It is very difficult to come by a negative review of John Williams’ Stoner. Originally published in 1965 in the U.S., the novel apparently went out of print after 2,000 copies had been sold. It was re-issued in 2003 again to little attention. Reader interest mushroomed in 2011 when a very successful French novelist read it in English and had her publisher buy the rights to the translation. On the cover under the title appears “Read, loved, and freely translated by Anna Gavalda”. This past Fall, Stoner was on the bestseller lists in several European countries and Israel and was selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Many reviews by literary figures of note (Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Bret Easton Ellis, Nick Hornby, C.P.
Snow, among others) have hailed the merits of this soon-to-be 50 year old novel, and lesser known writers at publications from the Texas Observer to the New Yorker to Der Spiegel have found Williams’ novel compelling in theme, language, and feeling. I, too, find much to commend in Stoner. Williams presents a beautifully clear language with no pretention or arabesque to it, shows an unwavering commitment to representing William Stoner’s inner experience honestly, and imposes an acute sense of passing time that reminds one of the human need to iteratively reflect forward and back in an attempt to find meaning in the episodes of our lives. I would highly recommend reading this novel, because Williams has a strong sense of the importance of actually telling us the subtleties of what Stoner is feeling; he is not embarrassed to call emotions by their names and to linger over them, and there is a convincing authenticity to this unfolding in language that is very appealing. But there are two problems here. I think the implication of what Preston is saying, though, is right: Stoner may experience positive feelings about working with literature, but any insights he may experience from reading and writing about the finest literature the English, Latin, and Greek traditions have produced do not incite, encourage, mandate, or even gently suggest to him that he make adjustments, small or large, to his own personal life.
Remember that long list of awful things that happened to him? With one exception discussed below, not one of them does he do a damn thing about. Indeed, it wasn't even his initiative to go to university in the first place, but the proposition of a county agent looking for good candidates for the agricultural program. It is true that Stoner finds love with a visiting junior instructor (specifically, a woman interested in just his area of research), but the affair occurs more as a result of her initiative than his. If reading literature does not allow us to more clearly, or more economically, or more thoroughly, or more compassionately think through and take action in our own life, what good is it? One could argue that Stoner’s sense of virtue is his happiness, that he is a Stoic at heart and he doesn’t need literature to help him fix problems that he does not perceive as such.
But, really, he is often miserable, and even if he were a Stoic in self-consideration, he is not such in consistency and tenor of response. One could also argue that he does reflect and make changes from time to time. For example, Stoner takes a stand when he discovers that an extremely weak and pretentious graduate student has found a mentor and protector among Stoner's colleagues, and Stoner attempts to block the student from continuing in the doctoral program. But that act stands in bleak isolation in this story, and as soon as the student's faculty supervisor retaliates, Stoner acquiesces.
Stoner does not take a stand when the great care he has taken to be a good father to his daughter in her youngest years is completely undermined by his wife’s subsequent directives that leave their teenaged and then adult daughter unable to relate intimately with others and unable to survive without drinking heavily on a daily basis. Shouldn’t a lifelong engagement in reading and commenting on excellent literature allow him to see the merits of choosing the second battle over the first? The second problem with Stoner, is, I admit, not really the novel’s problem, but more my own wish for this beautifully reflective novel to be something it is not.
When I read Lydia Millett, Elizabeth Strout, and Marilynne Robinson, for a few examples, it seems to me that the author loves each character: the characters crucial to the plot, the characters not so crucial, those who appear mainly for comic relief, the characters who care and are long-suffering, the characters who are immoral, the characters who are amoral – these authors, somehow, seem to love them all. In Williams’ novel, it seems to me that the author loves Stoner very much, really likes Gordon Finch and Dave Masters (Stoner’s two best friends), and uses the other characters’ lives to show his love for those who seem to be his favorites. The injustices suffered by Stoner at the hands of his intimates and colleagues seem disappointingly balanced by the lack of depth of characterization and the specter of reduced authorial empathy suffered by all the other characters at the hands of their creator. In spite of these problems, do read the book.
The narrative will force you into a vast array of uncomfortable spots, because Stoner finds himself in so many such spots and lets us know how each feels. Despite his great learning, he hasn't a clue as to how to productively approach any of them, and sometimes that's exactly what reality feels like. Thanks for your coverage of this novel. I have twice tried to finish it, but the protagonist's passivity/stoicism keeps me from being able to truly engage with the narrative.
While the novel is written with an objective, clinical precision, it is also a cold book, one that depresses me each time I re-engage. My guess is that John Williams himself would support your decision not to continue reading a book that doesn't engage you. Williams is reported to have responded in a 1985 interview to the question: 'And literature is written to be entertaining?' By responding, 'Absolutely. My God, to read without joy is stupid.' I think back to all the novels I finished because I unreflectively felt it was the thing to do and realize Williams' insight is absolutely right and liberating for readers. Better to use that time engrossed in a novel one actually enjoys.
Thanks for your comment, Matthew.
William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude. John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection.
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. A few words about book's author. John Williams (1922-1994) was born and raised in northeast Texas. Despite a talent for writing and acting, Williams flunked out of a local junior college after his first year. He reluctantly joined the war effort, enlisting in the Army Air Corps, and managing to write a draft of his first novel while there. Once home, Williams found a small publisher for the novel and enrolled at the University of Denver, where he was eventually to receive both his B.A.
And M.A., and where he was to return as him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. 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.
By Geoff Schumacher, 9-23-08 If you read deeply and widely, you come to realize that there are a lot of good novels but only a few great ones. And you come to realize that some of the great novels have been all but ignored or forgotten by the popular culture.
Greatness in a book must not be defined by its length or the scope of its subject. Certainly, some great books have tackled big subjects, war being a typical example.
But many other great novels have examined ordinary people living common lives. The great writers are able to draw epic themes out of unheralded individuals and seemingly mundane experiences. “Stoner” by John Williams is a great book that you’ve probably not heard of. When it was published in 1965, the literary spotlight was focused on the likes of Norman Mailer, J.D.
Salinger, John Updike, Saul Bellow. At that time, there was little room on the stage for Williams, a modest English professor at the University of Denver. Nonetheless, “Stoner” is a beautiful and deeply affecting novel.
The best way to know that a novel is great is when its characters and the story stick with you long after you’ve finished reading the last page. That, for me, certainly is the case with this book. First of all, “Stoner” is not about a high school pothead. The title is derived from the last name of the protagonist, William Stoner.
The story is the story of Stoner’s sad, noble life. Born in 1891 on a small farm in Missouri, his youth is dedicated almost entirely to working alongside his father on the hardscrabble farm. When he graduates from high school, his father suggests that he attend the agricultural school at the University of Missouri and perhaps learn a few techniques to improve the farm’s performance. But when he takes an English course from an inspiring professor, he changes his major. Literature is Stoner’s calling. He earns his bachelor’s degree, then informs his parents that he will not be returning to the farm; instead, he will continue his studies and earn a Ph.D.
Stoner becomes an instructor, then a professor at the University of Missouri. The novel delves deeply into university life — Stoner is a dedicated teacher beset by campus politics — but its primary focus is Stoner’s lifelong efforts to develop an emotional life beyond the classroom. He marries a beautiful young woman who turns out to be a tortured shrew, incapable of honest emotion and bent on making Stoner’s life miserable.
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Nowadays, they probably would have divorced in a year or two but this was not a common or accepted practice back in.
Contents. Plot William Stoner is born on a small farm in central Missouri in 1891. After high school, Stoner expects to continue working on the farm, but the county agent advises that he go to agriculture school, instead.
Stoner enters the University of Missouri, where all agriculture students must take a survey course in English literature during their sophomore year. The literature he encounters in this introductory course, such as, opens a gateway to a new world for Stoner, and he quickly falls in love with literary studies. Without telling his parents, Stoner quits the agriculture program and studies only the humanities.
A professor suggests to Stoner that his love of knowledge means that he will be a teacher. When his parents come for his graduation, Stoner tells them he will not be returning to the farm. Stoner completes his MA in English and begins teaching.
His teaching is uninspiring, but he still enjoys the classes he takes. In graduate school, he befriends fellow students Gordon Finch and Dave Masters.
Masters suggests all three are using graduate school to avoid the real world. Begins, and Gordon and Dave enlist. After some soul-searching, Stoner decides to remain in school during the war. When the armistice is signed, a party is held for the returning veterans, where Stoner meets an attractive young woman named Edith. Stoner begins to call on Edith, who is visiting from out of town. When Stoner calls on her, Edith acts very distant and withdrawn. Stoner feels they are still strangers, but he has fallen in love with her.
Very soon he proposes marriage. When her parents consent to the marriage, Edith insists that they marry soon. Edith tells Stoner she will try to be a good wife to him, and they marry a few weeks later. Stoner’s marriage to Edith is bad from the start.
It gradually becomes clear that Edith has profound emotional problems. She treats Stoner inconsiderately throughout their marriage. Within a year, Stoner loses all hope the marriage will ever improve. From the start, Edith appears uninterested in sex. Their first party at home ends in a sudden emotional outburst from Edith. For a while, Edith no longer wants to leave the house.
Stoner begins to spend more time at work. He sleeps in a different room from Edith and their sex life is nearly nonexistent. After three years of marriage, Edith suddenly informs Stoner she wants a baby.
For two months, she is absolutely voracious about sex with Stoner. When she becomes pregnant, she once again is uninterested in intimacy. When their daughter Grace is born, Edith remains inexplicably bed-ridden for nearly a year. By now, Stoner has reworked his dissertation into a published book and he is promoted to associate professor with tenure.
Without consulting Stoner, Edith accepts a $6,000 loan from her father to buy a house, a loan which Stoner fears they cannot afford. Stoner also gradually realizes that Edith is waging a campaign to separate him and his daughter. For short periods, Edith throws herself into outside activities like community theater. She is alternately inattentive and oppressive in her relationship with their daughter. She periodically disrupts Stoner’s work space in the home. He is forced increasingly to spend his free time working at the university instead of at home.
For the most part, Stoner accepts this poor treatment from Edith passively. The next few years are happy for Stoner despite the house debt and his poor relationship with Edith. Edith and he have reached a temporary stalemate. Stoner gradually realizes how centrally important Grace is to his life. He begins to teach with more enthusiasm, but still, year in and year out, his marriage with Edith remains perpetually unsatisfactory and fraught with problems. Midway in his career, a situation arises in which Stoner is forced to offend a formidable colleague, Professor Hollis Lomax. Stoner feels compelled by circumstances to fail a student named Charles Walker, who was a close protegee of Lomax.
Stoner fails Walker first in a graduate seminar and then soon afterward on Walker’s preliminary orals. Unlike Lomax, Stoner does not think that Walker’s verbal agility sufficiently compensates for his sparse knowledge of the literary canon. In addition, Stoner finds Walker to be lazy and dishonest, thus unsuited to the profession. Stoner does not wish to fail Walker, and Lomax pressures him not to do it, but Stoner believes it is the right thing to do. Thereafter, Lomax takes every opportunity to exact revenge upon Stoner for his intransigence on the Walker matter.
Lomax begins only assigning Stoner to teach the least desirable introductory classes, though Stoner is actually by then one of the senior faculty members in the department. Around this time, a collaboration between Stoner and a younger instructor in the department, Katherine Driscoll, develops into a very romantic and passionate love affair. The relationship begins when Stoner agrees to help Katherine with her dissertation on the Roman grammarian. This romance between Katherine and him is the happiest period of Stoner’s life.
Ironically, after the affair begins, Stoner’s relationships with Edith and Grace also improve. Knowledge of the “secret” affair somehow becomes general in the small university town. At some point, Edith finds out about the affair between Stoner and Driscoll, but she does not seem to mind it. When Lomax learns about it, however, he begins to bring pressure on Katherine, who also teaches in the English department. For the vindictive Lomax, this pressure on Driscoll is one more way to exact revenge on Stoner.
Stoner and Driscoll agree it is best to end the affair so as not to derail the academic work they both feel called to follow. So, Katherine quietly slips away from town, never to be seen again by him. Katherine’s departure marks the end of the only extended period of unalloyed joy in Stoner’s life.
During the summer after Katherine leaves town, Stoner becomes ill and seems to age rapidly. As world events like the and the proceed apace, Stoner rededicates himself to his work. Once more, Stoner sees students leaving the university to fight in war.
For years, Lomax has assigned Stoner no advanced classes to teach. Finally, Stoner begins presenting advanced material to incoming first-year students. Lomax finally relents and begins to assign Stoner advanced classes again. Stoner, older now and harder of hearing, is beginning to become a legendary figure in the English department. Stoner begins to spend more time at home, ignoring Edith's signs of displeasure at his presence. Edith turns her attention to trying to change Grace.
After about a month, Edith abandons her assault on Grace. Grace gains almost 50 pounds before her 13th birthday, but at 17, as a high school senior, loses weight and begins to socialize more. Stoner has been saving money for Grace to attend an Eastern college, but Edith will not hear of Grace going away to college. Instead, Grace enters the University of Missouri. The following year, Grace announces she is pregnant.
Her mother takes Grace’s pregnancy very badly, but Stoner is supportive. Grace marries the father of her child five days after the. Grace’s husband enlists in the army, and dies before the baby is born. Instalar impressora hp psc 1510 all-in-one. Grace goes to St. Louis with the baby to live with her husband's parents. She visits Stoner and Edith occasionally, and Stoner realizes that Grace has developed a serious drinking problem. Stoner’s age is now approaching.
Stoner wishes to continue teaching as long as possible, though Lomax offers him a promotion to retire sooner. Stoner soon learns he has cancer and must retire immediately. As Stoner’s life is slipping away, his daughter Grace comes to visit him. Gordon Finch visits Stoner almost daily, but Gordon withdraws internally from the dying Stoner. Stoner thinks back over his life. The pain medication he is taking sometimes makes it difficult to think clearly. He thinks about where he failed.
He wonders if he could have been more loving to Edith, if he could have been stronger or if he could have helped her more. Later, he thinks he is wrong to think of himself as failing. Then, soon after the cancer is discovered, he dies while touching a copy of the book he published years earlier.
Characters The novel focuses on William Stoner and the central figures in his life. Those who become his enemies are used as tools against him who separate Stoner from his loves. New Yorker contributor Tim Kreider describes their depictions as 'evil marked with deformity.'
. William Stoner: The novel's main character, called 'Stoner' throughout the book, is a farm boy turned English professor. He uses his love of literature to deal with his unfulfilling home life. Edith Stoner: Stoner's wife, a neurotic woman, is from a strict and sheltered upbringing. Stoner falls in love with the idea of her, but soon realizes that she is bitter and has been long before they were married.
Grace Stoner: Stoner and Edith's only child, Grace is easily influenced by her mother. Edith keeps Grace away from and against her father as a sort of 'punishment' for Stoner, because of the couple's failing relationship.
Gordon Finch: Stoner's colleague and only real ally and friend, he has known Stoner since their graduate school days, and becomes the dean of the college of Arts and Sciences. His affable and outgoing demeanor contrasts that of Stoner. David Masters: Stoner's friend from graduate school, he is killed in action during the Great War, but his words have a continuing impact on Stoner's worldview.
Archer Sloane: Stoner's teacher and mentor growing up, he inspired Stoner to leave agriculture behind and begin studying English literature. He is old and ailing by the time Stoner is hired at the university. Hollis Lomax: Sloane's 'replacement' at the university, Stoner and he began as friends, but Stoner eventually sees him as an 'enemy'. Stoner and Lomax do not see eye-to-eye in their work life. He is described as a hunchback. Charles Walker: Lomax's crippled mentee, he is an arrogant and duplicitous young man who uses rhetorical flourish to mask his scholarly ineptitude.
He also becomes an enemy to Stoner. Katherine Driscoll: A younger teacher, she has an affair with Stoner.
University politics and circumstantial differences keep them from continuing a relationship. Themes In the novel's introduction, John McGahern says Stoner is a 'novel about work.' This includes not only traditional work, such as Stoner's life on the farm and his career as a professor, but also the work one puts into life and relationships. One of the central themes in the novel is the manifestation of passion. Stoner's passions manifest themselves into failures, as proven by the bleak end of his life. Stoner has two primary passions: knowledge and love. According to Morris Dickstein, 'he fails at both.'
Love is also a widely recognized theme in Stoner. The novel's representation of love moves beyond romance; it highlights bliss and suffering that can be qualities of love. Both Stoner and Lomax discovered a love of literature early in their lives, and it is this love that ultimately endures throughout Stoner's life. Another of the novel's central themes is the social reawakening, which is closely linked to the sexual reawakening of the protagonist. After the loss of his wife and daughter, Stoner seeks fulfillment elsewhere, beginning the affair with Katherine Driscoll. Style 's Introduction to Stoner and Adam Foulds of praise Williams' prose for its cold, factual plainness. Foulds claims that Stoner has a 'flawless narrative rhythm that flows like a river.'
Michael Mewshaw
Williams' prose has also been applauded for its clarity, by both McGahern and Charlotte Heathcote of. In an interview with the BBC, author Ian McEwan calls Williams' prose 'authoritative.' Sarah Hampson of writes that Williams' 'description of petty academic politics reads like the work of someone taking surreptitious notes at dreary faculty meetings.' Williams' prose has also been lauded for its precision, making the novel's emotions universally relatable. Background John Williams had a similar life to that of his character in Stoner. He was an English professor at the until he retired in 1985.
Like Stoner, he experienced coworker frustrations in the academic world and was devoted to this work, making his novel a reflection of parts of his own life. Reception Stoner was initially published in 1965 and sold fewer than 2,000 copies. It was out of print a year later, then reissued in 1998 by the University of Arkansas Press and then in 2003 in paperback by Vintage and 2006. French novelist translated Stoner in 2011, and it became ' Book of the Year in Britain in 2012. In 2013, sales to distributors tripled. Although Stoner was not a popular novel when it was first published, there were a handful of glowing reviews such as that from on June 12, 1965, in which Williams was praised for creating a character who is dedicated to his work but cheated by the world. Those who gave positive feedback pointed to the truthful voice with which Williams wrote about life's conditions, and they often compared Stoner to his other work, in characters and plot direction.
One piece of negative criticism came from Williams' own publisher in 1963, who questioned Stoner's potential to gain popularity and become a best seller. And also gave praise to the novel when it was first published, although sales of the novel did not reflect this positive commentary. It was not until several years later during Stoner’s republication that the book became more well-known. After being re-published and translated into a number of languages, the novel has 'sold hundreds of thousands of copies in 21 countries'. Williams' novel is jointly praised for its narrative and stylistic value.
John Williams
In a 2007 review of the recently reissued work, scholar and book critic acclaims the writing technique as remarkable and says the novel 'takes your breath away'. 's review quotes critic D.G. Myers saying that the novel was a good book for beginners in the world of 'serious literature'. Another critic, author, points out that the novel shows the depressing progression through a person’s life that was written by 'the dead hand of realism'. In 2010, critic Mel Livatino noted that 'in nearly fifty years of reading fiction, I have never encountered a more powerful novel—and not a syllable of it sentimental.' Writer wrote a review of Stoner in in 2014.
Almond claims Stoner focuses on the 'capacity to face the truth of who we are in private moments' and questions whether or not any of us are truly able to say we are able to do that. Almond states, 'I devoured it in one sitting.
I had never encountered a work so ruthless in its devotion to human truths and so tender in its execution.' Sarah Hampson of sees Stoner as an 'antidote' to a 21st-century culture of entitlement.
She says that the novel came back to public attention at a time when people feel entitled to personal fulfillment, at the cost of their own morality, and Stoner shows that there can be value even in a life that seems failed. In 2013 it was named Book of the Year and called it 'the greatest American novel you've never heard of.' Adaptations A film adaptation of the novel is currently under development. References. Barnes, Julian. The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-11-02.
John Williams, Stoner, New York Review Books, New York, 2003. Steve Wiegenstein. The McNeese Review.
The New Yorker. Retrieved 2015-11-02. Alex Preston.
Retrieved 2015-10-28. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
Williams, John. New York Review of Books. Dickstein, Morris (17 June 2007). ^ McGahern, John.
By John Williams. New York: New York Review Books, 2003. The Academic Novel and the Academic Ideal: John Williams' Stoner. Steve Wiegenstein. The McNeese Review. The Independent. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
Retrieved 2015-10-28. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
David, Milofsky (2007). The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2015-11-02. Barnes, Julian.
The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-10-31. Ellis, Bret Easton.
The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
Retrieved 2015-10-28. Dickstein, Morris (2007-06-17). The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
'The Inner Lives of Men,' by Morris Dickstein, New York Times, June 17, 2007. Mel Livatino 'A Sadness Unto the Bone - John Williams's Stoner in The Sewanee Review, 118:3, p. 417. Almond, Steve (2014-05-09). The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
3 December 2013. Retrieved 3 December 2013. Retrieved 2015-10-28. External links.