Stoner: A Novel
Nov 2012 · Random House
4.2star
74 reviewsreport
Ebook
320
Pages
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About this ebook
This is the story of a quiet man, destined to be a farmer but who becomes an academic. It is book in which nothing and everything happens and is possibly the greatest novel you've never read.
'It's simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But its one of the most fascinating things that you've ever come across' Tom Hanks, Time
William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely.
Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value - of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history - and in doing so reclaims the significance of an individual life.
'A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life' Ian McEwan
'A brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise and elegant novel' Nick Hornby
INTRODUCED BY JOHN McGAHERN
'It's simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But its one of the most fascinating things that you've ever come across' Tom Hanks, Time
William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely.
Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value - of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history - and in doing so reclaims the significance of an individual life.
'A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life' Ian McEwan
'A brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise and elegant novel' Nick Hornby
INTRODUCED BY JOHN McGAHERN
Ratings and reviews
4.2
74 reviews
Bas Horneman
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August 7, 2015
Overrated. Read it because the play store said it was a great book. It is very easy to read... A real pageturner.. But while you read it you start thinking when is something going to happen? The wonder is slowly replaced by disgust as he allows his wife to first withdraw the child from his life and love. After which he allows her to destroy his daughter's youth and eventually her life. Only intellectual people will find this book a classic because... Yes the man can write... but the book offers little else.
Eddie Townsend
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March 20, 2014
A book of distinguished beauty and elegance that describes a life through the perspective of one man, who fails and succeeds as we all do in life. It is far from uplifting but has that rare quality of shining a light on are own life through the lens of time.
Eileen Stott
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January 3, 2014
Beautifully written, Beautiful man. I wanted to have been taught by Stoner and I loved the life of his mind. Very sad, really, but also satisfying as all good writing is. There is truth to the book, and rare self knowledge. Wonderful and brave.
4 people found this review helpful
About the author
John Williams was an author, editor and professor. Born in 1922 in Texas, he served in the United States Army Air Force from 1942 to 1945 in China, Burma and India. His first novel, Nothing But the Night, was published in 1948. After receiving his PhD in 1954, Williams returned to the University of Denver where he first studied to teach literature and creative writing for thirty years. It was during this time that he wrote the novels Butcher's Crossing (1960) and Stoner (1965). His last novel, Augustus, won the National Book Award in 1973. John Williams died in Arkansas in 1994.
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