Discover an American masterpiece. This unassuming story about the life of a quiet English professor has earned the admiration of readers all over the globe. 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 … 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.
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Stoner was published in the 1960s to little acclaim and few sales. But somehow along the way it got read by the right taste-makers and it’s achieved a major revival. I learned of the novel when it was profiled in the New Yorker (no small accomplishment!).
The story is that of a quiet and earnest man from humble beginnings who goes on to lead a quiet and somewhat sad life. Doesn’t sound like much of a book, right? Wrong! It’s the ultimate reflection on humility, principles, and aestheticism. I devoured the book and can’t recommend it highly enough.
Stoner is not a classic novel in any way. This is William Stoner’s life story. Ostensibly, a person who is not particularly fascinating. This book has no spectacular surprises or surprising turn of events, and the plot takes place almost entirely in the walls of Columbia University and the Stoners’ private home. This is the story of a farm boy who chooses a different course of life than that intended for him – to inherit his parents on the farm and to continue after their death in the course of a life of hard manual labor. Over time, in light of the failure of his marriage and the lack of professional appreciation he experienced at the university, William was forced to ask himself whether this was the life he had hoped for, and also, “Is this a life worth living?” no less.
The plot of the book is mainly a means of transmitting messages: the struggle of a single person to realize his little dreams despite the instability created by the environment, especially his neurotic wife and the dumb boss. His success in doing so, while remaining faithful to his values and principles; His willingness to pay a heavy price for this includes social ostracism.
It is interesting to note the parallels between William Stoner, the protagonist of the book, and those of John Williams – the writer: Both of them are descendants of hard-working farming families, both supposed university professors. Both have fallen victim to colleagues working with lousy temper and vengeance. Indifferently to the general public.
Stoner is a great book. Tight. Exciting. This book Gives you strong feelings of compassion and identification. It is a surprising book.
Quiet, understated and devastating. Not everyone’s cup of tea but certainly mine. Beautiful characterisation.
One of the best in the traditions of classical novel.
A wonderful subtle novel about the life of a teacher.
toner is one of literature’s great characters, an Everyman/Job/Willie Loman who endures life’s bitter realities, often dejected but with bursts of resistance and empowerment.
Stoner was the child of uncommunicative, distant, Midwestern parents, observing their joyless life fighting the barren land to survive. His father was convinced to send him to agricultural school to learn modern methods that would perhaps make their farm successful.
Stoner is disconnected and passive until he faces the big unknowns and questions posed by literature. He struggles to understand, switching his major to English. His mentor realizes Stoner had found something he loved.
When he learns his son will not return to the farm, Stoner’s father merely replaces his son with a hired hand.
During WWI, Stoner’s mentor convinces him not to enlist and abandon his studies; his duty is to keep the world from snuffing out the flame.
Stoner falls in love with a woman who ‘doesn’t mind’ and seems to be more interested in escaping her father than desiring a marriage. Their relationship is a disaster and a disappointment to Stoner. His wife punishes him every way imaginable, even interfering with his writing and career. He carries on, accepting rejection and isolation.
He never leaves his Alma Mater, eventually becoming a good teacher. Then a new department head promotes a gifted student who relies on charm and blarney while neglecting true scholarship and mastery of his subject. Stoner and his boss clash over the student’s dissertation when he insists the student is unworthy. He will not lower his standards. Stoner is punished for not playing the game with the loss of his specialty course and only given freshman level classes.
There are moments of glory in Stoner’s life.
His wife got the idea of having a child but found no joy in motherhood. She became an ‘invalid’, so Stoner had to care for the infant and child, cook and clean. His daughter bonds with him, and in vengeance’s Stoner’s wife separates them.
A graduate student falls in love with him and their relationship is carried on behind closed doors for a year. When the department chair learns of their relatiobship, Stoner is pressed to make a decision; he cannot abandon his wife and their daughter. The love of his life moves on to her own career.
Depressed and feeling his age, Stoner plods on until one day he throws away his freshman texts and instead teaches the upper level material he has been denied. His freshman class finishes with higher scores than their peers.
One book club member used the word miserable for Stoner’s life. We discussed his fatalism and acceptance, his inaction to better his life, and the reasons behind his choices and lack of action.
I drew attention to his achievements: he held to his values at any cost. He was, as a college friend pointed out early in his life, a Quixotic dreamer out of joint with the world. At the end of his life he understands and accepts his life with unexpected contentment. In his last moments, there is a clarity to his life. Stoner and his wife forgive each other, and a strange comfort envelopes him.
The book group filled the entire hour with our discussion. And that is the sign of a great book–it made us think and reflect and endeavor to probe the mystery of the human experience.
Stoner by John Willians was originally published in 1965, and it was re-released on its 50th anniversary. It is a deeply moving story of a midwestern college professor who was raised by poor, struggling farm parents, had an opportunity to attend an agricultural college, and fell in love with English literature. The book follows his struggles which include an unhappy marriage and the years of his life as he remains in this one place. It is beautifully written and captures the reader’s interest from the very beginning.
Maybe the most perfect novel I’ve read.
The story of William Stoner will motivate you to grab life by the reins and live. No regrets!!! Because Mr. Stoner’s life is full of disappointment after disappointment. His life certainly could have been worse and I’ve met real-life people who could give him a run for his money in the “life’s not fair” category. But there is a heaviness to this book that I just couldn’t shake off. I felt actual sadness during and after my reading of Stoner. Or maybe that was my own reflection on the possibility that life can be such a consistent trial. I didn’t want to stop though. I was thoroughly engaged and invested in John Williams’s seemingly simple storytelling. It may be easy to read but I assure you it is impossible to endure. Allow yourself to experience what books are capable of.
My favorite quote:
“Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.”
Not a well-known book or author, but nonetheless an intriguing book. I have seen it mentioned a number of times as an example of fine writing, and I could not agree more. This is a melancholy story about a relatively ordinary man, written in such a way as to continually want to know and experience more.
William Stoner was born in the 1890’s and died in the late 1950’s. He left the farm, avoided the service, taught at the same university that he had attended, married, had a child, had an affair, and died. A somewhat simple life with its normal array of life issues and concerns, work battles, sadness, and illness. His marriage was a sad bitter affair from early on, yet he never divorced, he persevered. Stoner leads a life and has the thoughts that were probably quite common in the early twentieth century, yet I felt as if I were reading a story set in the early nineteenth century.
The prose has a clarity and descriptive power not experienced in many novels today. Williams made me care for an unremarkable man in an equally unremarkable existence. Like Hemingway, Williams describes and sets the scenes in brief powerful paragraphs of little wordiness, and possessing a great deal of insight and thought.
Williams describes Stoner, as “an escape into reality.” The reality of everyman’s life, and death. The closing scenes of Stoner’s death are powerful and provocative. ” A sense of his own identity came upon him with a sudden force, and he felt the power of it. He was himself, and he knew what he had been.”
I encourage you to attempt this book, to not look for intense plot twists or intrigue, to not wait for the excitement to take hold. I encourage you to breathe in, and walk beside “everyman,” for he is you.
A beautifully written story about a man’s life
One of the most moving books I have ever read, and I have read many books.
A story of unrequited love, loneliness and desolation. The denouement made me weep, and I am not easily moved to tears.
This novel is written beautifully and intelligently, and Williams respects the reader enough to hold back from explaining every decision made by the characters. We absorb the psychology without having it spelled out. Some readers come away feeling Stoner is weak and passive (as a parent, I admit to yelling at him myself a time or two). But in one scene in particular he takes a stand from which he won’t back down and finally shows a dogged devotion to principles, to an honest representation of one’s self and one’s work. We might want more of that from him, but that would be a different person–perhaps a less realistic one. This book was on a must-read modern classics list, or I might never have heard of it, and I almost didn’t read it when I read the summary. I’m so glad I gave it the time it deserves. I recommend it highly.
This 1965 novel might be one of the finest books about the scholarly life, and the fact that William Stoner is so sympathetic makes it all the more readable. The novel’s action takes place from 1910 to 1956, in within that time frame, we follow Stoner’s quest to ignite in his students the same passion he holds for his subject matter (English literature) and feel his disappointment at their indifference. The rancor of university departmental politics Stoner experiences reminds those of us who are college instructors that nothing ever changes as we watch him tread water in an increasingly hostile environment. Add to this mix a wife who wins the prize for Most Selfish Melodramatic Queen and one of the most depressed daughters in all of fiction and it’s a quite sad, yet darkly funny read. The characters’ motivations and behaviors are believable, and the author’s pacing of the action is deftly handled. Engrossing and moving throughout.
Stoner is a forgotten classic. Simply the best book I’ve read this past year.
A fascinating, engrossing tale of a man who leads a life that is, for the most part, unextraordinary. I haven’t read many books that moved me or saddened me the way this did — largely because it feels so real. It is a tragedy, but not in the Shakespearean sense; rather, it tells of the tragedy of the common man, with his regrets, missed opportunities, and onslaughts of everyday defeats. It is heartbreaking; you know it’s going to break your heart, but you plug along anyway.
While it is not perfectly written — the female characters could have been fleshed out more; there are too many awkward silences in situations that probably should not call for them; Williams really seems to love the word “perfunctory” a bit too much — it simply feels like a perfect novel, because any criticism that I have feels like splitting hairs. It is a beautiful novel, laser-focused on the life of its titular subject from childhood to grave.
I wish I could better put my feelings about this book into words, but is hard to express. I’ve never read anything like it, and I have a feeling I won’t be able to shake this one off for a long time.
I loved this novel. It is a melancholy book but beautifully written with a solemn message. Stoner and the Great Gatsby are the tow best novels I have ever read. This is beautifully written and full of imagery and meaning.
If you are looking for what I call a classic read and you don’t mind a bit of darkness. don’t miss this book.
Great writing from the first paragraph to the end. Sparse and beautiful prose. This bool is the reason I read. A gym that will stay with you forever.
A glorious story of forgiveness, exceptionally crafted. This book will forever inform my writing.