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Book-o-the-Day: Stoner by John Williams
Ah, the university novel. You know them, lined on the shelf in luxurious elbows: Lucky Jim, Straight Man, Death in a Tenured Position, Wonder Boys, I Am Charlotte Simmons, The Gaudy Night, etc. (I am sure you can name many others–go right ahead.)
We get the usual ideas of the Ivy Tower, layer after constructed layer, grazing grey skies of tile, the empty smiles (can I get a motion? I second that motion!), dusty classroom to cramped office to bewildering department meeting of the bewildered, a city made of suffering elephants, a Matryoshka doll (stop that metaphor!) of sad absurdity. (Here I am addressing English Departments, as do most of these novels. Makes sense, I suppose: Write what you know, and for many writers, the U is nursemaid, benefactor, sad (or happy?) reprieve.
Sad X 2 above, as device, for emphasis. Sad is the one cloistered within, wrapped in gauze and weak coffee, kept from the wobbles and needles and very real pains of the Real World, to fade, fade away…into self-laugh, self-hate, into nothingness.
But Stoner is not like these other novels (at least not the ones I have read).
Stoner seems 19th century to me, oddly refreshing in its sweep and command, a bit of “Dear, reader, take my hand…” the authoritative, confident voice of a Tolstoy, etc., a strict but kind narrator, leading you along because He honestly feels this will do you Good. This felt refreshing, possibly due to much modern reading of a certain type on my part, the keen One, the blitzed to life, the bored, the stumbling, oh gods, the ironic. Published in 1965, Stoner seems to have arrived from 1865 (or 1895, more likely), and from Russia (or at least some small town on a vast plain, some tectonic yawn), lyrical prose, a clarity of setting scenes, then sweeping philosophical statements, again, just plainly stated, just written as if True:
Of one character: “Like many men who consider their success incomplete, he was extraordinarily vain and consumed with a sense of his own importance.”
And later: “Oh, proper we seem to ourselves when we have no reason to be improper.”
Later: “The dying are selfish, he thought; they want their moments to themselves, like children.”
Stoner is clever this way: We follow William. We actually hear his lectures, attend his very classroom. Did you know from late Hellenistic times to Middle Ages, grammar was considered much more than a mechanical disposition of the parts of speech? (I bet you did—the people who read this site are too damn smart.) Grammar was actually a study of poetry, “…an exegesis of poetry both in form and substance.” And what exactly are the principles of versification? Ah, Shelley…
Stoner can be funny in ways I admire.
“It’s gone sour,” she said. “And I hate sherry.”
(She then finishes off the bottle.)
Stoner has a structure of Form=Function, the dancer and the dance. Lives as jump-sparks in a low fire, built upon several key incidents, several Decisions (caps intended), as opposed to a natural flow, cradle to grave.
1.) The moment William Stoner, as a young man, must decide if he will return to his parent’s destiny, one of tedious, hardscrabble farming on an arid patch of land. Will he crush his family, their ideas and practical need, by choosing to pursue a graduate degree and teaching career at the university?
2.) The moment his friends decide to leave the university to fight in World War One. Does Stoner do the same?
3.) Will he marry out of ignorant lust, or out of something more significant?
4.) Will he pass/not pass a fraudulent graduate student’s dissertation, while pressured by all sides, by his colleagues, the university administration, his family, his career?
On and on, and what do these moments share? They are occasions of essence. They define a person. Hemingway’s “moments of grace.” A car skids and caterwhomps off the road in front of you…What would you do? Stop, ignore, something in-between? That word: integrity.
To use the list above to get at the core of the novel. Which of the list is the most important? War, you say. No, the marriage. Certainly family…
No. It is number four, concerning itself with Work.
Stoner is a rhetorical text; it argues for honest (as in you know and believe in what you are doing) work; specifically, for an authentic and passionate and worthy life as a teacher.
Here is author John Williams (a professor, a founded of a CW dept, etc) on his protagonist, Stoner:
“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. 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…Teaching to him is a job—a job in the good and honorable 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.”
Williams recognizes the oft folly of university life, but he addresses the subject head-on, and then constructs an existence of meaning for Stoner within the Ivory Tower. In the opening, the subject is taken to task, as three instructors (with newly printed grad diplomas, just entering this world of academia as teachers) sit over boiled eggs and beer (an excellent medium for critical discussion) and pick the bones of the university, its purpose.
Is it “…a great repository, like a library or a whorehouse, where men come of their free will and select that which will complete them, where all work together like little bees in a common hive. The True, the good, the Beautiful. They’re just around the corner…”
Or is it, “…a kind of spiritual sulphur-and-molasses that you administer every fall to get the little bastards through another winter; and you’re the kindly old doctor who benignly pats their heads and pockets their fees.”
Or maybe, more damning: “It is an asylum or—what do they call them now?—a rest home, for the infirm, the aged, the discontent, and the otherwise incompetent.”
(Note he is talking of the professors here, not the students.)
Williams says possibly so, possibly so, then Stoner lives a life in an attempt to say, No. No. Certainly no.
Love, or is it so? Love as real, as lost, as mythology. (I would like to speak to romantic love here–all its real and unreal, wonderful and terrible fragments–but I am trying to avoid writing a book about a book. Do note, it is the second rhetorical subject, the second argument…
“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person ones loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.”
But I digress, and I do not mean to. Stoner is about teaching. The novel argues for teaching English as you might feel about writing and reading English: a creative act, a loved labor, the mind’s joy of taking on the difficult. The love of learning, and of passionately passing on this learning to another. Sounds flaky; it is not in these pages. Many who write are going to one day teach. (Many writers are forced into teaching who do not want to, but that is whole other discussion about CW programs and comp class needs.) This book is not smart or cute or ironic or hip; it is simply relentless in its argument for love–want, need, being present–as key to teaching, and the teaching life.
William Stoner retires. He is old and tired, and hardly able to rise from his seat (at his own university dinner) to give the final speech of his academic career.
“I have taught…” he said. He began again. “I have taught at this University for nearly forty years. I do not know what I would have done if I had not been a teacher…” Then he said, with a finality, “I want to thank you all for letting me teach.”
Indeed.
This book will take you 4 hours, 11 minutes to finish. You might want to clear your calendar and read it twice.
That is all.
Tags: John Williams, teaching, University Novels
Loved this book.
Loved this book.
This will go on my list of “to read.” Thanks.
This will go on my list of “to read.” Thanks.
Oh my God. This is one of my favorite books ever. _Stoner_ read me like a book. Thanks for this, Sean.
Oh my God. This is one of my favorite books ever. _Stoner_ read me like a book. Thanks for this, Sean.
That said, I don’t really get this book-o-the-day stuff. It feels racelike to me; like teaching, reading is an act of love and engagement. Not a move to conquer or “finish” the work. Should books be read in one sitting?
That said, I don’t really get this book-o-the-day stuff. It feels racelike to me; like teaching, reading is an act of love and engagement. Not a move to conquer or “finish” the work. Should books be read in one sitting?
Um, yeh, back off…Book-o-the-day is catchy title, campy, whatever, not so much life reading or philosophy. I finished this book today and want to post it today.
Sometimes a cigar is indeed a cigar.
That said, I think books can be read in a reading, and some should be. Other media are done in one sitting. Is that an insult to books? Maybe it’s a new way to read books. What is fundamentally wrong with opening a book and reading it and ending it, in one setting?
Is that sacrilege?
Maybe this will start a new post.
I don’t find it essentially shallow/wrong to actually read a book in one sitting.
Merry holidays, too.
S
Um, yeh, back off…Book-o-the-day is catchy title, campy, whatever, not so much life reading or philosophy. I finished this book today and want to post it today.
Sometimes a cigar is indeed a cigar.
That said, I think books can be read in a reading, and some should be. Other media are done in one sitting. Is that an insult to books? Maybe it’s a new way to read books. What is fundamentally wrong with opening a book and reading it and ending it, in one setting?
Is that sacrilege?
Maybe this will start a new post.
I don’t find it essentially shallow/wrong to actually read a book in one sitting.
Merry holidays, too.
S
Sean, I didn’t at all mean to insult you or this series of posts. I’ve enjoyed them all. I’m just questioning–not condemning–the experience of a certain reading-practice. I do believe, however, that different media–and different books–require, and often demand, specific orientations. Again, my intention was not to condemn, only to open up discussion. I didn’t, at all, mean to suggest that your method is shallow.
Sean, I didn’t at all mean to insult you or this series of posts. I’ve enjoyed them all. I’m just questioning–not condemning–the experience of a certain reading-practice. I do believe, however, that different media–and different books–require, and often demand, specific orientations. Again, my intention was not to condemn, only to open up discussion. I didn’t, at all, mean to suggest that your method is shallow.
These comments remind me of a past HTML G post with a video of Gary Lutz giving a talk that starts with the idea that there are readers who are page-turners and readers who are word huggers. I personally tend toward word hugging; it takes me a long time (relatively) to read a book, I will read a word, or a phrase or a line or a page several times, if I “need” to, or it ‘”warrants” it, or I want to, am compelled to, etc. And I am fairly picky about what I will spend my time reading as I know that each book will be an investment of my time.
But my main point is that there are different types of readers and reading, all valid. I am amazed when someone reads many many books, or a book in one sitting, because it is something I am unable to do. On the other hand, I consider myself a fairly competent reader. I just don’t seem to be able to absorb so much. I tend to savor.
These comments remind me of a past HTML G post with a video of Gary Lutz giving a talk that starts with the idea that there are readers who are page-turners and readers who are word huggers. I personally tend toward word hugging; it takes me a long time (relatively) to read a book, I will read a word, or a phrase or a line or a page several times, if I “need” to, or it ‘”warrants” it, or I want to, am compelled to, etc. And I am fairly picky about what I will spend my time reading as I know that each book will be an investment of my time.
But my main point is that there are different types of readers and reading, all valid. I am amazed when someone reads many many books, or a book in one sitting, because it is something I am unable to do. On the other hand, I consider myself a fairly competent reader. I just don’t seem to be able to absorb so much. I tend to savor.
Right, me too. When I hear that people read entire novels in one sitting, I feel like my tendency to bear carefully on each word is a disability, a handicap. My first comment, if it seemed aggressive or harsh, was coming from a place of inadequacy. But I of course agree that there are many types of reading, and many types of readers, and that all (with notable exceptions, e.g. eating or fucking the book or something) are equal and evince both similar AND different attitudes toward the act of reading.
Right, me too. When I hear that people read entire novels in one sitting, I feel like my tendency to bear carefully on each word is a disability, a handicap. My first comment, if it seemed aggressive or harsh, was coming from a place of inadequacy. But I of course agree that there are many types of reading, and many types of readers, and that all (with notable exceptions, e.g. eating or fucking the book or something) are equal and evince both similar AND different attitudes toward the act of reading.
And I really get what you’re saying re: absorption. I don’t think I absorbed Stoner nearly as well as Sean did here. So clearly there is something to be said for the immersion of a single-sitting read.
And I really get what you’re saying re: absorption. I don’t think I absorbed Stoner nearly as well as Sean did here. So clearly there is something to be said for the immersion of a single-sitting read.
one thing i’ve found beneficial about reading a book in one sitting is that details happening earlier on in the book seem to stick in my head better towards the end of the novel. it’s easier for me to really tie the whole thing together. i get the feeling, the longer i take to read a book, the less i truly “get” the whole picture. i smoke a lot of weed though, so maybe other people don’t really have this problem.
one thing i’ve found beneficial about reading a book in one sitting is that details happening earlier on in the book seem to stick in my head better towards the end of the novel. it’s easier for me to really tie the whole thing together. i get the feeling, the longer i take to read a book, the less i truly “get” the whole picture. i smoke a lot of weed though, so maybe other people don’t really have this problem.
ha! MERRY CHRISTMAS
no offense here, alec!
ha! MERRY CHRISTMAS
no offense here, alec!
Nice post Sean. One of my top ten novels!
Nice post Sean. One of my top ten novels!
Maybe one of my top three. Butcher’s Crossing is another great one.
Maybe one of my top three. Butcher’s Crossing is another great one.
Oh, I couldn’t tell whether you were, like, insulted or offended, um…
Merry Christmas!
Oh, I couldn’t tell whether you were, like, insulted or offended, um…
Merry Christmas!
This novel seems have enjoyed a resurgence of interest over the last couple years, and it’s well-deserved. I’m happy people are discovering it. It can be read quickly–as I suppose Sean’s experience is testimony–but what I think it miraculous about the book is how thoroughly it ignores/avoids most novelistic “attention-getting” conceits. Other than acknowledging the protagonist’s death (which it does so matter-of-factly, which is to say, without establishing mystery), it introduces very little in the way of stakes or tensions. As Sean points out, you must simply be interested in Stoner’s decisions themselves, and the way they shape his character. There are simply no “bells and whistles.”
I wonder if people are drawn to it exactly because it presents a kind of reprieve from the plot or language pyrotechnics that are everywhere expected and celebrated–Stoner, in its simplicity and dedication to careful, well-paced character development amid prose that does not draw attention to itself, is almost everything that most of the books talked about on blogs like GIANT aren’t (not to say there’s anything wrong with, say, Gary Lutz, but just that Stoner is almost the anti-Lutz).
This novel seems have enjoyed a resurgence of interest over the last couple years, and it’s well-deserved. I’m happy people are discovering it. It can be read quickly–as I suppose Sean’s experience is testimony–but what I think it miraculous about the book is how thoroughly it ignores/avoids most novelistic “attention-getting” conceits. Other than acknowledging the protagonist’s death (which it does so matter-of-factly, which is to say, without establishing mystery), it introduces very little in the way of stakes or tensions. As Sean points out, you must simply be interested in Stoner’s decisions themselves, and the way they shape his character. There are simply no “bells and whistles.”
I wonder if people are drawn to it exactly because it presents a kind of reprieve from the plot or language pyrotechnics that are everywhere expected and celebrated–Stoner, in its simplicity and dedication to careful, well-paced character development amid prose that does not draw attention to itself, is almost everything that most of the books talked about on blogs like GIANT aren’t (not to say there’s anything wrong with, say, Gary Lutz, but just that Stoner is almost the anti-Lutz).
There are definite benefits, I think, in reading in one sitting. For me, it doesn’t matter how wonderful or compelling a piece of literature is, I cannot read it in an entire session. I don’t operate in that fashion. I have to take a break. I have to put it down, collect myself. Take a walk.
The last book I read front to back (that wasn’t simple) the same day I got it was “Crazy Cock” by Henry Miller. It’s a good primer for the “Tropics,” by the way. By the time I got to the last chapter, I was feeling extremely antsy.
I find myself thinking about certain stretches of prose. Bits of dialogue. Because my background is in drama, I focus a lot on character. I try to picture what I’m reading on a stage.
It’s simply impossible for me to go from cover to cover, so I think it’s cool when people can. ESPECIALLY if they can show an understanding of the text, or… in this case, put so much thought into one’s own understanding.
There are definite benefits, I think, in reading in one sitting. For me, it doesn’t matter how wonderful or compelling a piece of literature is, I cannot read it in an entire session. I don’t operate in that fashion. I have to take a break. I have to put it down, collect myself. Take a walk.
The last book I read front to back (that wasn’t simple) the same day I got it was “Crazy Cock” by Henry Miller. It’s a good primer for the “Tropics,” by the way. By the time I got to the last chapter, I was feeling extremely antsy.
I find myself thinking about certain stretches of prose. Bits of dialogue. Because my background is in drama, I focus a lot on character. I try to picture what I’m reading on a stage.
It’s simply impossible for me to go from cover to cover, so I think it’s cool when people can. ESPECIALLY if they can show an understanding of the text, or… in this case, put so much thought into one’s own understanding.
Shya, you know that episode of 30 Rock where Jack wants to find a new actor for the show, so he and Liz go to a comedy club in, like, Mississippi, because he thinks that backwoods southern people are more attuned to core American values than jaded New Yorkers? And then, at the comedy club, everybody heckles Liz and he realizes that anybody can be cruel, regardless of background?
To my mind, Stoner is a complex book that I think has truck with the same power struggles and psychological dramas of, say, Lutz’s work. Sure, they are two different paths. I think one reason Stoner’s path–conventional realism–receives less attention here is because it is, for whatever reason, less relevant or urgent to “us” now than ever.
Shya, you know that episode of 30 Rock where Jack wants to find a new actor for the show, so he and Liz go to a comedy club in, like, Mississippi, because he thinks that backwoods southern people are more attuned to core American values than jaded New Yorkers? And then, at the comedy club, everybody heckles Liz and he realizes that anybody can be cruel, regardless of background?
To my mind, Stoner is a complex book that I think has truck with the same power struggles and psychological dramas of, say, Lutz’s work. Sure, they are two different paths. I think one reason Stoner’s path–conventional realism–receives less attention here is because it is, for whatever reason, less relevant or urgent to “us” now than ever.
it’s not a novel but PF Kluge’s Alma Mater is a brilliant, nasty look at university professors, life, etc (takes place at Kenyon)
it’s not a novel but PF Kluge’s Alma Mater is a brilliant, nasty look at university professors, life, etc (takes place at Kenyon)
The interest seems to be growing, and that’s the trend I’m noting.
The interest seems to be growing, and that’s the trend I’m noting.
e.g., if you google Stoner + Williams, you’ll see a preponderance of positive reviews and blog posts about it from the last 2 years or so, and I think that’s interesting. It’s been around for a while. Why the renewed interest? I think it might be the “reprieve” I mentioned above. Everyone’s into acrobatics. Acrobatics! Keep me interested or I’ll start yawning! I bore easily!
But actually, you might not. Which is interesting. You might not grow bored with a story told well, even without all the things you’ve come to expect from “important” literature. How many times have you heard someone say “Open X up on any page, and you’ll know it’s a great book!” Stoner would not perform well in such a contest. You have to read more than three sentences to be impressed.
Speaking of acrobatics, I just saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus.
Meh.
e.g., if you google Stoner + Williams, you’ll see a preponderance of positive reviews and blog posts about it from the last 2 years or so, and I think that’s interesting. It’s been around for a while. Why the renewed interest? I think it might be the “reprieve” I mentioned above. Everyone’s into acrobatics. Acrobatics! Keep me interested or I’ll start yawning! I bore easily!
But actually, you might not. Which is interesting. You might not grow bored with a story told well, even without all the things you’ve come to expect from “important” literature. How many times have you heard someone say “Open X up on any page, and you’ll know it’s a great book!” Stoner would not perform well in such a contest. You have to read more than three sentences to be impressed.
Speaking of acrobatics, I just saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus.
Meh.
I think the renewed interest is due to the NYRB reprint + the fact that it’s a fantastic book. But that kind of antipodal relation to acrobatics makes a lot of sense. Probably a big factor.
I don’t know though, if I read the first page of Stoner as a total outsider, I think I’d be hooked. One of the best first pages I’ve ever read.
How was that movie? I just saw Up in the Air and it was boring as fuck.
I think the renewed interest is due to the NYRB reprint + the fact that it’s a fantastic book. But that kind of antipodal relation to acrobatics makes a lot of sense. Probably a big factor.
I don’t know though, if I read the first page of Stoner as a total outsider, I think I’d be hooked. One of the best first pages I’ve ever read.
How was that movie? I just saw Up in the Air and it was boring as fuck.
I love Stoner, and I’m glad other people are enjoying it.
I love Stoner, and I’m glad other people are enjoying it.
I was up way too late last night finishing Stoner. Great great great great.
I was up way too late last night finishing Stoner. Great great great great.
does he ever smoked weed ?
*smoke
does he ever smoked weed ?
*smoke