From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Stoner

John Williams,

John McGahern (Introduction)

Start date: January 15, 2014

Finish date: February 1, 2014

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Lynn

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Jul 14, 2009 David rated it did not like it

Shelves: wrist-slashingly-depressing, read-in-2010, never-gonna-finish, disappointing, mind-numbingly-boring

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 unfor 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 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.

Stoner is a stick figure who, over the course of the book, gets to interact with other stick figures (the resentful wife, the condescending academic colleagues, the college friend with a lust for life who gets mowed down before his prime in the Great War, etc etc ad bloody nauseam) as they act out standard plot #24*. 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. Fair enough. But it's considered good sport to mess with the template a little bit, to inject one's own authorial "spark", to add *something* to make the story rise above the generic template. Maybe you take the A.J. 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. What you can't do, and hope to keep the reader's interest and sympathy, is just trot out the bare-bones generic version of the tale, with no embellishment**. But this is exactly what Williams has done here. What's the point?

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. Like one of those dreadful Thomas Hardy books where everyone is miserable all the time, but without the local color. One star, maximum. Though it isn't quite dreadful enough to earn a slot on the "intellectual con artist at work" shelf.

(Story #24: Intelligent {farmboy/kid from slums/juvenile delinquent/will be played by Matt Damon in the movie} transcends hardscrabble background to be first in the family to attend college. 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. So be it.

...more

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Oct 14, 2014 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read2015, nyrb, around-the-usa, location-usa-missouri

Don't judge a book by its cover (I'm sure the artwork chosen is a seminal work but doesn't exactly scream "read me!")

Don't judge a book by its title. (This has nothing to do with drugs, ha!)

DO read a book when readers you respect keep bringing it up. Friends in the Misfit Readers had mentioned it and then I heard a small excerpt on Episode 4 of Dear Sugar Radio.

This is a small book about a small life and I struggle to explain why it is as good as it is. I couldn't put it down, this man from farm Don't judge a book by its cover (I'm sure the artwork chosen is a seminal work but doesn't exactly scream "read me!")

Don't judge a book by its title. (This has nothing to do with drugs, ha!)

DO read a book when readers you respect keep bringing it up. Friends in the Misfit Readers had mentioned it and then I heard a small excerpt on Episode 4 of Dear Sugar Radio.

This is a small book about a small life and I struggle to explain why it is as good as it is. I couldn't put it down, this man from farming stock who ends up becoming an English professor. The book starts with the author telling us that Stoner's colleagues have already started to forget him.

The novel is set from the time immediately preceding World War I and extends just past World War II. Stoner avoids fighting because he is in school, and as such provides a perspective of academia during that time period. Contrasted to the 21st century, it felt a bit ironic, because at one point the university is referred to as the "only institution immune" from the financial hardships of the 1930s.

"It's not 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."

The characters in the novel necessarily discuss the contrast of war with higher learning.

""A war doesn't merely kill off a few thousand or a few hundred thousand young men. It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. And if a people goes through enough wars, pretty soon all that's left is the brute, the creature that we - you and I and others like us - have brought up from the slime... The scholar should not be asked to destroy what he has aimed his life to build."

I want to put that last sentence up as a banner at every institution facing cutbacks. I know the author is talking about civilization but in the present day, it felt more about the existence of colleges and universities.

The character of Stoner has a few subtle epiphanies in the book - realizations that aren't given substantial time, and they happen completely internally but change the course of his life. One is when he realizes that he is intrigued by literature - that he loves it, that he will not move back home, that he will pursue it without any specific goal in mind. It takes a while before he is able to communicate that love to his students, but that was one of my favorite moments.

"The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations on letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print - the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.

I feel as if I have had those moments about books and reading. They are life-altering.

And then we get to love! Stoner is married but it isn't until he turns 43 that he discovers real love. Usually this trope of aging professor falling for a student drives me crazy but in this case I understood and felt it along with him.

The book follows him until his death, but the reader knows that from the beginning. Nothing is surprising, except how deeply it is possible to connect to this book.

"To a woman or to a poem, it said simply: Look! I am alive." ...more

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