Stoner (1965)

by John Williams

Stoner opens with a single paragraph summary of the titular character’s life. Evaluated in this way by conventional indicators of success his life was a disappointment at best and a failure at worst. With the rest of the novel Williams goes on to describe at great length the pain and woe involved in the achievement of these failures.

Tucked throughout are brief and subtle but numerous clues that external measures are insufficient to summarize the life of Dr. William Stoner. His success may, to a casual observer, be overshadowed by such misfortunes as a marriage to a woman bent on snuffing out all joy in his life. But underneath this surface level misery is a depiction of a life tirelessly dedicated to a cause both loved and believed in: literature, particularly its teaching, a venture that Stoner eventually grew to excel at.

The writing itself is magnificent—taut, descriptive prose whose simplicity belies its depth and lifelike dialogue as halting, rambling, and inexpressive as the words that come out of the mouths of real people.

Stoner could only have been written by an English professor.