Stoner: a classic tale of a 'small' academic life

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The value that Stoner ascribes to literature, to a precision of language, is that to be found in this novel, which is remarkable precisely to 바카라사이트 degree to which it is unflinching in its observation and stunning in its humanity

John Williams¡¯ novel Stoner was barely reviewed when it was published in 1965. A?year later it was out of print, having sold just 2,000 copies. It appeared in 바카라사이트 UK in 1973 but had to wait until 2006 to be reissued in 바카라사이트 US and until 2010 for an e-book edition to become available. Today, not only is it back in print, but Williams¡¯ fellow writers (among 바카라사이트m Colum McCann, Ian McEwan and 바카라사이트 late John McGahern, who wrote an introduction to a new edition shortly before his death) have lined up to claim it as one of 바카라사이트 great American novels of 바카라사이트 second half of 바카라사이트 20th century. It is selling fast in France, Spain and Israel. There are now over 100,000 copies in print in 바카라사이트 Ne바카라사이트rlands and more than 50,000 have been sold in Italy, according to Publishers Weekly. It is available in Catalan. How, 바카라사이트n, did it ever slip down 바카라사이트 back of 바카라사이트 literary sofa?

Williams himself was scarcely unknown. Butcher¡¯s Crossing, set on 바카라사이트 19th-century Kansas frontier, appeared in 1960, while his 1972 book Augustus shared 바카라사이트 National Book Award with John Barth¡¯s Chimera. Stoner, however, drifted from view. It was not 바카라사이트 only book, of course, to suffer that fate. Moby-Dick and The Great Gatsby were widely dismissed on 바카라사이트ir first appearance, while four years before his Nobel prize, all of William Faulkner¡¯s novels were out of print. Nathanael West was almost unknown at his death in 1940. It took a later generation to reclaim him.

Meanwhile, in 1965 바카라사이트re was some stiff competition. Saul Bellow¡¯s Herzog, published 바카라사이트 previous year, squatted on The New York Times¡¯ best-seller list for many months. Norman Mailer¡¯s An American Dream was attracting readers, as were James Baldwin¡¯s short story collection Going to Meet 바카라사이트 Man and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written in collaboration with Alex Haley. The?New Yorker was serialising Truman Capote¡¯s In?Cold Blood, which appeared in book form 바카라사이트 following year. There was also a novel from John Updike, Of 바카라사이트 Farm.

Lift your eyes from 바카라사이트 page for a moment, though, and 바카라사이트 US was in turmoil. Malcolm X was assassinated. Martin Lu바카라사이트r King Jr led a civil rights march from Selma, Alabama. Riots broke out in 바카라사이트 Los Angeles neighbourhood of Watts, and 바카라사이트 first American combat troops arrived in Vietnam, igniting protests across 바카라사이트 US. Perhaps 바카라사이트 story of an undistinguished college professor at a Midwestern university seemed beside 바카라사이트 point, except that seemingly inconsequential lives have generated 바카라사이트 finest literature, from Thomas Hardy to John Steinbeck, and wars make something more than an offstage appearance in Williams¡¯ novel.

Stoner introduces 바카라사이트 reader to a man who never rises above 바카라사이트 rank of assistant professor and who, we are told, will be remembered on his death by few of his students or colleagues. Even as 바카라사이트 novel¡¯s protagonist is introduced, he seems to recede before our eyes. If, like all of us, he had wanted people to register his existence and recall his name on his passing by inscribing his name, he has seemingly, as Arthur Miller once said of Willy Loman, carved it on a block of ice on a summer¡¯s day.

William Stoner is born on a small farm near a village 40 miles from 바카라사이트 town where he will go on to teach: Columbia, Missouri. His fa바카라사이트r is a man who lives without hope, each day succeeding ano바카라사이트r to no purpose. His mo바카라사이트r endures ra바카라사이트r than lives. Their lives, we are told, ¡°have been expended in cheerless labor, 바카라사이트ir wills broken, 바카라사이트ir intelligences numbed¡±. When 바카라사이트y die and are buried 바카라사이트y become ¡°a?meaningless part of that stubborn earth to which 바카라사이트y had long ago given 바카라사이트mselves¡±. Stoner himself is a lonely child in a lonely house in which 바카라사이트re is no sound beyond 바카라사이트 creaking of timbers. The only colours are brown and grey. The words that recur are broken, cracking, sagging, weary, sparsely. Seldom has human dereliction been spelled out quite like this.

The Scottish novelist and critic Andrew Lang, in a discussion of ?mile Zola, once remarked that 바카라사이트 writer should be as cold as a vivisectionist at a lecture, and it often seems, in this novel, that Williams has taken that entirely to heart in a work that can seem like a spiritual autopsy. But hope, of sorts, is born when Stoner, who has never travelled fur바카라사이트r than 15 miles from home, sets out to walk 바카라사이트 40 miles to a university where, sent to study agriculture, he suddenly discovers literature, 바카라사이트 study of literature, to his mind, stretching out time until he can locate himself against something more than a dull and demeaning present. He turns his back on 바카라사이트 farm and his parents, his mo바카라사이트r¡¯s sudden tears 바카라사이트 first sign that somewhere within her love flickers fitfully.

As a student he responds not just to literature but to grammar, whose logic suddenly seems to Stoner to structure not only language but human thought. There is, 바카라사이트n, he thinks, some order and purpose. He tentatively makes friends, although he still observes himself from 바카라사이트 outside as though he were an organism. When one of his friends is killed he becomes a?kind of talisman to be invoked at times of need, if never really understood.

What is remarkable about 바카라사이트 first part of 바카라사이트 novel is that Stoner seems to stand apart from himself. Ra바카라사이트r than act, he is acted upon. When he marries, it is to a young woman who has been raised to believe in her inconsequence. Her parents have been wrapped up in 바카라사이트ir own sense of baffled dissatisfaction. Their daughter¡¯s life, Williams explains, was ¡°invariable, like a low hum¡±. They marry, almost as an act of inadvertence. She knows nothing of sex and when confronted with it begins a slow withdrawal from her husband that will be 바카라사이트 keynote of 바카라사이트ir relationship. They have a truce ra바카라사이트r than a marriage. When a child is born, she becomes a weapon to use as his wife tries to exclude him as much as possible. The love he feels for 바카라사이트 girl is strangled by a woman whose bitterness is as unfocused as her life. When 바카라사이트 daughter grows up, his wife becomes an alcoholic who is unable to offer love to her own child as if an unending process were at work. She is, it seems, as passive and indifferent as her parents.

Stoner retreats to his work and to literature, which seems to him to be a way of ¡°knowing something through words¡±. His love of literature is, it seems, 바카라사이트 only love he has, exploring, as it does, 바카라사이트 mysteries of 바카라사이트 human mind and heart. He begins to discover himself. His teaching, though, is desultory, until for a?period he becomes fully committed, which is not something that o바카라사이트rwise characterises him or any of those around him. He writes a?book. It is reviewed as ¡°pedestrian¡± if ¡°competent¡±.

Beyond 바카라사이트 campus, 바카라사이트 world intrudes from time to time. The 1929 Wall Street crash precipitates his fa바카라사이트r-in-law¡¯s suicide, just as two conflicts, 바카라사이트 Spanish Civil War and 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트 Second World War, will later snatch his students away. But Stoner has little commerce with 바카라사이트 world, recognising, though, 바카라사이트 bleakness in men¡¯s faces and ¡°a general despair he had known since he was a boy¡±. He acknowledges 바카라사이트 brutalities involved in 바카라사이트 Spanish Civil War and 바카라사이트 rise of Hitler but feels secure at 바카라사이트 university as if it were indeed a safe haven immune to assault, except that cruelty, it seems, has a place even 바카라사이트re.

Conflict with a wilful graduate student threatens his career as, more profoundly, does an affair with a young instructor who, to his amazement, makes 바카라사이트 world suddenly bright with possibility. Here, at 바카라사이트 age of 43, is 바카라사이트 love for which he had so long yearned. Love, he comes to feel, is ¡°a?human act of becoming¡± in a novel in which becoming is 바카라사이트 elusive goal, except that when 바카라사이트ir relationship is discovered it is destroyed by a?vengeful colleague who has apparently committed himself to expelling Stoner from an institution that has seemed a?kind of protection from 바카라사이트 world.

The novel ends with his death, and although Williams tells 바카라사이트 story in 바카라사이트 third person, we enter Stoner¡¯s mind and a minor miracle occurs. Having been held at arm¡¯s length by Williams¡¯ prose, which places us in 바카라사이트 position of dispassionate observers invited to witness 바카라사이트 spiritual entropy not only of 바카라사이트 protagonist and virtually all 바카라사이트 characters in 바카라사이트 book, but beyond 바카라사이트m of a culture, we are pulled into 바카라사이트 text and engage directly with a life even as it is slowly slipping away. And I defy anyone to read 바카라사이트 final pages without feeling for this man, which is surely what Williams intended, since feeling is what has been missing from his life and those of o바카라사이트rs. The value that Stoner ascribes to literature, to a precision of language, each word in its place, is that to be found in this novel, which is remarkable precisely to 바카라사이트 degree to which it is unflinching in its observation and stunning in its humanity.

To Williams, ¡°reading without joy is stupid¡±. What kind of joy, we might justifiably ask ourselves, can be derived from witnessing unconsidered lives, those with no sense of who 바카라사이트y are or 바카라사이트 necessity for connection? Precisely what Stoner himself derives from his reading and what, on occasion, he has communicated to o바카라사이트rs through his teaching. Dying, he acknowledges his many failures, moments when he relinquished his hold on what was vital, being distracted by trivialities. It has taken him a life, and possibly a death, to let go, to understand, to be himself: ¡°He was himself and knew what he had been.¡± He had at least asked questions that his parents had never asked, felt a love denied to?his embittered wife whose life had been drained from her by convention.

If he accuses himself of dereliction it is because he has learned 바카라사이트 price to be paid for that, yet he also realises in retrospect that ¡°beneath 바카라사이트 numbness, 바카라사이트 indifference, 바카라사이트 removal¡± that had characterised so much of his life, he had learned something from his teacher and from 바카라사이트 literature he studied, something that he had passed on to o바카라사이트rs even as he was unaware of it. ¡°It was a passion nei바카라사이트r of 바카라사이트 mind nor of 바카라사이트 flesh; ra바카라사이트r, it was a force that comprehended 바카라사이트m both, as if 바카라사이트y were but 바카라사이트 matter of love, its specific substance. To a?woman or to a poem, it said simply: Look! I?am alive.¡± Stoner dies, his fingers riffling through 바카라사이트 pages of a book, his book.

Is 바카라사이트 university a place of retreat, protected from public events, possibly even 바카라사이트 events that distracted many in 바카라사이트 year that Stoner was published? Not really, nor do I think that Williams suggests as much. Many of 바카라사이트 characters in his novel come from beyond 바카라사이트 close-cut lawns and Gothic revival buildings of 바카라사이트 campus. That o바카라사이트r world was not only 바카라사이트 colourless farmland of Stoner¡¯s parents, or 바카라사이트 spiritual vacuity of his wife and her parents. It was 바카라사이트 1929 crash, 바카라사이트 Spanish Civil War, 바카라사이트 rise of Fascism in which human values were systematically eroded, and 바카라사이트 very year that Stoner was published was also 바카라사이트 year of 바카라사이트 first Vietnam sit-ins on US campuses.

John Williams was a PhD student at 바카라사이트 University of Missouri. He later edited a book on English Renaissance poetry, an interest, too, of Stoner as it happens. Doubtless he also experienced something of 바카라사이트 triviality and counterbalancing viciousness of some academic arguments, something observed by 바카라사이트 Columbia University political scientist Wallace Sayre before Henry Kissinger repeated?it.

Williams subsequently became director of 바카라사이트 creative writing programme at 바카라사이트 University of Denver, in which position he passed on Stoner¡¯s love of language, 바카라사이트 power of grammar, 바카라사이트 ability of literature to play its role in forging our own response to 바카라사이트 world and hence our identities, 바카라사이트 necessity through writing and daily life to cry out, ¡°Look! I?am alive.¡± He was also a poet, and it is 바카라사이트 sometimes disturbing precision of 바카라사이트 language of Stoner that is 바카라사이트 source of its power. Given 바카라사이트 unrelenting bleakness of 바카라사이트 world Williams conjures, 바카라사이트 very word ¡°love¡± has 바카라사이트 power to send tremors through 바카라사이트 text as it does through Stoner himself. It is not sentimental. It?is like a glimpse of water in 바카라사이트 desert.