I've just finished reading what I am pretty certain is a great novel. The surprising thing about is that it was published as recently as 1965, and that nobody on this side of the pond seems to have so much as heard of it. I only learned of its existence from references on American literary blogs (especially Patrick Kurp's) but didn't get round to buying and reading it until now. John Williams's Stoner is an old-fashioned novel which tells the life story of one man from childhood to death in a straightforward linear narrative. What holds the attention - and it is quite riveting, impossible to skip or speed-read - is the delicate skill with which Williams builds his character, traces the events (internal and external) of his life and paints in the people important to him.
William Stoner is born into a dirt-poor farming family in Missouri, gets sent to the state university to study agriculture, but changes tack when he falls in love with literature and learning, and embraces the academic life. He suffers a succession of disappointments: a misguided marriage estranges him from his family, then in turn from his wife and daughter; his career is stymied when he makes an implacable enemy at the university; and his belated discovery of new, true love is doomed to a premature end. And yet, despite all this, Stoner is, in the end, in his stoic way, a triumphant figure. By the time of his death, the reader - this reader anyway - feels that he not only knows but loves him, and is unlikely to be left dry-eyed.
It's hard to pin down quite how Williams brings Stoner so completely and compellingly to life. I guess it is just the old-fashioned virtues of close imaginative attention and accurate (at the deepest level) prose - unshowy but perfectly modulated - along with a delicate, tender honesty. Williams is clear-sighted, lucid and - when it comes to Stoner - loving. Though he is technically in the position of omniscient narrator, he keeps himself entirely out of the picture - as I said, this is old-fashioned, no-nonsense storytelling. But it works miracles. All I can say is: Read This Book.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Just finished too Nige - for the second time. It is so obviously a great novel that I'm amazed that I stumbled upon it almost by accident on a market stall. A few words at the start stay with me 'Stoner's colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now'. He was everyman I suppose. He tried to do the right thing throughout his life, but ended up enduring his existence instead of enjoying it. The writing is so perfect you hardly notice that you are reading it. And the last few pages, dealing with his passing, are completely devastating
ReplyDeleteAh so glad you've stumbled on it too Mahlerman - and I so agree about the last few pages. All in all it really does seem to be something like the perfect novel...
ReplyDeleteI hope your right, Nige, I've just bought it to add to the vast pile awaiting consumption.
ReplyDeleteSkipping through your post one could easily mistake it for a tale of Don Draper's less glamorous and academic alter ego.
Oh yes - Don Draper saved by literature! A nice idea. He was seen reading Frank O'Hara once...
ReplyDeleteWilliams' two genre novels, Butcher's Crossing (a "Western") and Augustus (Roman historical), reach almost the same heights as Stoner. Read them if you can find them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip Waldonymous - I was wondering about his other work...
ReplyDeleteThis won't succeed as a matter of fact, that's exactly what I consider.
ReplyDelete