Sadly, it takes a pretty special book these days for me to feel genuinely excited about reading a novel. Luckily, John William’s Stoner is a pretty special book.
I came upon it purely by luck, browsing through WH Smith’s pretty average selection of classics (I used to work for Waterstones so I may be a tad biased) when I’d actually come in for something else. It was the title that stood out to me; it evoked memories of reading works from the drug-fuelled Beat Generation writers such as Kerouac and Burroughs. I like a bit of that. So, I thought I’d take a punt, given that I don’t read for pleasure enough and thought actually spending money on a book might inspire me to do so.
Stoner contains exactly zero mentions of recreational drugs so if you were looking for that, as I was initially, I guess you’d be disappointed. However, if you got over that quickly, you would find yourself being pulled in by a genuine masterpiece of twentieth century literature.
The plot is basic. It follows William Stoner, a poor farm boy who goes to the University of Missouri and whose discovery and subsequent love of English Literature inspires him to teach there as well. Not exactly the most thrilling synopsis ever. And in that respect, I would concede its maybe a bit of a ‘writer’s read’, if there is such a thing.
That is due to the skill of the author in carefully crafting every sentence to make the ordinary and everyday exchanges of life seem so interesting. If you’re a regular follower of this blog (I know there’s millions of you…) you’ll know that I have a particular fetish for this ability, it’s something I admire in TV shows like Gavin and Stacey and Detectorists and it’s on display in pristine prose format from the very first line of this novel. Williams describes studying, work, friendship, love, hate and even death in such a way that you will find yourself going ‘whoa’ and re-reading many a line again just because it sounds so good.
Most of the criticism on the novel is centred on an atmosphere of sadness that permeates throughout. I don’t disagree with that as such, the exchanges between Stoner and his wife are particularly brutal at times, but I wouldn’t say that it left me feeling down or depressed. Instead, I would choose to see it as a novel about celebrating small victories. It’s about making the best out of a bad situation. You find yourself cheering when Stoner, at this point an old lecturer past the point of caring, misbehaves just enough to get one over his villainous head of department. Equally, as the novel gently ticks along, you find yourself liking the man at its centre more and more. At the beginning he’s sort of one-dimensional and, if anything, a bit dull by modern standards, but by the end you appreciate that this is a thoroughly decent and kind man who deserves a break that he never properly gets.
One of the opening lines of the novel tells us that Stoner is not often remembered by his colleagues after his death. Given that the book was first published in 1965, it has certainly not suffered the same fate as it’s titular character. I can confirm that I won’t be forgetting it in a hurry either.
George F Brown 