NYRB Classics discussion

Our selection for September is Stoner by John Williams, introduction by John McGahern 292 pp

William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.

John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.

Stoner is a popular and beloved classic for NYRB Classics' fans as shown by our poll results. I hope you will join us whether reading anew or visiting this book once again and add your thoughts on this acclaimed novel. I cannot access the locked discussion from a past read but it is linked below for your benefit.




https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I'm about a third into this. Very nicely written, and I'm starting to get into it. Sometimes it's hard to read something so universally loved and treat it fairly.

This is a reread for me so I have postponed it a bit. I will be starting on the weekend.

Just finished. I know this is a near-universally beloved book. so I'll just get straight to it. I hated it.

Emmeline wrote: "Just finished. I know this is a near-universally beloved book. so I'll just get straight to it. I hated it."

My first reaction to your comment is-- Fantastic! I too have some issues with the book but they are with the content not the quality of the writing. I feel some of the-- should I say values? espoused by Stoner conflict with mine. But before I elaborate on what I dislike about the book, can I persuade you to explain more on how you feel?

Well yes, my complaints are more about content than writing also.

First it's fair to say I've been unenthused to read this for years, despite all the rave (and I mean ALL RAVE) reviews. But I was expecting it to be good and worthy, just perhaps a little dull. And this is how I felt about the first quarter to first third.

And this is where the content woes come in. First, I felt the depiction of Stoner's wife was quite manipulative. Although there is some effort made to explain her past and how she ended up how she is (the definition of damaged goods), this is all dealt with in a chapter or two, and from then on we are encouraged to empathize with Stoner in his loveless marriage--rather than perhaps blame him for pursuing a woman with "basket case" written all over her. Around the halfway point I thought I would like to read the book from Edith's point of view.

My problem with Edith paled in comparison with my reaction to the middle section, where Stoner does his best to have a young disabled graduate student failed for being a bit mediocre. Stoner himself is a bit mediocre, we are told repeatedly, but clearly the hallowed halls of academia should not be polluted by mediocre and disabled people. Indeed, Stoner would rather torpedo his entire career than concede a point. Which conveniently excuses why he has such a lacklustre and mediocre career... it isn't that he doesn't do anything, it's that he's been punished by a woke mob. Honestly, reading this in 2025, I couldn't help but feel that Stoner today would be aligned with certain figures we've all been observing in recent days...

In theory I'm not against passive protagonists, but Stoner takes passivity to an art form. Nothing is ever his fault, and he can't be motivated to save himself, or even to save his daughter. (view spoiler)[When she starts torpedoing her own life through passivity, then turns to alcoholism, he reflects that "he's glad at least she can drink!" (hide spoiler)]

Other people suffer for Stoner's passivity, and actually Stoner himself suffers very little because he can't be motivated to care. Instead it's his wife, daughter, and even his mistress who are inconvenienced. All this would be fine in a novel, if it weren't clear that the author wishes to set Stoner up as a heroic figure.

Emmeline wrote: "Well yes, my complaints are more about content than writing also.

First it's fair to say I've been unenthused to read this for years, despite all the rave (and I mean ALL RAVE) reviews. But I was..."

I agree with all your points and thank you so much for voicing my thoughts because when I do I often miscommunicate the ideas to the point of alienating all. Also, I do not like the character for the reasons you pointed out, but I respect how well written the novel is. If we give the author his subject, as one of the professors in my younger years insisted we do for all works we read, then my dislike feels more subjective than objective. The character of Stoner is an accurate depiction of a conservative, elitist professor, who has obviously been at his job too long to where his views are jaded. He thinks he is entitled, his views are self-centered and he blames the world for his own shortcomings and faults. This results in his being misogynistic, judgemental, and biased. I think all of that is supported by what is in the novel.

My difference is that despite my dislike for the character, his opinions and behavior, I do find them reflective of what is in the real world. And Williams has done a good job of describing behaviors I have seen. My pleasure in the novel comes not from agreeing with what I dislike, but from seeing it displayed where I can openly criticize it. Just isolating the manipulation you mentioned, offers multiple examples of how incidents and situations can be spun by the manipulator to persuade the reader to adopt the manipulator's views. So my in my reading, the character of Stoner is flawed, almost a villain, but not the type of villain we love to hate like Shakespeare's Richard III or whom we can sympathize like Milton's Satan, but instead he becomes pitiful man with flaws to be avoided, like Shakespeare's Richard II, Updike's Rabbit or Flaubert's Madame Bovary. If I read the novel leaving what I dislike with the character, I can then respect the strength of of well the novel is written in support of that character.

This does lead to a question--what is it about the novel that so many people like?

I agree with you, that it is enough for a well-written novel to present reality as what it is, not requiring characters to be sympathetic.

I think there are a few things adding to my irritation here. First, the rapturous reception of this book. This is of course not the book's fault, but it does make me wonder and despair.

Then there is the author's own belief that he is writing a heroic character. My copy of the book is an anniversary edition that includes Williams's letters with his agent. He describes Stoner as "a kind of a saint!"

Earlier last week I read Long Island, a book I didn't have strong expectations about, but I am struck by how much better and more humane it was. There are moments when you the reader start hating various characters... because they get in the way of the desires of other characters. But Toibín always gives each person their full humanity, and he constantly expands his view to include others' hopes and dreams, complicating the issue. I think this is why I was so incensed with Williams's easy smugness.

Emmeline wrote: "I agree with you, that it is enough for a well-written novel to present reality as what it is, not requiring characters to be sympathetic.

I think there are a few things adding to my irritation he..."

Yes, perhaps we will get more responses on that. I agree on Long Island.

Also, in terms of being so well written, I would push back a bit. It's a good novel on a sentence level, and there were some lovely moments at the beginning in particular--describing the parents and Stoner's first moment discovering Shakespeare.

But there are also some failings in my view. Stoner's connection to literature is never really shown again. Potential moments of drama are not made the most of (i.e. the death of Edith's father--the family is left poor or they're not?). There is a distinct lack of believable engagement with domestic life (i.e. the actual nuts and bolts of looking after a baby... they don't tend to sit quietly in an upstairs room until you come home from work to cook dinner).

Interestingly, based on the correspondence, it was Williams's (female) agent who asked him to add more interiority to Edith. He writes back essentially saying he's fixed that, and read over the second half but couldn't find anything else that needed fixing. Sigh.

I need to reread this. I read it in 2020 and gave it 5 stars as a good character driven novel. After reading Emmeline’s and Sam’s thoughts on the book I wonder what I would see the 2nd time around.

This does make me wonder about author intent and how beholden we are to that. Williams considered Stoner a hero and if we read this with the idea that we are reading about a great American man we would be disappointed, if instead we just read it with no preconceived ideas about what kind of man Stoner is we can enjoy the book more as a portrait of the 20th century American man, which I think this book does capture. MAGA has this type of man in mind by “great again,” a man that should be respected for what little he does simply because he’s a man and for whom women exist as empty vessels until he finds a use for her and if Edith doesn’t venerate him it is her fault the marriage is loveless; a man who when he fell for a younger woman was just being a man, and women and people with disabilities don’t belong in college anyway. That is the 20th century American man, Williams is a 20th century American man, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that this hero is so flawed to modern readers.

I read The Road Home in which the protagonist was an immigrant in the UK with whom we are meant to sympathize, even after he commits a horrific act (view spoiler)[ rapes his ex-girlfriend for breaking up with him. Tremain writes that he raped her to punish her (hide spoiler)] we are still meant to see him as sympathetic. A number of people loved that book and apparently were willing to overlook the act and accept Tremain’s vision of this guy as sympathetic. I could say it was a good book if Tremain had indicated that the hero was fallen from grace, but I hated the book because I accepted her view and the view of others that this was a wonderful story and the protagonist just made a mistake.