipping through the pages of a scholarly work.
But do not for a moment think this deceptively drab synopsis encapsulates the essence of 'Stoner'. John Williams, through his luminous prose and a vision which is as solemn as it is lucid, reminds us of the quotidian battles fought every moment anywhere by faceless individuals against the forces of oppression and moral laxity - that the fate of civilization is dependent on the capable or incapable shoulders of an individual.
It was a question, he suspected, that came to all men at one time or another; he wondered if it came to them with such impersonal force as it came to him. The question brought with it a sadness, but it was a general sadness which he thought had little to do with himself or with his particular fate; he was not even sure that the question sprang from the most immediate and obvious causes, from what his own life had become.
A homage to the spirit of literature? A story recounted with conviction and a quiet dignity? A sincere attempt at proffering acknowledgment on a seemingly inconsequential existence? But more than anything else this is a literary toast raised in honour of those small, often unnoticed, acts of courage and compassion which somehow realign the moral order of society but are blotted out from memory and consciousness easily. There is sadness here - boundless in depth and overwhelming in intensity - but hope glimmers occasionally too.
Hope that even though the world may go to pieces and things may fall apart irrevocably, a man may summon the will to endure the tragedy of existence by discovering a true and unbreakable love. The currents of time weather away all past disappointments, bittersweet longing, old grudges and anger. Only the love of the written word casts a glow in the eternal darkness. A kind of joy came upon him, as if borne in on a summer breeze. He dimly recalled that he had been thinking of failure--as if it mattered. It seemed to him now that such thoughts were mean, unworthy of what his life had been.
Dim presences gathered at the edge of his consciousness; he could not see them, but he knew that they were there, gathering their forces toward a kind of palpability he could not see or hear. He was approaching them, he knew; but there was no need to hurry. He could ignore them if he wished; he had all the time there was. View all 48 comments. Portrait of Louis N. Y al final es probable que volvamos a recordar el soneto LXXIII de Shakespeare, el soneto del despertar, aquel que tanto apreciaba el profesor: View all 6 comments.
As a child, I had a thing for inanimate things. A sling, a pond, a pebble, a mica chip; they would catch my attention and hold it hostage. I would play for hours together with these silent, placid beings, drawing great solace from their harmless, non-fluctuating colour, and intention. They neither move nor speak. Only under my breath, after their departure, wo As a child, I had a thing for inanimate things. The transient nature of the vision notwithstanding, it niftily metamorphosed into something beautiful, and imperfect.
You'd let it chew you up and spit you out, and you'd lie there wondering what was wrong. Because you'd always expect the world to be something it wasn't, something it had no wish to be. The weevil in the cotton, the worm in the beanstalk, the borer in the corn. You couldn't face them, and you couldn't fight them; because you're too weak, and you're too strong.
And you have no place to go in the world. And I know he was right. Even when I hovered at the page enlisting the timid yet enthusiastic advance of a teen Stoner into his graduate class, I knew his friend was right. Even as he fell in love and remained devoid of absorbing its vibrant colours, I nodded in affirmation. And as he discovered love, in its pristine bounty and lost it, and found it again, I smiled at the accurate assessment of his friend.
But Stoner remained blissfully oblivious to the chequered opinions more out of a natural propensity than a measured effort. Stoner was not a hero. No, he was not. From whichever significant angle I viewed him, he fell short - as a son, as a husband, as a father, as a teacher, as a lover and regretfully, even as a friend, he stumbled upon the table of traits that he should have stood firmly upon.
As a result, I never saw him. But it was his shadows that I followed. The inanimate yet exploring shadow. The inanimate yet expressing shadow. In his insignificant existence, lied his great sacrifices. In his ephemeral dreams, lied his indelible marks. In his fractured words, lied his myriad kindness. In his worldly failures, lied his biggest strengths. When many thin-skinned shadows come together, they fuse to emerge a unique sheet of latent power; an intimidating solitary force, as much capable of usurping a dazzling life as protecting a blemished one.
That Stoner chose to channelize his many shadows to do the latter, over a life spanning sixty-five years, with implausible consistency that defied age, is what makes him a hero. You know a Stoner. But his undeserved obscurity is huddled under numerous shadows. Strip them if you can. There will be resistance. But in the angst of those shadows, lies the petals of life; someday you should pause and feel its textures. The fragrance is bound to stick to your fingers, long after you have forged ahead on your chosen path. View all 79 comments. Mar 19, Dolors rated it it was amazing Shelves: This might be for me the best book of the year.
Sublimely told and with such a subtle narrative which flows easily displaying the life of an ordinary man during an extraordinary time in America. This might be the story of a whole becoming country or only the unheroic account of a simple existence. But its simplicity is what makes it unearthly beautiful, nostalgic and moving.
Early 's, Missouri, although Stoner comes from a modest family of farmers his father sends him to the state university to This might be for me the best book of the year. Early 's, Missouri, although Stoner comes from a modest family of farmers his father sends him to the state university to study agronomy. But he falls in love with English literature instead and thanks to a particular professor he becomes a teacher himself, growing estranged from his family in the process.
We follow his life through 40 years of teaching, of crushed illusions and bitter disappointments about his failure of a marriage to the wrong woman, of rare fleeting blissful moments in a rather bleak existence in solitude, of a life dedicated to teaching where he finds his only solace. I found that as the years passed by, the voice in the novel gained in strength and that Stoner became the person he was always supposed to be.
His seemingly detached account of the years between the two great world wars, his increasing estrangement first from his family and later from his own wife and daughter, his struggle for an idealistic conception of what university teachers should be like I closed the last pages of the book with my eyes completely blurred and with such constrained emotion in my chest that it was almost painful.
A masterpiece not appreciated as it would deserve, maybe because this book reads like real life instead of a best-seller-hero-with a-happy-ending story. Can't say how good this novel is, just pick it up and read it. And reading his story made me acutely aware of being alive myself, going through the range of emotions it inspired in me, from sadness and anger over tenderness and love to deeply felt satisfaction when I closed the novel.
Stoner is Don Quixote stuck in reality. He has the same love of reading and le "Look! He has the same love of reading and learning, the same voracious hunger for literature. He is driven by the same pure and honest, but also a bit foolish literary idealism, and dares to give up his family's agricultural life to set out on an adventure in the unknown world of books. Being a novice in the complicated university cosmos, he faces more challenges than most, without a supportive network to fall back on.
He is a knight on his own, in uncharted territory, like Don Quixote. But unlike Don Quixote, he recognises all the windmills standing in his way as windmills, and does not take them for fairy tale dragons. His ability to see what the world is like does not make him a coward, though. He speaks up against a powerful colleague, protecting academic integrity and honesty when he sees it undermined by personal interest, incompetence and emotional blackmail.
He accepts the consequences of his outspoken protest, but doesn't fear a new battle either, once he sees an opportunity to fight the Evil Dragon of Bad Scheduling as each Valiant Knight of the Order of Perfect Education knows, there is nothing like the passive-aggressive power to give the enemy a really bad schedule! Stoner knows better than Don Quixote to bide his time and wait for an opportune moment.
He also knows which weapons to use against the Wizard of Academia. To fight a Jabberwocky, you need a vorpal sword. Stoner sees his own Dulcinea for what she is as well. After an initial confused courtship, and a premature marriage based on vague romantic feelings, he acknowledges the ugly truth about mainstream, middle class, failed marriage. Instead of becoming bitter, however, he dares to engage wholeheartedly in a connection with a soulmate for a while, knowing full well that the "lust and learning" they share and live for will not be a permanent commitment.
Why not act out foolish heroism and run away with his lover? His wife is happier when he is not in the house, and she obsessively shields her daughter from him, so why not break out and live outside the narrow-minded conventions and facades of middle class morality and bigotry? Because Stoner is a realist. Eloping with his princess would have meant for both of them to change their lives to the point of giving up their most cherished asset, the reason for their mutual attraction and respect: They would have become different persons, and their love would not have stayed the same.
They feel grateful for the time they shared, for the chance to unite in a perfect intellectual and intensely sexual relationship. Divorce, escape and remarriage would not have given them a "happy ending". Only hopeless romantics can wish for Stoner and Katherine to give up themselves instead of cultivating a perfect memory. They opt for a temporary, but true, concrete, physical love affair rather than for moping after imaginary Dulcineas. Stoner even has his own faithful Sancho Pansa in his old classmate Gordon Finch, who constitutes a vital link to the world, being a down-to-earth pragmatic, humorous anti-hero who helps Stoner organise the worldly matters of university life.
Many reviews focus on Stoner's stoicism, his passive acceptance of hardship without display of feelings or complaint. I can understand where that is coming from, but I see more of a rebel in him myself, within a realistic framework. He sticks to his vision of life, against the manipulation and conventional pettiness of career socialites. He defies the norms of his environment without acting out the dramatic plot of a thriller. In real life, most people do not turn into social revolutionaries, or outcasts.
Ordinary life does not contain murder cases, complex global conspiracies and drastic plots and showdowns. Stoner's story is firmly rooted in university life's reality, not in Hollywood. Life is about playing the cards you are dealt, carefully choosing the right ones at the right moment. Stoner plays his hand, and he resists the authority of his monotonous agricultural background, his professional opponents, his estranged wife, and keeps playing his own game. He is lucky to know what he plays for: Stoner is in love with teaching, and maybe that is too absurd to be taken seriously if you have not felt the same yourself.
Maybe only those who have fought the windmills of educational institutions, and tried to leave, only to be driven back by that unreasonable passion - maybe only those are able to see a good life in Stoner's path. Whoever knows how lost one can get in the administrative treadmills of education systems, knows the value of being allowed "to teach". Stoner bravely faces the ridicule of others, accepting as a minor pain that being "a dedicated teacher" is something colleagues smile at and joke about.
It is not the norm at all, rather a strange quixotic rebellion against the mainstream career. To me, Stoner is an everyday hero, a man who dies content, without regrets - as opposed to Don Quixote, who was influenced by the nonsense of conventional dogma in the end and stopped believing in himself, thus rejecting his own idealism and life style on his death bed. Burning your dreams, or dying with a book between your weak fingers, that's the question. Stoner dies surrounded by his books. That is why his life - dedicated to learning, reading and sharing - is a perfect rebellion against the mediocre world he lives in.
- King of Love, Love of King!
- Prozesskostenrechnung im Dienstleistungsunternehmen (German Edition);
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- Stoner (novel) - Wikipedia.
Stoner is Don Quixote navigating reality! View all 45 comments. Sep 05, Frona rated it it was amazing. The story evolves so gently and quietly that talking about it feels like tainting it and violently intruding on something that prefers to be left in peace. Stoner is a quiet and gentle men with the purest of intentions, but which, as it often happens, get tainted when materialized. His life advances in an isolated manner, devoid of the force that transforms a thought into action or the knowledge of h The story evolves so gently and quietly that talking about it feels like tainting it and violently intruding on something that prefers to be left in peace.
His life advances in an isolated manner, devoid of the force that transforms a thought into action or the knowledge of how to use it. When he, by coincidence, discovers literature and the academic world, the consequences are two-sided. Knowing hard work, he progress quickly. Since the new world has nothing to do with the former one — it is exempt from monotonous, repetitive, manual work and is full of wonder, novelty and flights of thought — he finds in it a perfect hideaway.
The worse his domestic life gets, the more he retreats to studies; the more he masters the written word, the less he can articulate his own everyday. The two worlds become so isolated that even a desperate cry for help from his nearest turns into a distant call from a faraway land. This book is a monument to the mundane, to the paths we choose without really choosing, to the joys and sorrows that coincidences distribute unevenly among people, and of a life that has much more within its reach, yet stays motionless and trapped between opposing forces.
With simple, but deeply moving sentences it portrays a correspondent story. As many monuments, it captures a moment of life and provides a humble warning for those who are inclined to follow his path. View all 20 comments. Jan 17, Steve rated it really liked it. This book is surprising, not so much for any plot twists or odd behavior, but for how we come to regard an overtly unremarkable man as interesting and likable. It was the longest Ston This book is surprising, not so much for any plot twists or odd behavior, but for how we come to regard an overtly unremarkable man as interesting and likable.
It was the longest Stoner had ever heard his father speak in one stretch. Stoner continued to do farm work for room and board while going to classes. The Ag Sciences curriculum was all well and good, but in his sophomore year he was thrown for a loop in a required English class. The professor put him on the spot asking for his interpretation of a sonnet by Shakespeare, and suddenly his life that had been a matter of facts gave way to matters of opinion, feelings, and gray scales.
He switched majors without counsel or delay. This was his awakening, though little of it showed. He was still something of a stoic -- compliant and resigned. Stoner steps outside of himself to observe from afar his bad marriage, the effects of academic politics badly played, and the fall-out when his wife used his relationship with their young daughter in an unaccountably nasty battle against him.
But we also sense a richer inner life because of his books and his view of himself in light of them. The first quarter of the book was, to be honest, a little slow. That being the case, it was difficult at that stage to generate much conflict to drive the story. What would an internal struggle be against? Then, faintly at first, the tabula took on a few etch marks. On the face of it, he was some combination of schlub, schlemiel, and schlimazel.
A brief spell of passion was disallowed by the political environment, which I liken to a favorite book that simply ends… with no sequel forthcoming. He lacked what it took to write his own story. Williams, an academic himself, said in a rare interview that he never considered Stoner a loser. In fact, he regarded him as quietly heroic, doing his job with few people encouraging him or caring, true to his life of letters. Judging from the high ratings, plenty of other readers must have picked up on this narrow but deep fulfillment, too.
We may not consider him the best model for self-actualization, but we appreciate his integrity. The bottom line is this: View all 65 comments. Nov 05, Jonathan Ashleigh rated it really liked it Shelves: I would have never thought the bland life of an unfulfilled midwestern professor could be so grasping. Stoner is not someone you want to know or be related to but his struggles are real and worth knowing about.
At times, it appears he will find contentment he is able to get out of the laborious life led by his parents but his hardships are rough and his life is never lived for himself. View all 5 comments. Apr 22, Carol rated it it was amazing Shelves: But, it was as compelling for me to read as any thriller. The critic Morris Dickstein called Stoner, "something rarer than a great novel -- it is a perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving, it takes your breath away. I was deeply moved by the story and I constantly rooted for this very gentle, introspective and solitary man throughout his futile attempts to achieve some sort of happiness, good fortune or pleasure…anything…please, god, help him out here!
He deserved so much more than he ultimately received. And, when good things finally came his way, they were repeatedly transitory. Passive or non-assertive characters often frustrate me. Stoner never made me feel this way; mostly, because he seemed to navigate through so much adversity, disappointments and harassment without bitterness or blame. In fact, as the novel progresses, Stoner develops a greater strength of character and some sense of resignation about circumstances beyond his control even as his aloneness becomes more and more stark.
I felt as though I actually knew this man. The writing is remarkable - beautiful in its austerity, rich with a sense of place and period details of the early 20th century. The setting covers both world wars and touches on some of the Great Depression. It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. View all 69 comments. Jul 14, David rated it did not like it Shelves: Reading "Stoner" gave me another one of those parallel universe experiences.
In the goodreads universe, where everyone else lives, this is apparently a much loved and lauded book. Heck, those good folks at the New York Review of Books tell us it's a classic. And has this to say about the main protagonist: William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforg Reading "Stoner" gave me another one of those parallel universe experiences.
William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world I'm sorry, but that's just a crock, even allowing for reviewer hyperbole. The very best that you could manage to say about Stoner is that he's a wraithlike nebbish who manages to glide through this dismal story without leaving an impression on anyone, least of all the reader.
People seem to admire John Edward Williams's writing. The thing that baffled me is how any author can use so many words to write about a character and end up describing someone who is utterly devoid of a single distinguishing trait, or even a semblance of a personality. Now I know the number of plots is finite, so it might seem unjust to fault an author for serving up the same story yet again.
Maybe you take the A. Cronin slant and stir in a little rage against the system. Or you might just add a big ladleful of chicken soup for the soul and give the story a Mr Chips vibe. But this is exactly what Williams has done here. I wasn't looking for much. Hell, I'd have settled for the odd chunk of snappy dialog. A sense of humor.
Anything at all, really. But even the most basic dialog seems to exceed Williams's capacity, and decent characterization eludes him completely. Anyway, the bottom line is that, in my universe, this book was bleak, predictable, excruciatingly dull.
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Like one of those dreadful Thomas Hardy books where everyone is miserable all the time, but without the local color. Though it isn't quite dreadful enough to earn a slot on the "intellectual con artist at work" shelf. Lurches into an unfulfilling marriage that ends up making everyone miserable, teaches college, is left wondering if that's all there is. Alienation everywhere you look.
Several authors have written intelligently within the framework of the "academic novel" Francine Prose, Jane Smiley, James Hynes, Kingsley Amis, among others , even managing to be funny. But those are authors with, you know, discernible intelligence, an affliction which John Edward Williams has apparently been spared. I just read David K's excellent review and realize that I am a hero, albeit a "Master and Margarita"-loving hero. View all 25 comments.
May 17, Paul Bryant rated it liked it Shelves: I asked my daughter if me and her and her mother were in a hot air balloon and it was about to crash into the ocean who would you throw out to keep the balloon aloft, me or your mother? So I said okay, imagine that me and your mother weigh exactly the same, then who would you throw out? So I said okay, imagine that me an I asked my daughter if me and her and her mother were in a hot air balloon and it was about to crash into the ocean who would you throw out to keep the balloon aloft, me or your mother?
She said because you keep asking all these stupid questions. So I gave up on that line of enquiry and read Stoner , a much loved novel. Boy, do people like to wax sentimental about teachers. He becomes a worshipper at the shrine of literature, with a capital L and becomes a teacher of it. What a colossal waste of time. Stoner is exactly what a vegetable would be if a vegetable could be a junior professor in English at the University of Missouri. He plods dully through his life in a very vegetably way.
Edith, the bride, turns out to be the very dictionary definition of damaged goods. So poor old Bill. Oh and then Bill Stoner gets embroiled in a ridiculous trench war in the English department, the upshot of which is that now his boss also hates him and spends 25 years making sure his professional life is a misery. Hated by wife and boss! Onward plods the vegetable, through the rest of his painful life. It was weirdly compelling. It was boring in an interesting way. But jeez, then it all becomes a little too much. So the stars began to fade away and by the last page Stoner was very lucky to hang on to his third star.
View all 68 comments. Job and his Wife Vintage books seem to specialise in producing beautiful paperback editions of titles that have been out of print or have only recently been translated into English. I have a small collection of their red-spined covers sitting on my shelves. They all have something in common apart from the red spines; they are books I may read again sometime in my life because of the quality of the writing, the depth of the characterisation and the overall worth of the contents.
A friend placed this Vintage book in my hands last week and said, you must read it and tell me what you think. I put everything else aside and read the book over a short space of time, unusual for me as I often dip in and out of several books at the same time. My edition has an introduction by John McGahern.
McGahern is a writer I respect a lot. Smooth but not flat. The word flat occurs to me because I found Williams' writing flat from the beginning, not flat as in spare or plain but flat as in lifeless. At that point, I thought: And yes, there is huge promise in the device the author uses of having his hero awaken via a Shakespeare sonnet. It is as if Williams set out to avoid literary resonances, in fact I found more biblical parallels than literary ones. But I did find it interesting and clever that each time he gazed through a window, or better still, opened a window, the language soared and I was breathing in fresh air alongside the main character.
The few times that happened, I silently willed Williams to keep the window open. But, except for some moving writing near the end, he preferred not to. John McGahern quotes John Williams in the introduction: And a large part of the pleasure of reading comes from the quality of an author's writing. Early in the novel, Williams decides to have Stoner choose a wife. So Stoner goes to a shop and sees one he likes and decides to buy her straight away.
And can I point out here that there is absolutely no humour in this book so my joke is out of place. He sees Edith once and decides to marry her. She has no say whatever and Williams even stresses her passive reluctance. So the business is conducted between the girl's father and the prospective son-in-law. I mentioned biblical echoes earlier. That would be fine if he alone were the victim. But he is not the only victim. The author fails to underline that his hero never makes a real effort to save his daughter. It is never acknowledged. So how can he be a hero? Stoner also stands by when a young women he becomes involved with is sacked because of him.
Although other reasons are given, the author implies that Stoner can't save her because he has to save his daughter instead. Except that he doesn't save his daughter. There were a few occasions when I wondered if Williams was really aware of what he was doing in this novel: The main enemy is a work colleague called Lomax. I found that disturbing. Instead, he writes an introduction that is little more than a summary as if Williams were an old friend for whom he was doing a favour. I mentioned loose ends or red herrings so I had better deal with them before I finish. Stoner refuses to join the army in when the United States declares war on Germany.
His friends join up and one of them, Finch, accuses Stoner of letting everyone down. A further loose end is Stoner's first literature teacher, a man called Archer Sloane. He is given a significant role in the beginning but is not exploited very much afterwards. That is a real pity as he was my favourite character. The front cover of my copy contains a sticker which reads: I may have to take up bridge. Oct 12, Adam Dalva rated it it was amazing.
An incredibly melancholy, wistful campus novel whose flurries of hope are always the perfect length - we root for Stoner, even knowing from the beginning where the story will end. There are incredible descriptions: And the supporting characters! One pleasure of this book is that no one, except a certain love interest, is particularly m An incredibly melancholy, wistful campus novel whose flurries of hope are always the perfect length - we root for Stoner, even knowing from the beginning where the story will end.
One pleasure of this book is that no one, except a certain love interest, is particularly morally good, but every character, even the antagonist, is treated generously. And Stoner himself is an indelible creation - reminiscent of Lila in the Ferrante novels internally, with the facade of a big-handed shuffle of a man. His minor self-sabotage is an unusual pleasure throughout. The scenes depicting his love of teaching, his love of reading, are inspiring, and they reveal what is lost in the more slapsticky world of PNIN.
Despite the frustrations of campus politics, teaching itself is at core a holy thing, and Williams understood that. That his book only achieved its reputation posthumously is, sadly, fitting. And the ending, which I won't spoil, is the best literary representation I've seen of the kind of ending it is.
AUTOMOTIVE
Dec 28, Aubrey rated it it was amazing Shelves: The US does not have sadness on its agenda. Its psyche is a constant concern with happiness, fulfillment, the American Dream and the way to this god given of all rights. Never has the isolated country been brought to its knees. Never has the culture and creed and thought of civilization of the American people been forced to view sadness as something other than an error to be fixed.
Sadness is the result of tragedy, grief, a lightning strike catastrophe that time will heal. America, you The US does not have sadness on its agenda. America, you're lying to yourself. Likely you lied when this book came out, and nearly half a century later you're still lying. You think sadness is a pitfall, an abnormality, a mistake that you are culpable for and that you must seek to fix as soon as possible, however you can. Likewise, you believe you know what sadness is, hold true that all its cures lie between the filling and the novelty, the consumer culture and the midlife crisis.
There's more to it than that. For a while now, I have contemplated becoming a teacher. I still plan on publishing at least one piece of mine in the wide realm of fiction, but there is always a question of financial stability. It's for us that the University exists, for the dispossessed of the world; not for the students, not for the selfless pursuit of knowledge, not for any of the reasons that you hear. We give out the reasons, and we let a few of the ordinary ones in, those that would do in the world; but that's just protective coloration.
Like the church in the Middle Ages, which didn't give a damn about the laity or even about God, we have our pretenses in order to survive. And we shall survive—because we have to. If I were younger, the matter of selfish shutting away of the self into the bubble of campus life would have bothered me. These days, I recognize where I would be of the most use, but more importantly, much more importantly, I recognize what would be of the most use for me. I know the banality of my effort to live, and embrace it with open arms.
You're going to be a teacher. Stoner felt himself suspended in the wide air, and he heard his voice ask, "Are you sure? Stoner," Sloane said cheerfully. It's as simple as that. Passion's a poor word for the kind of marriage been life and literature and pedagogy I'm hinting at in the entity of a college professor. Born to do it suggests ideals of action and pushing the limits, neither of which I am much concerned with in the typical sense. I simply wish to make a living, but also live, and thrive, and love something I cannot put into words but can always find within the pages of a book.
It will never be that simple. There will be people, and politics, and all too frequently and all too harshly the push of ideals will combat the shove of reality. There is a truth to that as well; we all have our reasons for living, and when it comes to the choice between personal change and hurting others, fear and stability, the latter is a common king. Stoner said, "Tell her—he paused awkwardly—"tell her that, if she wants to, she can come live with us.
She will be welcome. She'd rather die herself. Don't you know that? Here, the author comes the forefront, once again a dead white male who has managed to capture my heart in the contents of paper and ink. Here, though, there is also a treasure of character creation with insight into the why, not just the what. The wife, the daughter, the lover; it is the early 20th century, and each is painted with as heartbreaking palate of truth as was ever rendered.
Here, the author knows his creations, and cares deeply for every one. Her moral training, both at the schools she attended and at home, was negative in nature, prohibitive in intent, and almost entirely sexual. The sexuality, however, was indirect and unacknowledged; therefore it suffused every other part of her education, which received most of its energy from that recessive and unspoken moral force. Sad, is it not? When the usual panderings at a happy facade are pulled back from the pearly sheen of truth below.
When a marriage is unhappy, yet persists on the backs of tradition again, and again, and again.
Stoner: the must-read novel of 2013
When lovers at a level of equality rarely encouraged and less often achieved are blocked, yet do not sacrifice all they are for a fleeting possibility. When war is not seen as anything but a horror, a tragedy, a thing that excites all the young and rushes them off into the abyss, leaving behind empty rooms and broken souls. What difference could it make? For an instant he felt the truth of what he said, and for the first time in months he felt lift away from him the weight of a despair whose heaviness he had not fully realized.
Nearly giddy, almost laughing, he said again, "It really isn't important. Face it, and through the shades of joy and the shadows of woe let your life be one worth living. Whatever happens, at no point will it fail, and never will it be a waste. He let his fingers riffle through the pages and felt a tingling, as if those pages were alive. The tingling came through his fingers and coursed through his flesh and bone; he was minutely aware of it, and he waited until it contained him, until the old excitement that was like terror fixed him where he lay. Lover of reading, let it go on.
I do not know what I would have done if I had not been a teacher. If I had not taught, I might have—" He paused, as if distracted. Then he said, with a finality, "I want to thank you all for letting me teach. The fingers loosened, and the book they had held moved slowly and then swiftly across the still body and fell into the silence of the room. Lovers of living, fear neither the reaper nor the blues.
The former makes each life significant, and the latter can exquisitely flow. Stoner lived in peace for a love of his and died in such a way as to render questions of "successful living" useless. I cannot think of a humanity more beautiful. View all 38 comments. Eight years later, during the height of World War I, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree and accepted an instructorship at the same University, where he taught until his death in He did not rise above the rank of assistant professor, and few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his courses.
When he died his colleagues made a memorial contribution of a medieval manuscript to the University library. This manuscript may still be found in the Rare Books Collection, bearing the inscription: Despite the tasteless life of Stoner that comes out of this short description, yet we are speaking about an unusual book. In my opinion Stoner is a masterpiece.
The weird thing is that I am not able to say why. In the pages of John Williams the life of the protagonist flows straightforward. An ordinary life, chopped up by delusions rather than by happy times. Maybe this is the miracle of John Williams, to leave behind the proof that any existence is out of the ordinary. Even though the perceived greyness. Il manoscritto si trova ancora oggi nella sezione dei "Libri rari", con la dedica: