John Williams - Stoner (1965)

I liked this novel it very much although I can't really explain why. It is narrating a normal life, the life of college teacher William Stoner. You could probably also say the novel is a tragedy, but then isn't all life in a way? It is also a book about teaching and academic life, so, in a way a campus novel, and also about marriage and parenthood. Essentially, I would say it is about the power and fulfillment working with what you love can give you in your life.

Stoner is easy to read, although we feel for Stoner through the difficult passages of his life, the novel does not seem to get heavy, the prose is very simple and straightforward and therefore very fluent

Stoner is was born in 1910 as son of poor farmer but gets the chance to enter university, in Columbia, Missouri, at first to do agronomic studies. Then he discovers his love about language and changes to Philosophy and English. With the help of his tutor, he takes advantage of the possibilities that open up for him and finishes a doctorate and becomes a scholar. It is a character study, about a man who is a bit stoic, a bit passive, searching for quiet happiness in is place of the world, and fulfilling his duties without doing harm, sharing his passion and knowledge with his students.

He gets to know a girl he likes and marries her, then buys a house with help of parents in law. But not all goes smoothly, he seems to have had bad luck with the choice of his wife, in a time divorce was practically impossible. The wife, Edith, is "hysteric", passive aggressive, and sometimes manipulative, which is hard to read from a 2024 point of view, as we get no inside into her head and she never gives Stoner a chance to get along peacefully. As a result, he also has a increasingly difficult relationship with his daughter

University life is about popularity and secret "wars" among  personnel, though he finds solace in the books. In his life he witnesses the impact of two World Wars and the Great Depression. He is teaching Latin, medieval influence on Middle English texts, writes and publishes a book and gets promotes assistant professor, later he gets a full tenure.

"He felt himself at last beginning to be a teacher, which was simply a man to whom his book was true, to whom is given a dignity of art that has little to do with his foolishness or weakness or inadequacy as a man"

It is a book about the bullying Stoner receives at his workplace and at home, immerging him in a deep depression, but also about the pleasure and satisfaction Stoner obtains from reading and teaching, and from a love affair with younger instructor which, however, could never have ended well.

I have said it often before, books about depressed people, sometimes written by depressed authors are usually really good. Maybe because of some heightened sensibility towards little, beautiful things.