Stoner; Reviewing 288 Pages of Misery

Spectacularly mundane is arguably the only way to describe John Williams 20th century work of unassuming brilliance. 

Before starting to divulge details of the how and why, we must establish that Stoner is a novel that echoes. There is no linger of impression, no clear feeling can be found after reading “Stoner”, it is not a novel that changes lives and draws epiphanies out of thin air. It is a novel of such profound disinterest that John Williams’ emotional precision strikes the reader like a knife between the ribs. 

Essentially, Stoner is about a man who joins the University of Columbia, after being sent there by his parents who own a farm, to take a course called College of Agriculture. Stoner however falls in love with English Literature and goes on to become a Professor of creative writing rather than returning to his parent’s farm like intended. He then goes on to live quite an insignificant life, marrying a woman named Edith and eventually having a daughter with her named Grace. The marriage causes Edith to become highly neurotic and deeply unhappy, and while Stoner has a calm endurance throughout his entire marriage, he also can not be described as content. 

Many readers, upon finishing the novel, surmise that William Stoner lives a very sad indifferent life. Though Stoner’s life is certainly indifferent- perhaps to himself more than anyone else, Williams himself believed Stoner’s life to be quite a good one, and states this in a rare interview given late in his life: 

“I think he’s a real hero. A lot of people who have read the novel think that Stoner had such a sad and bad life. I think that he had a very good life. 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. 

He was witness to values that are important (...) 

The important thing in the novel to me is Stoner’s sense of a job. Teaching to him is a job-a job in the good and honourable sense of the word. His job gave him a particular kind of identity and made him what he was (...) 

It’s the love of the thing that’s essential. And if you love something, you’re going to understand it. And if you understand it, you’re going to learn a lot. The lack of that love determines a bad teacher (...) 

You never know all the results of what you do. I think it all boils down to what I was trying to get at in Stoner. You’ve got to keep the faith. The important thing is to keep the tradition going, because the tradition is civilisation.” 

Stoner echoes in the sense that one only understands the meaning of the novel after reading it. The same way that Williams hides the melancholy life of Stoner in beautiful prose. One almost misses it if one does not look close enough.

Occasionally, Stoner has been referred to as the “perfect” novel. 

It is not difficult to understand why. The novel is strikingly plain. The prose is beautiful, the plot works perfectly, the ending and the beginning are entirely sound, it almost misses character. The novel is essentially devoid of technical flaws, and yet something is off. If one looks at perfection not meaning “perfect” in the general sense of the word, but more as a perfect balance, meaning that there is no excess or lack of anything the statement makes more sense. In Stoner there is not too much emotion, nor too little; not too many problems, nor too little and so on. The novel is in some way a complete neutral, which in itself is a commendable achievement.