Comments on: John Williams, Stoner

By: Rohan Maitzen

Rohan Maitzen — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:35:54 +0000

That’s an interesting comparison to Butcher’s Crossing, Tom. I can’t quite work out whether Stoner reverses that critique or means to reiterate it in some way.

I’ll be curious to know what you think of Stoner, Diane. It’s certainly very readable–and thought-provoking.

I feel “languor” all the time, Ted! Well, actually, I guess that’s just fatigue. You raise the possibility that there is something almost elaborately meta-fictional going on with the style of the book–or at least something aspirational, in terms of seeking out a highly “literary” idiom.

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:28:47 +0000

The passages you quoted have a real sort of Penguin-classic nineteenth-century novel vibe–as if he’s trying to create a book that signifies “great literature” and evokes, through its novelistic idiom, the feeling of excitement many of us had as teenagers, when we first discovered the power of literature, in a very intuitive and non-analytical way. Ironic that these are the sort of feelings that lead many of us eventually to become dispassionate critics who eventually regard the notion of Literature with skepticism and look at this sort of passage, not with hushed reverence, but with the thought: what’s with the archaic style? When, after all, was the last time I felt “languor”?

By: Diane@BibliophileBytheSea

Diane@BibliophileBytheSea — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:03:24 +0000

This past year I purchased several NYRBs and Stoner was one of them, selecting it pretty much for the academic theme. I haven’t read it yet but was so interested in your take on it. Anxious to try it for myself.

By: Amateur Reader (Tom)

Amateur Reader (Tom) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:24:36 +0000

So I have not read Stoner. The funny thing, though, is that the Western Williams wrote, Butcher's Crossing is explicitly about a guy who wants to experience Nature without studying or understanding it. He succeeds, but the experience is destructive - it effaces his personality, his past. The kid is not unlike Stoner in that passage about his reaction to the poem. That novel seemed to me like a critique of experience-first Romanticism.