Stoner by John Williams

I came across this book by accident. It should be noted it is not about a " stoner " in the modern sense of the word and the composer John Williams has not part to play.

Recently a Time magazine cover story on Tom Hanks told of the recent submissions by Tom Cruise in the genre of historical movies. As part of the story it asks him what books he has found himself unable to put down. This book, one I had never heard of, was one he mentioned.

I decided to see if my library had the book and was pleased to see that they did. The book published in 1965 tells the story of William Stoner a poor farmer's son sent to study agriculture after the turn of the century at the University of Missouri. The book is hard to describe. It is really just a tale of one man. A man who is born on a farm to poor, uneducated stoic people, who is sent to college and their in a surprising way discovers that a love of literature has been dormant in him. Becoming an English major and eventually a teacher at the same University we follow Stoner through his life and subsequent death.

His life is not exciting, it is not a morality tale; it is , in the end, just a life. He is a man that becomes as he puts in an old curmudgeon but more out of purpose than personality. He marries, has a child, and becomes and unknowing participant in a power struggle at both his home and his college.

In the end this book simply let us see in the mind of one man, how he in his stoic silence deals with life as the first half of the century presents itself to him. I wish I could say more about the book to make a person understand its significance because make no mistake, to me it was significant.

It is spare in the telling and quiet in the emotion but the emotion is their. A man, disappointed in life by the failings of others which he takes as his own failings involves himself deeper and deeper into the stoic life he neither pursued or outwardly wished for but that he lives, and eventually learns to accept as the best part of his life.

Few will read this book, few have, but there is a lesson to be learned here. A book like this could be held up as a literary classic for our children to read in high school and early college. Perhaps because of the difficulty in assigning understanding ot the hold the book can take on you it has not.

Stoner is a book I would recommend to anyone who wants to enjoy a book without the noise that so many books have. It is spare and fulfilling. Not many books can use those two adjectives. This one can.