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Stoner is a 1965 novel by the American writer John Williams. It was reissued in 2003 by Vintage and in 2006 by New York Review Books Classics with an introduction by John McGahern.

Stoner has been categorized under the genre of the academic novel, or the campus novel. Throughout the 200-word prologue and 200-page novel, Stoner follows the undistinguished life and career of William Stoner, an English professor at a Midwestern university.

Plot

The central character, William Stoner, begins as a farm boy in Missouri whose parents send him to the University of Missouri to major in agriculture. After reading Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 and influenced by his instructor, Archer Sloane, Stoner changes his major to literature and pursues a master of arts. After receiving his Ph.D. during World War I, Stoner continues at the university as an assistant professor of English, the position he held for the duration of his career. The novel follows Stoner's undistinguished career and workplace politics, his marriage to Edith, his affair with his colleague Katherine, and his love and pursuit of literature.

Characters

The novel focuses on William Stoner and the central figures in his life. Those who become his enemies are used as tools against him who separate Stoner from his loves. New Yorker contributor Tim Kreider describes their depictions as "evil marked with deformity."

• William Stoner: The novel's main character, called "Stoner" throughout the book, is a farm boy turned English teacher. He uses his love of literature to deal with his unfulfilling home life.
• Edith Stoner: Stoner's wife. Stoner falls in love with the idea of her, but soon realizes that she is a bitter woman and has been long before they were married.
• Grace Stoner: Stoner and Edith's only child. Grace is easily influenced by her mother. Edith keeps Grace away from and against her father as a sort of "punishment" for Stoner, because of the couple's failing relationship.
• Archer Sloane: Stoner's teacher and mentor growing up. He inspired Stoner to leave agriculture behind and begin studying English literature. He is old and ailing by the time Stoner is hired at the university.
• Hollis Lomax: Sloane's "replacement" at the university. He and Stoner began as friends, but Stoner eventually sees him as an "enemy". Stoner and Lomax do not see eye to eye in their work life. Described as a hunchback.
• Charles Walker: Lomax's crippled mentee, who also becomes an enemy to Stoner.
• Katherine Driscoll: A younger teacher, with whom Stoner falls in love and has an affair. University politics and circumstantial differences keep them from continuing a relationship.

Themes

In the novel's introduction, John McGahern says Stoner is a "novel about work." This includes not only traditional work, such as Stoner's life on the farm and his career as a professor, but also the work one puts into life and relationships.

One of the central themes in the novel is the manifestation of passion. Stoner's passions manifest themselves into failures, as proven by the bleak end of his life. Stoner has two primary passions: knowledge and love. According to Morris Dickstein, "he fails at both."

Love is also a widely recognized theme in Stoner. The novel's representation of love moves beyond romance; it highlights bliss and suffering that can be qualities of love. Both Stoner and Lomax discovered a love of literature early in their lives, and it is this love that ultimately endures throughout Stoner's life

Another of the novel's central themes is the social reawakening, which is closely linked to the sexual reawakening of the protagonist. After the loss of his wife and daughter, Stoner seeks fulfillment elsewhere, beginning the affair with Katherine Driscoll.

Style

John McGahern's Introduction to Stoner and Adam Foulds of The Independent praise Williams' prose for its cold, factual plainness. Foulds claims that Stoner has a "flawless narrative rhythm [that] flows like a river". Williams' prose has also been applauded for its clarity, by both McGahern and Charlotte Heathcote of The Daily Express. In an interview with the BBC, author Ian McEwan calls Williams' prose "authoritative". Sarah Hampson of The Globe and Mail writes that Williams' "description of petty academic politics reads like the work of someone taking surreptitious notes at dreary faculty meetings". Williams' prose has also been lauded for its precision, making the novel's emotions universally relatable.

Background

John Williams had a similar life to that of his character in Stoner. He was an English professor at the University of Denver until he retired in 1985. Like Stoner, he experienced coworker frustrations in the academic world and was devoted to this work, making his novel a reflection of parts of his own life.

Reception

Stoner was initially published in 1965 and sold less than 2,000 copies. It was out of print a year later, then reissued in 2003 by Vintage and 2006 by New York Review Books Classics. French novelist Anna Gavalda translated Stoner in 2011, and it became Waterstones' Book of the Year in Britain in 2012. In 2013, sales to distributors tripled.

Although Stoner was not a popular novel when it was first published, there were a handful of glowing reviews such as that from The New Yorker on June 12, 1965, in which he was praised for creating a character who is dedicated to his work but cheated by the world. All who gave positive feedback pointed to the truthful voice that William's wrote about life's conditions and often compared it to his other work Augustus in characters and plot direction. One of the only negative criticism was that from his own publisher in 1963 who questioned whether his novel would gain in popularity and doubted its potential to be a best seller.

Irving Howe and C.P. Snow also gave praise to the novel when it was first published, although sales of the novel did not reflect this positive commentary. It was not until several years later during Stoner’s republication that the book became more well-known. Today’s republication has attracted people from 21 different countries, and several thousand copies of the novel have since been sold.

One thing that Williams’ novel is jointly praised is for its narrative and stylistic value. Scholar and book critic Morris Dickstein acclaims that the writing technique is remarkable and the novel “takes your breath away”. Bryan Appleyard in his review quotes critic DG Myers saying that the novel was a good book for beginners in the world of “serious literature”. Another critic, author Alex Preston, points out that the novel shows the depressing progression through a person’s life that was written by “the dead hand of realism”. 

Writer Steve Almond wrote a review of Stoner in The New York Times Magazine in 2014. Almond claims Stoner focuses on the "capacity to face the truth of who we are in private moments" and questions whether or not any of us are truly able to say we are able to do that. Almond states, "I devoured it in one sitting. I had never encountered a work so ruthless in its devotion to human truths and so tender in its execution."

Sarah Hampson of The Globe and Mail sees Stoner as an "antidote" to a 21st-Century culture of entitlement. In a time when people feel entitled to success and happiness at the cost of morality, Stoner shows that even a seemingly failed life can be a valuable experience.

In a 2007 review of the recently reissued work, Morris Dickstein wrote that Stoner is "a perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving that it takes your breath away." A 2013 BBC article reported it was named Waterstones Book of the Year and noted The New Yorker had called it "the greatest American novel you've never heard of."

Adaptations

A film adaptation of the novel is currently under development by Film4.