Is John Williams’ Stoner worth the read?

Having seen countless recommendations of Stoner by John Williams both online and in bookstores for a while now, I came across it recently in a charity shop and had to immediately pick it up. Faced with a long car journey later that day, I started reading it and had finished it by the next evening. This was surprising to me – I had been stuck in a reading slump and hadn’t been engrossed in a book for a while beforehand. It was very refreshing in that aspect.

At first, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Stoner – I thought the writing wasn’t standout and the content wasn’t anything particularly special. I don’t remember reading any specific paragraph or sentence which I thought was lyrically exceptional, and the story seemed to me a sort of self-pitying telling of a man with an average life in early 20th-century rural America. However, as the book progressed, I came to realise that the writing was quite respectable; the fact that we go through the man’s entire life so quickly yet in such detail is very impressive. Sixty or so years pass in under 300 pages, and I was drawn to the book and its quite simplistic writing style and sobering tale.

As a reader with a particular love for existentialist fiction, I enjoyed the uneventful nature of the novel, and I liked the fact that it made me feel

The book is, admittedly, a disheartening, depressing read. It follows the life of William Stoner from childhood to death as he leaves his parents on their farm and becomes an English professor at the University of Missouri. We watch him as he faces financial hardship, quarrelling with other members of the English department, as he suffers through an unhappy marriage, and as he eventually finds love in a short-lived affair. A lot of the book’s most pivotal events are enshrouded by an aching sadness as Stoner’s life seems to just get worse and worse, and a feeling that nothing can be put right takes over the novel. It is probably for this reason that most of the negative reviews of Stoner say that it is a boring and monotonous book with not much going on – this, I disagree with. As a reader with a particular love for existentialist fiction, I enjoyed the uneventful nature of the novel, and I liked the fact that it made me feel. I liked Williams’ commentary on the outbreak of WWI in relation to the meaninglessness of Stoner’s life, and I thought that every character was interesting in their own right.

However, the novel didn’t entirely satisfy me. There were several moments or events which I thought weren’t developed well and were sprung upon the reader. For instance, the story is situated within the context of Stoner’s love for literature. He leaves his family and the agrarian life destined for him because he takes a mandatory sophomore class on the introduction to English literature, he enters his affair because his young female colleague understands literature in the same way he does, and he loses touch with his daughter as he chooses to focus on his thesis. But why does he actually like literature? Williams includes a scene where Stoner is in a lecture, studying Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 73’, when the professor turns on him and asks him a question. This seems to change Stoner’s life and marks the turning point in his love for literature and his newfound way of life. It seemed to me, however, that this was a slightly lazy way of acquainting us with Stoner as a part of the literati, especially as it is the core theme of the book. Stoner’s lecturer is eager, and he evidently takes admiration from him, but the book is, in my opinion, missing a more detailed, sort of Dead Poets Society-esque introduction to the protagonist’s admiration for literature and the arts. In the same way, the avid conflict between Stoner and his colleagues seems to lack any basis credibly established in the novel, and it becomes slightly extraneous to the rest of the story.

My issue lies not with her representation – female characters are allowed to be immoral – but with the way she is represented, and the way this has been received

I also thought Williams’s representation of women, specifically Stoner’s wife Edith, was disappointing. Edith is nothing but evil – she despises Stoner and makes it his problem, breaking up his relationship with their daughter, taking away his study and shoving him into a small attic room so he can’t focus on his work, and alienating him from any goodness in his life. My issue lies not with her representation – female characters are allowed to be immoral – but with the way she is represented, and the way this has been received. It saddens me to read reviews of the novel and watch her be painted as the villain of the story. Her post-partum depression is brushed off as her being wicked and detached, the multiple scenes in which Stoner sexually abuses her are seen as sad for both, and there is, in my opinion, a lack of psychological analysis into why she is the way she is. These misogynist elements work in two ways – within the narrative, as well as within Williams’ authorial voice, and they work to give the novel its air of self-pity. There are definitely better ways of approaching emotional abuse within literature, and Edith’s representation, I think, is underdeveloped, almost spiteful.

So, is Stoner worth reading? I enjoyed the process of reading it; I thought it was sad and melancholy, and I was very engrossed in the story. The writing is easy to get into, and we get to know the characters on a personal level. However, from an analytical view, and perhaps more in hindsight, I think the book is underdeveloped in some of its themes. It is reasonably well written, but I feel like its main themes – women, the love of literature, and workplace conflict – aren’t fully thought out. Williams’ treatment of his female characters is also something which could benefit from a feminist rereading.