Stoner by John Williams #1965Club

Everybody was reading Stoner by John Williams about seven years ago, largely because Vintage Books sent a review copy to pretty much everyone in the known universe. According to Kim’s review for the 1965 club, it was also the toast of the book blogging world around 2005, but that was before I joined it. Well, better late than never, I’ve finally read it – and isn’t it brilliant?

I had put it off for ages because all I knew about it was (a) it was set in a university, and (b) it was called Stoner. So perhaps naturally, I’d assumed it was about drug-taking. Mais non – Stoner is, rather, the lead character in this novel that looks at his life from studenthood and though the following decades.

Stoner has left a farming family for the bright lights of university – leaving the agriculture course for the English literature course, once he discovers his deep love for that subject. At the same time, he thinks he may have fallen in love with the beautiful, distant Edith. She gives him little encouragement, but he is beguiled, and they marry.

It is not a successful marriage – but it does produce a daughter, Grace, to whom Stoner is patiently devoted, and whom he almost single-handedly looks after in her infancy.

The trials of an impetuous marriage are one strand of the novel; the other is Stoner’s career as an English lecturer. He is, at first, competent but little more. I loved reading about his transformation into an inspiring teacher:

When he lectured, he now and then found himself so lost in his subject that he became forgetful of his inadequacy, of himself, and even of the students before him. Now and then he became so caught by his enthusiasm that he stuttered, gesticulated, and ignored the lecture notes that usually guided his talks. At first he was disturbed by his outbursts, as if he presumed too familiarly upon his subject, and he apologised to his students; but when they began coming up to him after class, and when in their papers they began to show hints of imagination and the revelation of a tentative love, he was encouraged to do what he had never been taught to do. The love of literature, language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print – the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.

I suspect Williams shared Stoner’s love of literature and of studying it – or, if not, is very good at conveying it. It reminded me of the most glorious moments of revelation I felt while studying. Any writer who can manage to put across the wonder of literature is doing something great in my book.

But things are not so simple here, either. He has friends in the department, but he also makes an enemy – one with long-lasting effects on his personal and professional lives.

Those lives are distinct throughout much of Stoner, not least because his wife has very limited interest in his career. I wondered if this was a fault of the novel, but I suppose it rings true. Many of his find that the traits we have in the workplace do not quite translate outside of it, and perhaps it is accurate that Stoner’s determined enthusiasm in the classroom finds its opposite in his passivity within marriage. He is certainly a rounded and convincing character – so sympathetic, and yet often frustrating.

Above all, Stoner is stunningly written. The prose is somehow beautiful and poetic without ever seeming to stray from everyday language. It is an amazing combination, and I don’t know how he achieves – nor how he makes this gradually unwinding portrait of a man and his environment so compelling to read.

The only significant criticism I have it is that Edith, his wife, is less well drawn. Her character is always a little undeveloped, and her nature changes so often and so violently that she often seems only a foil for the next stage of Stoner’s life. The psychology behind her actions is often explained, but never quite as convincing as the totally believable motivations (good or bad) behind everything Stoner says and does.

But, yes, I can see why this was such a success when reprinted – and I’m thrilled that the 1965 Club meant I finally read it.

12 thoughts on “Stoner by John Williams #1965Club

  • April 27, 2019 at 2:53 am
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    I thought this book was wonderful when I read it, how long ago? Oh, in 2014, so I was late to the party, too.

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  • April 27, 2019 at 8:05 am
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    I loved this book too… I loved the integrity of the man. The flaws we notice are ones that damage his own life and ambitions more than anyone else’s.

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  • April 27, 2019 at 2:44 pm
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    Thanks for linking to my review, Simon. It is a great novel, but I didn’t quite love it as much as I expected I might. I found the bad things that kept happening to him a bit of a downer and the way his wife treated him really bothered me, but I admired his integrity and his honesty, particularly at work.

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  • April 27, 2019 at 4:33 pm
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    I loved this too – it’s such a beautifully written book. I also felt that I never really got to know or understand Edith and I remember feeling sorry for poor Grace!

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  • April 27, 2019 at 7:05 pm
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    I’ve had a copy of this languishing in the house for years, and I don’t know why I haven’t read it yet. Interestingly, your reservations about the character of Edith have been echoed in comments I’ve read recently about the book – Williams’ female characters really seem to rile some readers! But I’ve no doubt I will get to this eventually!

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  • April 28, 2019 at 5:16 am
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    Great review Simon! I loved this book too. In many ways it is a sad book, but Stoner had such a passion for teaching English, I also envied him that.

    I’ve also heard the criticism of Edith as a character since reading it, but at the time I read it, I didn’t feel she was underdeveloped. If there were gaps in her development, I filled them in myself.

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  • April 28, 2019 at 6:53 pm
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    Stoner is a book that keeps being rediscovered.

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  • May 1, 2019 at 3:56 pm
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    I really loved Stoner for many reasons, but what surprised the heck out of me is that I loved Butcher’s Crossing even more. The amazing thing about that is that it is about a bison hunt in the old west. Two things that I would steer well clear of under normal circumstances.

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    • May 7, 2019 at 1:54 pm
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      Oo yes, I would steer clear of those without a recommendation for someone like you!

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  • May 12, 2019 at 4:12 pm
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    I’d hoped to make it to this one for the event as well, but I got distracted by other 1965 reading (although your explanation of its ubiquitousness explains why I found my copy in a “Free Library” not long ago – which had felt very lucky until now). Glad it met your expectations. Also it does seem the perfect cover to be reading while there is a cat in your lap. (Not that there’s any shortage of bookcovers like that, really.)

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    • May 13, 2019 at 9:26 am
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      You can still feel that luck, I think :) Most people have held on to their copies!

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