Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Stoner

the decline is so gradual i almost forgot i was watching it happen until those small moments of irreversible change .. marking a loss of a past that could never be retrieved even while we r still even in it(wanted to climb into the book n get it back it for them,, especially for grace), felt like i saw his life divide into moments of befores and afters..the way it all ,falls away, just feels so completely insignificant in the end...but there is so much tranquility and reassurance in it all, love love love
intro to the book has a quote from Williams calling stoner a hero(whole intro conflicted with my experience of the book rly whsgdhwhw). i don't think i pity him despite wishing everyone involved had a chance at something Better, or more, but i think it's so interesting how his endurance and firmness to himself—which i think is felt most with how he never seems to outgrow himself, he's just always the stoner thinking of the university as a thing beyond himself, masters, his Love, the dirt—is considered heroic, love and a desire to live, do something meaningful, to work, described as heroism when they feel like they are the most natural part of human nature make this feel so much more depressing for me. his life was not particularly difficult but that doesn't mean it was not sad, despite it's normalcy or the fact that it repeats itself in every other 'stoner'. if stoner is a hero What is there but to sacrifice and endure

♡ rec from adri

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maresuju's review against another edition

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TLDR; Mediocre white man in the 1920s who feels entitled to other people

<CW: marital rape>

I understand that this is supposed to be a representation of the monotony/mediocrity that life can be, but I almost feel like this was the opposite. The MC is selfish, refused to make decisions or take any action, and only acts out of his own immediate interests. He essentially forces his wife to marry him despite her making it clear that she has no romantic interest in him, and he rapes her regularly (the author makes it very clear that she’s either asleep or wake up and is tense/unmoving). And then he wonders why his life is shitty, why his wife hates him and keeps her daughter from him.

Truly he is a mediocre (at best) man who feels like he’s entitled to a job, friends, a wife, a family, everything just because he’s there, but puts no effort into any of his relationships. I really tried to stick it out, and made it almost 70% of the way through, but I was just so annoyed and angered by the MC that I couldn’t find a single reason to care about what happens.

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apthompson's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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sadiaa's review against another edition

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4.75

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reggiewoods's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

William Stoner is proof that you don’t have to be remarkable to have an impact on someone’s life. He’s an ordinary college professor whose career spans both World Wars. While his mundane ways may seem boring to his family and colleagues, Stoner’s pedestrian life makes him all the more relatable and sympathetic. An outsider may consider Stoner unfortunate, but Williams makes us feel his devastation with him. Stoner stands out as one of the more memorable characters in twentieth century literature, if for nothing other than his staunch refusal to compromise his principles. While the narrative lacks action, I didn’t feel that it ever got slow. Despite its heart-rending plot, Stoner simultaneously is a celebration of the everyman and the simple life.

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cherryredmarlene's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was very slow and in depth about different aspect of the life of one character, but that’s EXACTLY what tickles my pickle so good for myself. I can however see how this could be boring for some.

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sherbertwells's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

“An occasional student who comes upon the name may wonder idly who William Stoner was, but he seldom pursues his curiosity beyond a casual question. Stoner’s colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones, his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, and to the younger ones it is merely a sound that evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves and their careers” (1)

This book is all about disappointment, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

John Williams’ novel Stoner has a reputation as an underrated classic; the cover of my Penguin Vintage Classics copy has a nonremovable button hailing it as “The greatest novel you’ve never read.” Its protagonist, assistant professor William Stoner, is a similarly unremarkable. In fact, his life is so standard that the back of the book doesn’t mind giving away most of the plot.

Neither do I. Stoner is born to a farm family in the late 19th century and initially studies agriculture at the University of Missouri before switching to literature and becoming a professor. He makes two friends, marries an upper-class woman with whom he does not get along and struggles to raise a daughter. On campus, he contends against Hollis Lomax, a pretentious colleague. He participates in an affair. He dies in middle age and is forgotten afterward.

Rather than turning the title character’s life into a melodrama, Williams focuses on little moments and low-stakes, drawn-out conflict. His greatest virtue is his accuracy: as a literature professor himself, he has plenty of experience with the minute dramas of campus life, and as a writer, he realistically recreates Stoner’s infatuation with literature. His novel is essentially a love story between man and university.

“‘Have you gentlemen ever considered the question of the true nature of the University…Stoner, here, I imagine, sees it as a great repository, like a library or a whorehouse, where men come of their free will and select that which will complete them…You see it as a kind of spiritual sulphur-and-molasses that you administer every fall to get the little bastards through another winter…But you’re both wrong,’ [Masters] said. ‘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. Look at the three of us—we are the university” (29)

Since my parents are two academics working at a midwestern public university, I had a lot of fun comparing their experiences to Stoner. I can tell Williams nails the experience of having to fail an unrepentant and arrogant student. But, for me, his writing might be too familiar.

I’ve seen the story before.

I’ve seen the ending before in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. I’ve seen the literary enchantment in Confusion by Stefan Zweig. I’ve even seen the rich girl/poor boy dynamic in The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I’m not mad at John Williams for being influential. But I’m not moved by him either.

Stoner is like an empty, dawn-lit corridor of a university library. It is lonely and beautiful, and you will end up seeing it a thousand times in your life. It may be a whorehouse or a clinic or an asylum, depending on who you are. Whether you linger is your choice.

“It hardly mattered to him that the book was forgotten and that it served no use; and the question of its world at any time was almost trivial. He did not have the illusion that he would find himself there, in that fading print; and yet, he knew, a small part of him that he could not deny was there and would be there” (288)

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