John Williams - Stoner

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.

Comment: This is another book I was able to borrow from my best friend. It seems this book is considered a classic but hasn't had a lot of attention until a french translator decided to, well, translate it, and from her work onward, others did the same. This book was, again, being recommended by readers and is still seen as a hidden gem among many other classics....

William Stoner is an English teacher at a university in Missouri in the early 20th century. He is given the chance to study the equivalent of agronomy so that he can keep on helping his parents, who have a farm. It is with much difficulty they make this possible for him, and that is also why he feels both guilty and excited when he discovers the beauty of English and switches his major, enabling him to become an English teacher. The rest of his life is a series of demands and challenges, small mercies and huge disappointments, but Stoner remains faithful to his character and to his love of English and of the written word...

This is definitely a quiet book. It's not a book someone should read for action or for fast paced plot twists. It is, like Stoner himself felt, a way for us to enjoy the beauty of language, the beauty of how small things, apparently unimportant things, end up touching us and causing a reaction we would dismiss at first.

William Stoner is a wonderful character, someone who remains true to himself and his thoughts, only sinning, in my POV, by being too complacent in his personal life, but that, too, is part of who he is. I'd say he is an introvert, someone who is happy with his little things and preferences and even when life gives him reason to be sad or angry, he reacts with dignity and calm, proving that if there is one difference in how humans evolved is that in the past people would not have easy access to devices in which to vent, and they probably were more introspect.

The book starts by saying there isn't much to remember about Stoner, nor as a person, nor as a teacher. Most people in the planet could be described this way, we might not be much for the majority, in fact most of the world will never know who we are, but for a small group of people, we are someone. Yes, Stoner isn't a larger than life type of character, but he is special in his way and I really loved it how the author tried to show this through a simple but powerful language.

If there is one issue for me is that we seem to only focus on a few moments in Stoner's life, and the examples used, were certainly picked for them to play a role in how we perceive Stoner, but sometimes this felt too glaring in how it highlighted Stoner's bittersweet life. I get it, but part of me wishes he could have had some more obvious happy times. Although, I could counter argue myself by saying that is is precisely the depressing situations and emotions that make the book feel so impactful for me.

Stoner doesn't have a happy life if we see it through the lens of what is being sold to us, in our contemporary existence. But why should it, if what makes one happy isn't always what makes the other that way? Everyone is different and I did like how I could kind of see myself in Stoner, in the sense that I also like to be alone doing my things, just reading or not talking to lot of people. I also feel that my loneliness or my need to just what I have to without continuous demands and/or ambition makes me happy just the way I am. 

Stoner faces a lot challenges but he never acts impulsively, all his actions - including the ones we might not agree with - are thoughtful and happen because he feels them intensely,even if he can't understand how to verbalize or explain them. I kept rooting for him to succeed in whatever issues he had to deal with. I also cried when this book ended, which one can predict since the author states it right in the first paragraph, but... it still caught me by how emotional it made me feel.

I liked this book, I liked the writing, I liked the vibe and the protagonist. I think the story is a bit too melancholic for me to feel like re-reading, but part of me wishes I could have such a dedicated friend as Stoner is to his beliefs and love of words.

Grade: 8/10