I finished Stoner in heavy, laborer breaths as if I’d been crying.
Stoner is an excellent book that reads like the biography of the fictional William Stoner. It’s an incredibly dry story that feels almost beautifully unemotional in nature; it’s the fact Williams writes these events in this almost textbook-like way that makes the book brilliant. Stoner has no reason to be the main character. His life is eventful enough, but not really in a way that feels like it would make him stand out from a crowd. But that’s what makes this story so powerful. You follow this dull and sad guy no one knows through his equally dull and sad life without any stupendous climaxes, crazy plot twists, or quirky characters.
Stoner is a lost classic. It has been called by The New Yorker "the greatest American novel you've never heard of." In that regard, I guess I’d put it next to my paperback of Jack Black’s You Can’t Win. However, Stoner being lost in this sense of buried beneath piles of other better known books fits with its narrative. Few cared when Stoner died. Was he a failure?
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