John Williams

WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2013 'It's the most marvellous discovery for everyone who loves literature' Ian McEwan, BBC Radio 4 Colum McCann once called Stoner one of the great forgotten novels of the past century, but it seems it is forgotten no longer âe" in 2013 translations of Stoner began appearing on bestseller lists across Europe. Forty-eight years after its first, quiet publication in the US, Stoner is finally finding the wide and devoted readership it deserves. Have you read it yet? William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely. Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value. Stoner tells of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history, and reclaims the significance of an individual life. A reading experience like no other, itself a paean to the power of literature, it is a novel to be savoured.

Stoner

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.
--back cover

kemi

The flesh is strong, he thought; stronger than we imagine. It wants always to go on.

Jessiel Diez

Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.

Lula Diaz

En su primera juventud Stoner había considerado el amor como un estado absoluto de la existencia al que uno podía tener acceso si la suerte lo ayudaba; al madurar había decidido que era el paraíso de una religión falsa que se debía enfrentar con sardónico escepticismo, cálido desdén y embarazosa nostalgia. En su madurez comenzó a entender que no era un estado de gracia ni una ilusión; lo veía como un acto humano de transformación, un estado que se inventaba y modificaba momento a momento y día a día, con la voluntad, la inteligencia y el corazón. 

A los cuarenta y tres años, William Stoner aprendió lo que otros, mucho más jóvenes, habían aprendido antes que él: que la persona que uno ama al principio no es la persona que uno ama al final, y que el amor no es un fin sino un proceso mediante el Cual una persona intenta conocer a otra. 

El amor por la literatura, por el lenguaje, por el misterio de la mente y el corazón manifestándose en combinaciones minuciosas, extrañas e inesperadas de letras y palabras, en letra de molde negra y fría… comenzó a desplegar el amor que había escondido como si fuera ilícito y peligroso, al principio con timidez, luego con audacia, y al fin con orgullo.

(..) la epifanía de conocer por medio de las palabras algo que no se podía expresar con palabras, (…)

Read the greatest rediscovered classic of recent years 'A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life' Ian McEwan William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely. Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value - of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history - and in doing so reclaims the significance of an individual life. 'A brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise and elegant novel' Nick Hornby ‘A terrific novel of echoing sadness’ Julian Barnes

A Novel

Holly 

was reading this book while watching/listening to moya mawhinney's latest youtube video and the combination of the soundtrack + the writing made me pity stoner's life and vow to make some changes to my own life

_linia_

a boring retelling of a man’s monotonous academic and personal life. reminds me of when you go through the motions and suddenly you’re a little older than you were some time ago with nothing exceptional to say about what you’ve done with your wasted time. 

love my nothing burgers! i’m always so captivated. this book was perfect at what it set out to do. 

rachel

a boring retelling of a man’s monotonous academic and personal life. reminds me of when you go through the motions and suddenly you’re a little older than you were some time ago with nothing exceptional to say about what you’ve done with your wasted time. 

love my nothing burgers! i’m always so captivated. this book was perfect at what it set out to do. 

The literary equivalent of a glass of water. Not the most strongly flavoured or fizzy or intoxicating, but thirst-quenchingly pure in ways nothing else can be. 

Luke Pearce

Kévin-Lâm Quesnel 

Drew Nerbas

Really thought provoking a moving, however a little boring at time. Definitely not an easy read mentally.

Chris Dailey

Precise and plain prose endear the reader to life of a simple man who finds his version of the American dream. Born dirt poor (literally) William Stoner ends up in the halls of Academia teaching English to mainly disinterested pupils while navigating university politics as well as his own familial ones. The sum is greater than the parts here, with themes of family, education, sensuality, passion, and work along with a narrative of the rise of America in the first half of the 20th century. The synopsis sounds banal, but the straightforward writing excels at catching the intimacy and devastation of the characters.

Ainsley Jeffery

I am immensely drawn to the passive character of William Stoner, but I found myself plagued by a bittersweet melancholy that he let life happen to him without making any effort to pursue life as he craved it. The relationships and life Stoner lived made me uncomfortable and sad. It’s easy to feel happiness from a book, but to feel truly sad is a hard task to accomplish crafting the sympathy one can find through a written work.

James Wattie

Everything everyone says about this book is true. It’s boring. It’s mundane. But it’s an addicting read. The equivalent of a drive in the country you don’t want to end.

picked up at a random cause of the goofy name, will trust my intuition more often. Ordinary, depressing but beautiful, man with integrity and do things right by the book only to be wronged by circumstances 99% of our lives mine included, sad glimpse at the end of the tunnel fr

mimi nguyen

a truly inspiring story of a very normal, not so greater than life individual. Nothing about the story, or the characters is extraordinary. Nothing in its existence actually stands out. Some may find it underwhelming at times. But never before has a story made me feel more human. This is one of those stories you remember long after the last page has been turned. The acceptance of what you have been handed in life and everything it entails, all of it truly makes the story of William Stoner an absolution of your own blue existence.

diya

Louis Norton

Made me think of an Andrew Wyeth painting… loved…

Oof. This one snuck up on me. It's mostly the story of an unexceptional life, but it's also about the things that transcend the mundane (loving people, books, etc.). It's effortlessly and deeply emotional. It will stick with me. Williams is a favorite.

elizabeth

Naomi

Bella Baxter

One must admit to herself that she is not a literary fiction girl. 

This book was fine. This book was depressing. I do not care for this book. Nicely written, but almost in a pretentious way, like, maybe it’s just me, but I would never want to be in a graduate school environment lmaooo the absolute egos and political nature of academia. I guess the author was a professor himself? If so, it shows. 

I do not like these characters, lol. Is mediocre a defining feature of characters in literary fiction? I think Finch is the only one I liked.

I fucking hate Edith. Lomax, I actually get, like any arrogant MF desperate for power and influence, no matter how ruthless the means. My dislike for him actually eased up when I realized why he was the way he was. But Edith? A vile human. I do not care what her upbringing was like in whatever time period. ANYONE can always choose to be better and she chose to be worse. She can choke. 

One thing I will say is that I really enjoyed the relationship Stoner had with Grace in her early years. It was hopeful, his life was better, he was happy. That little girl LOVED him. Even though they didn’t really talk to each other, she preferred to be there with him, and honestly, sometimes just existing together is enough. But for him, it wasn’t enough, and he destroyed his own daughter. I’m just going to say it. It is just as much his fault as it is Edith’s for making her into the person she became. Imagine if he fought for her as much as he did to keep his side piece? And this is who people are calling a hero? Yikes. 

Yet despite my thoughts, I still ate it all up. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Romance publicado em 1965, caído no esquecimento. Tal como o seu autor, John Williams – também ele um obscuro professor americano, de uma obscura universidade.
Passados quase 50 anos, o mesmo amor à literatura que movia a personagem principal levou a que uma escritora, Anna Gavalda, traduzisse o livro perdido. Outras edições se seguiram, em vários países da Europa. E em 2013, quando os leitores da livraria britânica Waterstones foram chamados a eleger o melhor livro do ano, escolheram uma relíquia. 
Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Bret Easton Ellis, entre muitos outros escritores, juntaram-se ao coro e resgataram a obra, repetindo por outras palavras a síntese do jornalista Bryan Appleyard: "É o melhor romance que ninguém leu". Porque é que um romance tão emocionalmente exigente renasce das cinzas e se torna num espontâneo sucesso comercial nas mais diferentes latitudes? A resposta está no livro. Na era da híper comunicação, Stoner devolve-nos o sentido de intimidade, deixa-nos a sós com aquele homem tristonho, de vida apagada. Fechamos a porta, partilhamos com ele a devoção à literatura, revemo-nos nos seus fracassos; sabendo que todo o desapontamento e solidão são relativos – se tivermos um livro a que nos agarrar.

Source: https://www.leyaonline.com/pt/ebooks/stoner-ebook/

Teresa Bonifácio

** spoiler alert **
           It seems Stoner’s life was miserable or sad but I felt that he was happy with how the choices he made affected his life. He had a job that he loved and he was able to work on it for 40 years. 
In the end he was able to get some “comfort” with how his life went. Even with his wife and daughter. He had two close friends. One died and the other always had his back and was always there for him even when life got in the way. 
Stoner had a life that was better than most people’s and I really liked reading about it!

William Stoner, fiul unor fermieri, se inscrie la Universitatea din Missouri pentru a studia agricultura. Incet-incet, isi da seama ca adevarata sa vocatie este literatura. Ajuns profesor, va incerca sa insufle generatiilor de studenti dragostea pentru lectura, ducind in acelasi timp o viata aparent banala, care capata insa o valoare universala. E, de fapt, viata majoritatii dintre noi, cu conflictele, singuratatile, izbinzile si mai ales infringerile noastre intr-o lume cel mai adesea potrivnica. Stoner este o experienta literara unica, un imn inchinat literaturii care ne modeleaza vietile.
--back cover

Maria

i don’t have any strong feelings, i guess i was both expecting something else and in the mood for something a bit more hopeful and less realistic? that being said, i think the characters were written really well, the writing had a very clear, vivid tone to it.

Tobias V. Langhoff

This is a pretty straightforward novel. I would say it's deceptively straightforward, but that's not really true. The narrative is linear, there are no metaphors, the prose is spartan, and the plot is simple. It's about the life of a very unremarkable man who lives a boring life. And yet the book manages to tell us a lot about the human condition. You don't have to read between the lines here, but the lines themselves are fantastic. The book is just about that boring life, which still contains all that really matters in all lives in the end: passions of the mind, heart and loins; friendship and animosity; life and death. There are so many great passages in this book – for me, the ones that captured my own romantic view on academia were the most memorable – that left me thinking about the beauty of life. If that sounds pretentious to you, then this book might not capture you like it did me, but Stoner is not actually as pretentious as any review of it is bound to be. The one word that best describes this novel to me is poignant.

Beautiful story and an exploration on the ambiguity of happiness. What is it and should you chase happiness at the cost of others? 

Miranda 

Technically well written, but lacks a great deal of empathy. 

The book is told from the protagonist perspective in such a way that we never dwell inside the minds of other characters, we are never given their motives, they never take shape from the dull and superficial image that Stoner is giving us.

We are given the story an apparently good guy trying to live is life, while the rest of the world is getting in the way. But there's a great deal of victimisation: portraying himself as bold and principled, and helpless to the will of others at the same time.

Failing to recognise his own role in the events that happen. No, he's doing his best, he must be right, whatever others think of him it's their own problem.

An husband that never tried to confront her wife, to understand her motives. That was never able to fight for her own daughter that he claimed to love so much. And ignoring all that, romanticizing his love affair, framing it as a battle against the cruelty of the world.

The narrative lead us to believe that he's a sort of regular everyday hero. But taking a step back we can recognise how little closure Stoner got throughout his life. He would occupy his mind with work instead of closing the distance between people. And how ironic that he's a literature teacher with profound admiration for Shakespeare, while lacking so much romanticism for life.

We rarely see him expressing admiration. We see him rationalising circumstances in order to not face the troubles at home. Years pass by and no attention to detail is given. Nothing really happens.

Why? Because our lovely protagonist is more of a sociopath than a hero. It uses the power of literature to make a caricature of his own feelings at the expense of everyone else's. He lashes out great depictions of scenarios in an almost theatrical way, while striking down whatever he dislikes with a dull and unforgiving writing.

Ray Remnant

Technically well written, but lacks a great deal of empathy. 

The book is told from the protagonist perspective in such a way that we never dwell inside the minds of other characters, we are never given their motives, they never take shape from the dull and superficial image that Stoner is giving us.

We are given the story an apparently good guy trying to live is life, while the rest of the world is getting in the way. But there's a great deal of victimisation: portraying himself as bold and principled, and helpless to the will of others at the same time.

Failing to recognise his own role in the events that happen. No, he's doing his best, he must be right, whatever others think of him it's their own problem.

An husband that never tried to confront her wife, to understand her motives. That was never able to fight for her own daughter that he claimed to love so much. And ignoring all that, romanticizing his love affair, framing it as a battle against the cruelty of the world.

The narrative lead us to believe that he's a sort of regular everyday hero. But taking a step back we can recognise how little closure Stoner got throughout his life. He would occupy his mind with work instead of closing the distance between people. And how ironic that he's a literature teacher with profound admiration for Shakespeare, while lacking so much romanticism for life.

We rarely see him expressing admiration. We see him rationalising circumstances in order to not face the troubles at home. Years pass by and no attention to detail is given. Nothing really happens.

Why? Because our lovely protagonist is more of a sociopath than a hero. It uses the power of literature to make a caricature of his own feelings at the expense of everyone else's. He lashes out great depictions of scenarios in an almost theatrical way, while striking down whatever he dislikes with a dull and unforgiving writing.



William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely.

Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value. Stoner tells of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history, and reclaims the significance of an individual life. A reading experience like no other, itself a paean to the power of literature, it is a novel to be savoured.

--back cover

“You must remember what you are and what you have chosen to become, and the significance of what you are doing. There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not military and that are not recorded in the annals of history. Remember that while you're trying to decide what to do.”
--------------------

So, here is a little story of how my Stoner journey totally flipped on me and I didn’t even feel it coming.

Starting this book, I had quite a few apprehensions. It wasn’t the type of book I was in the mood for. It seemed a bit boring, too. Why did it have such high ratings? Well, I borrowed it from the library on a moment’s whim, and now I should commit. I can get through it.
A few pages in, the apprehensions became considerable doubts. By page 20, I was just plain unwilling to go on. Except, somewhere along the line, I found myself mildly interested in this extraordinarily mediocre man’s life. And then, I was invested.

In the gray-tinted life of the frustratingly passive (and aptly named) Stoner, devoid of much ambition, happiness, or passion at its heart, there are certain moments of honest brilliance that was surprising to witness. The writing itself feels impactful through its starkness and realness, in turn creating a very satisfying and (perhaps ironically) emotional read. We are reminded that, yes, in life no joy or despair lasts, and after a short journey, you die.
Depressing? Yes. But also, somehow beautifully simple.

I am not sure if this book will be memorable for me in the long run. Something in me says no. But with its final chapter, it was a pleasant surprise overall.

jack

wow. this book was such an absolute trip. i fell in love with this so fast and just got engulfed by it. just stayed up till 5 am to finish it.

this book is perfect. williams writes so beautifully and deliberately it made me tear up at points. the dichotomy of articulation vs. clumsiness was beautiful. the way he depicts love, and how that depiction grows and changes throughout the book. the evolving concept of identity. there is so much to love in this book. an instant favorite for sure. the way williams talks about teaching and words just captivates me, as i have the same love as stoner.

“In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt, and an embarrassed nostalgia. Now... he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence of the heart.” 

fuckin crazy

jess

Stoner is the story on the acceptance of a quiet life. A story of a quiet man who was not really seen, would not be remembered. Stoner reminds us of the value of reading and study, of the time literature suddenly made some kind of sense and suggested a way of understanding life. I found him quietly comforting, there is a dignity in the way he lives his life. He isn’t a man who lashes out when confronted with the toxicity of others, but stand rooted on his ground, and sometimes fluxate the argument within himself. The stressed brutality of life occupied throughout the whole prose gives an unbearable solace - to readers - that in every reality there's a silver lining of hope; whatever we grip ourselves on to veer through it, as in Stoner's case, it's his job; that serves as the skeleton that forms and supports his life.

iamazoo

a perfect book, no notes. quietly devastating and razor-sharp in its bleak moments, yet tender, humble, and ultimately triumphant.

Stoner

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