Stoner: An Extraordinarily Beautiful Novel (Book Review)
“My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me — to give the mundane its beautiful due.” — John Updike
Updike’s quote perfectly captures the essence of Stoner by John Williams.
Another quote, Walter Pater’s — “all art constantly aspires to the condition of music” captures the book’s brilliance too.
As I type this on an iPhone app, a European cathedral imposes itself between me and a rare afternoon sun. Its shadow looms over indifferent passersby and my admittedly irrational fascination with classical buildings. I’m reminded of Goethe’s quip that “architecture is frozen music.”
But this is about a book. Not music. Not architecture. Or some quotes from dead people.
Williams crafted Stoner to elevate the ordinary to a level of transcendence. A YouTube reviewer aptly says it’s the story of an ordinary guy told with extraordinary prose.
Set in pre-World War II America, the story follows a young Stoner, whose early life in rural America, inspires an aspiration for “more”. His parents, callused from years of tilling the soil, permit his study of agriculture and would hope for a comeback.
From here, the reader is invited into the many paradoxes in the lives of the characters. Stoner’s parents wished for a return. He didn’t, except to bury them. An encounter with Shakespeare through an eccentric lecturer spurred an interest in literature, setting him on a different path. He meets his would-be wife, a shy woman with the hopes of domestic joy and stability. Alongside her daughter, she symbolises the quiet tragedy of unmet expectations. Her husband is too consumed by a tumultuous academic life, in stark contrast to the steadiness of his agrarian childhood. Office intrigues, difficult students and a wicked colleague are daily struggles. But he finds some solace through his stoicism and a brief affair that, more than being immoral, kept him emotionally alive. Their daughter becomes a projection of his wife’s unlived dreams. Unlike her father, her best attempt to escape her circumstances is an entanglement with a young man whose fate is caught up in the war. Etc. (I have deep sympathy for his wife and daughter).
No spoilers.
The ordinariness of it all makes it all relatable. A picture of a brilliant man, disillusioned from his marriage and emotionally estranged from his daughter offers a sense of tragic inevitability, which also makes him deeply human. And while his stoicism is a strength, allowing him to endure pain and suffering, it’s also the flaw that prevents him from challenging circumstances that he should.
I believe the book is the writer’s meditation on the human condition, the complexity of the choices we make and how we are shaped by internal desires and uncontrollable external circumstances across the passage of time. In between is the tension of free will and fate. For me, the writer’s clever portrayal through prose that carries the novel’s emotional weight and moves like music make the book a brilliant piece of art. The writing is spellbinding: not ornate, but crafty, precise, and rhythmic. As in the YouTube reviewer, the beauty of the prose makes the seemingly mundane both profound and deeply moving. How about the ending, Dear Lord, pulsating!
Some of my Kindle highlights run into multiple pages so I can return to them because of the sheer beauty of the descriptions.
Back to music and dead men’s quotes. See, I can’t help myself. John Williams’ Stoner is a fine book that, through a deeply emotional story and artfully crafted sentences, gives the mundane its absolute musical worth.
A classic in its class.
