The novel has received extraordinary praise (see here and here, for example). A biography of Williams is actually called The Man Who Wrote the Perfect Novel. Like all novels, it also has its detractors (for instance, here). I was impressed by Williams’ prose style, his talent for characterization, and his ability to keep the story moving without falling into any of those potholes to which the novel, as an art form, is susceptible. Nonetheless, I noticed a couple of curious aspects of the story which I haven’t seen treated in detail in the reviews I’ve read.
Many reviews call this a book about a man “who fell in love with literature.” There is a key scene where William Stoner, as a student, is so profoundly affected by a Shakespeare sonnet that he decides to ditch his agricultural studies and switch to English lit. The strange thing, however, is that apart from this brief scene, we get little indication of what literature Stoner actually likes.
In the real world, professors have books that they love, books that they hate, books to which they have an irrational devotion, books about which they change their opinions over time, and books which they feel compelled to teach even though they don’t enjoy them very much. There is scant indication of these things in the novel, particularly when the narrative is dealing with Stoner’s long, post-graduate school career as a teacher. The result is that Stoner comes across like some low-level bureaucrat, conscientiously fulfilling his functions on a daily basis, in what feels like one of those jobs where love and enthusiasm go to slowly die.
There’s another puzzling lacuna in Stoner’s life. He grows up around the beginning of the 20th century, on a farm in Missouri, the very middle of Middle America. However, there is hardly any mention of religion in the story, which is exceedingly odd given the time and place. We are told that Stoner attended a local Methodist church with his family, but that’s about it. One would expect it to have some kind of influence on Stoner himself, even if he eventually decided to reject it. But Stoner, despite being a professional intellectual, does not consider any religious questions in the course of the novel, nor does he construct an alternative worldview, whether based on philosophy, literature, ethics, or even his own personal experiences. God isn’t dead in this book; it’s like he was never alive in the first place.
The overall impression is that Stoner is a person who believes in doing his job and not much else. I don’t want to speculate overmuch, but the sudden popularity of the novel might have occurred because it resonated with modern, workaholic America. The venomous office politics, strained marriage, lack of time for the kids, bureaucratic maneuvering, and purely functional attitude to one’s actual work are more in tune with the subject matter I wrote about in this post than with any love of literature or coherent worldview.
Stoner spends most of his adult life stuck in a rut (or various ruts); though immersed in literature, he remains curiously walled off from whatever imaginative possibilities it may offer to his own life. He doesn’t so much live as let life have its way with him. “Any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats,” said Orwell, and William Stoner submits to this harsh truth in his own way.