Stoner

I'm often amused by the reviews that essentially recap a plot of a book; for me I am having such a hard time describing how much this book moved me....I hope to convey here in this review that this piece of writing is truly special, incredibly well written, beautifully well written, heartbreakingly well written. John Williams blew me away. I was in tears at the end and carefully placed this treasured book in my section of favorite books. I made sure to send a copy to my mother and my father-in-law whom I know will appreciate this wonderful work of literature.

This great novel chronicles the life of a man embodying that rare quality which Kenneth Rexroth described as "magnanimity". As we read of his difficulties and of the people in his life who constantly torment and betray him, the lower part of our nature continually cries out to this fictional character, "Get out,for God's sake! Just leave!" But of course it is just his refusal to "get out" which gives Stoner his longevity and nobility, and which redeems him in the final moments of his life (I can hardly ever remember being so moved by the closing pages of a novel.) Stoner is reminiscent of Ford Madox Ford's Christopher Tietjens, the center point of his tetralogy, PARADE'S END, another forgotten 20th century masterpiece. Like Tietjens, William Stoner refuses to cast off the liabilities of his life for any reason; in his review of the Ford novel for the Saturday Evening Post, Rexroth graced Tietjens with the summit of his own brand of critical praise (hard won indeed) by deeming him one of the last of the magnanimous men in literature. I hope that Rexroth had occasion to read "Stoner".

Stoner is a truly moving work. Its brilliance lies partly in its rectitude, partly in its discomfort and mostly in its artistry. As reviewers have accurately summed, the novel's ultimately about a man's stoicism (which sounds truly boring) and honor, but is really a meditation on individuality. As an English teacher I'm encouraged to teach Ethan Frome to the students, and would much rather teach this novel for its depth, complexity and beauty Please buy, read and pass this book on! (I am a Northerner, not a relative, yet simply a reader!)

In this remarkable, overlooked work, John Williams chooses as his central character an undistinguished English professor (Stoner), who lives a largely uneventful life teaching at a drab Midwestern university. Neither Stoner's wife, nor his colleagues, nor his students think much of him. Yet the degree to which Williams succeeds in bringing the reader to identify with -- and care for -- his most unlikely protagonist is nothing short of a triumph. The final pages, in particular, are sad, transcendent, and unforgettable.

I'd never heard of this author or this book until I read an essay about him in an old back issue of Ploughshares by the novelist Dan Wakefield. I was suspect, too, because I'm not one for academic novels, unless they're farcical, because the only thing there seems to be at stake in academic novels is tenure, which in my opinion, doesn't make for such great reading. Well, not so in Stoner. Stoner is a quiet look at a man's largely unheroic and drab life, "an adventureless tale" as Joyce wrote (and in many respects William Stoner, the protagonist, comes right out of Dubliners). The feat of this book is that Williams makes the diurnal and fairly dull activities of an academic utterly riveting. How does he do it? By not being precious or pretentious about it, which is how so many other writers would have handled the material. Instead, Williams believes in the integrity of his hero, for whom nothing is easily achieved, or for that matter, very attractive. Even Stoner's honeymoon is a fairly squalid affair, and somehow, as bad as the story gets -- and it doesn't get bad in a dramatic or gimmicky way, just bad in the sense that Stoner never really experiences any joy in his life -- we keep reading. The book is grim, yes, and yet it will leave you feeling oddly enthralled. Read it.