Stoner
John Williams, 1965
New York Review of Books
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781590171998
Summary
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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 29, 1922
• Where—northeast Texas, USA
• Death—March 3, 1994
• Where—Fayetteville, Arkansas
• Education—B.A., M.A., University of Denver; Ph.D., University of Missouri
• Awards—National Book Award
John Edward Williams was an American author, editor, and professor. He was best known for his novels Stoner (1965) and Augustus (1972). The latter won a U.S. National Book Award.
Early life
Williams was raised in northeast Texas. His grandparents were farmers; his stepfather was a janitor in a post office. Despite a talent for writing and acting, Williams flunked out of a local junior college after his first year. He worked with newspapers and radio stations in the Southwest for a year, then reluctantly joined the war effort by enlisting in the United States Army Air Force early in 1942. He spent two and a half years as a sergeant in India and Burma. During his enlistment, he wrote a draft of his first novel, which was published in 1948.
Education and writing
At the end of the war Williams moved to Denver, Colorado and enrolled in the University of Denver, receiving Bachelor of Arts (1949) and Master of Arts (1950) degrees. During his time at the University of Denver, his first two books were published, Nothing But the Night (1948), a novel depicting the terror and waywardness resulting from an early traumatic experience, and The Broken Landscape (1949), a collection of poetry.
Upon completing his MA, Williams enrolled at the University of Missouri, teaching and working on his Ph.D. in English Literature, which he obtained in 1954.
Teaching and writing
In the fall of 1955 Williams returned to the University of Denver as Assistant Professor, becoming director of the creative writing program. His second novel, Butcher's Crossing (1960) depicts frontier life in 1870's Kansas. He edited and wrote the introduction for the anthology English Renaissance Poetry in 1963. His second book of poems, The Necessary Lie (1965), was issued by Verb Publications. He was the founding editor of the University of Denver Quarterly (later Denver Quarterly), which was first issued in 1965. He remained as editor until 1970.
Williams' third novel, Stoner (1965), is the fictional tale of a University of Missouri English professor. A year later the book was out of print, but it was reissued in 2003 and again in 2006. His fourth novel, Augustus (1972), a rendering of the violent times of Augustus Caesar in Rome, remains in print. It won the National Book Award for Fiction, which it shared with Chimera by John Barth (the first time the award was split).
Williams loved the study of literature. When asked in a 1985 interview whether literature should be entertaining, his response was emphatic: "Absolutely. My God, to read without joy is stupid."
Retirement and death
In 1985, Williams retired from the University of Denver. He died of respiratory failure in 1994, at his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He was survived by his wife and descendants. A fifth novel, The Sleep of Reason, was unfinished at the time of his death and never published.
Critical response
Critic Morris Dickstein called the 1965 Stoner "something rarer than a great novel—it is a perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving, it takes your breath away."
He also noted that, while Butcher's Crossing, Stoner, and Augustus are "strikingly different in subject," they "show a similar narrative arc: a young man's initiation, vicious male rivalries, subtler tensions between men and women, fathers and daughters, and finally a bleak sense of disappointment, even futility."
Novelist and scientist C.P. Snow wrote of Stoner: "Why isn’t this book famous?… Very few novels in English, or literary productions of any kind, have come anywhere near its level for human wisdom or as a work of art."
In his introduction to the 2006 edition of Stoner, author John McGahern wrote,
There is entertainment of a very high order to be found in Stoner, what Williams himself describes as "an escape into reality" as well as pain and joy. The clarity of the prose is in itself an unadulterated joy.
Steve Almond praises Stoner in the New York Times Magazine, writing, "I had never encountered a work so ruthless in its devotion to human truths and so tender in its execution. (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/29/2015.)
Book Reviews
John Williams’s Stoner is something rarer than a great novel—it is a perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving, that it takes your breath away.
New York Times Book Review
The book begins boldly with a mention of Stoner’s death, and a nod to his profound averageness: "Few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his courses." By the end, though, Williams has made Stoner’s disappointing life into such a deep and honest portrait, so unsoftened and unromanticized, that it’s quietly breathtaking.
Boston Globe
Stoner by John Williams, contains what is no doubt my favorite literary romance of all time. William Stoner is well into his 40s, and mired in an unhappy marriage, when he meets Katherine, another shy professor of literature. The affair that ensues is described with a beauty so fierce that it takes my breath away each time I read it. The chapters devoted to this romance are both terribly sexy and profoundly wise.
Christian Science Monitor
Williams didn’t write much compared with some novelists, but everything he did was exceedingly fine…it’s a shame that he’s not more often read today…But it’s great that at least two of his novels [Stoner, Butcher’s Crossing] have found their way back into print.
Denver Post
Stoner, by John Williams, is a slim novel, and not a particularly joyous one. But it is so quietly beautiful and moving, so precisely constructed, that you want to read it in one sitting and enjoy being in it, altered somehow, as if you have been allowed to wear an exquisitely tailored garment that you don’t want to take off.
Toronto Globe and Mail
One of the great forgotten novels of the past century. I have bought at least 50 copies of it in the past few years, using it as a gift for friends…The book is so beautifully paced and cadenced that it deserves the status of classic (Top 10 Novels).
Colum McCann - Guardian (UK)
Stoner is undeniably a great book, but I can also understand why it isn’t a sentimental favorite in its native land. You could almost describe it as an anti-Gatsby…Part of Stoner’s greatness is that it sees life whole and as it is, without delusion yet without despair…The novel embodies the very virtues it exalts, the same virtues that probably relegate it, like its titular hero, to its perpetual place in the shade. But the book, like professor William Stoner, isn’t out to win popularity contests. It endures, illumined from within.
Tim Kreider - The New Yorker
A masterly portrait of a truly virtuous and dedicated man.
The New Yorker
Serious, beautiful and affecting, what makes Stoner so impressive is the contained intensity the author and character share.
Irving Howe - New Republic
A quiet but resonant achievement.
Times Literary Supplement
It’s simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But it’s one of the most fascinating things that you’ve ever come across.
Tom Hanks - Time
Stoner is written in the most plainspoken of styles…Its hero is an obscure academic who endures a series of personal and professional agonies. Yet the novel is utterly riveting, and for one simple reason: because the author, John Williams, treats his characters with such tender and ruthless honesty that we cannot help but love them.
Steve Almond - Tin House
A poignant campus novel from the mid-’60s—an unjustly neglected gem.
Nick Hornby - People
Williams’ descriptions of the experience of reading both elucidate and evince the pleasures of literary language; the "minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words" in which Stoner finds joy are re-enacted in Williams' own perfect fusion of words.
n+1
The best book I read in 2007 was Stoner by John Williams. It’s perhaps the best book I’ve read in years.
Stephen Elliott - Believer
Discussion Questions
1. "Stoner’s colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones, his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, and to the younger ones it is merely a sound which evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves or their careers." Having read the whole book, do you think the summary of Stoner’s life, as described on the first page of the novel, is a fair assessment?
2. "He did not rise above the rank of assistant professor, and few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his courses." Why do you think the author begins the novel by summarising Stoner’s life and telling us how little he is remembered after his death? Having already had a summary of Stoner’s life, what did you think the book would be about and did you find it irritating to know, upfront, that nothing sensational would happen?
3. In the introduction, John McGahern cites an interview in which the author says: "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 he had a very good life." Do you agree with the author’s view that Stoner is a hero?
4. "From the earliest time he could remember, William Stoner had his duties." Stoner’s life is filled with many failures—his marriage, his stymied career and his short-lived affair. Do you think Stoner views these unpleasant parts of his life as duties he must endure? How do you think his rural upbringing has affect his personality?
5. "The required survey of English literature troubled and disquieted him in a way nothing had ever done before." Stoner is troubled by his initial foray into English literature and in a class with his English instructor, Archer Sloane, he is unable to answer a question on a Shakespearean sonnet. Why do you think Stoner changes his course of study from agriculture to English?
6. "Her childhood was an exceedingly formal one, even in the most ordinary moments of family life. Her parents behaved toward each other with a distant courtesy; Edith never saw pass between them the spontaneous warmth of either anger or love. Anger was days of courteous silence, and love was a word of courteous endearment." How much do you think Edith’s upbringing affects her life with Stoner? Why do you think she is constantly compelled to wage battles against Stoner—what is she trying to prove?
7. "Throughout the late spring and early summer she was tireless in her search [for a house], which seemed to work an immediate cure for her illness." What do you think is the cause of Edith’s recurring illnesses? Do you think her illnesses are psychosomatic?
8. "And so, like many others, their honeymoon was a failure; yet they would not admit this to themselves, and they did not realise the significance of the failure until long afterward." There are several turning points in the novel, where Stoner’s life could go down different paths. Do you feel he takes control of his life and lives in accordance with his values, or do you think he remains too passive and stoic during the course of his life? Do you think stoicism is a good quality?
9. "William fell instantly in love with her; the affection he could not show to Edith he could show to his daughter, and he found a pleasure in caring for her that he had not anticipated." Do you think Stoner is a good father to Grace? Do you think one parent carries more blame for Grace’s early pregnancy and alcoholism, or do you think both parents share equal blame?
10. "A kind of joy came upon him, as if borne in on a summer breeze. He dimly recalled that he had been thinking of failure—as if it mattered. It seemed to him now that such thoughts were mean, unworthy of what his life had been." In the end, do you think Stoner has any regrets about the way he has lived his life? Do you think Stoner is a good man or a weak man?
(Questions issued by Random House, Australia.)