Every now and then a great book fails to have the impact it merits. It’s not because it’s highbrow. It’s not because it’s a low-budget launch by a minor publisher. It’s not because it attracted unfavourable reviews upon its release or because its author is unknown or previously unpublished. It’s just because that’s the way it happens: Those in publishing shrug and scratch their heads, novels they consider inferior win that year’s round of prizes, and lesser novels remain better-loved and better-read.
Stoner, by John Williams, first published – and virtually ignored – in 1965, threatened to be such a novel. Ever since its release, though, literary heavyweights have been lining up to sing its praises – from Irving Howe and CP Snow in the sixties and seventies to Morris Dickstein in 2007 (whose essay in The New York Times included the following praise: "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").
A New Edition of Stoner by John Williams
The above essay came a year after the release of a new edition by The New York Review of Books, meaning Stoner is still in print today, and still being lauded by literary luminaries: As recently as September last year, English uber-agent Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown tweeted the following: "Anyone who has any taste or even thinks they like novels must read Stoner by John Williams."
So what is Stoner by John Williams about?
On the surface of things, not very much.
Born to dirt-poor Midwestern farmers, the eponymous William Stoner arrives at the University of Missouri in 1910 to study agriculture with the sole intention of completing his studies and returning to help his parents run their farm. He never goes back.
Inspired by the Professor of English literature, Stoner switches from agriculture to literature midway through his second year and then goes on to become a teacher at the University, where he remains employed for the rest of his life.
Stoner Is Nowhere Near as Dry as it Sounds, Though
What follows is not the dull, dry academic study of higher education the subject matter suggests, but an intense portrayal of Stoner’s lifelong dedication to his university, a stark appraisal of the marriage he embarks upon with naivety and then persists with long after the first sparks of romance have died, and a heartrending insight into what it must be to put dedication ahead of ambition, commitment ahead of true love.
So Why Should Today's Readers Seek Out Stoner by John Williams?
Written in a style that still feels contemporary today, this classic novel of university life also contains the study of a marriage between two educated people who don’t understand what love is – let alone sex – that often makes for powerful and brutal reading, as does its depiction of a love affair sacrificed for the sake of appearances rather than feelings.
As with many of the great characters of literature, readers can learn so much more about life by reading Stoner than he ever manages to work out by living it himself.
This may well be why so many people from the literary world keep asking why so few others have read it.
Stoner by John Williams
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Publication date: 20 June 2006
ISBN-10:1590171993
ISBN-13: 978-1590171998
Daniel Clay - My debut novel, Broken, was published in the Uk, US and Canada and shortlisted for The Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2009 and ...
