The blurb on the cover says this is ‘the greatest novel you’ve never read’. High praise indeed, and maybe it carries some credibility coming from the Sunday Times, though does that include in America?
When my brother handed me the novel he said, ‘You ought to try this. It’s interesting.’

‘In what way?’ I probed.
‘It’s different,’ he said. ‘Unusual.’
‘But you liked it?’
‘In a way,’ he said. ‘I kept reading it.’
I could get no further comment from him, so having a few moments to spare the other day, I skipped past John McGahern’s introduction and looked at the first page of story.
William Stoner entered the University of Missouri as a freshman in the year 1910, at the age of nineteen. Eight years later, during the height of World War I, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree and accepted an instructorship at the same University, where he taught until his death in 1956.
This was not the usual sort of hook. I could see no hints of a great issue to be solved, no situation that needed to be explored. Where was the characterisation? It read like an obituary notice. What, I wondered, was the book offering? So far there was no hope that William might be an Indiana Jones type, with a secret second occupation. Perhaps I needed to read a little further.
He did not rise above the rank of assistant professor, and few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his courses. When he died his colleagues made a memorial contribution of a medieval manuscript to the University library.
What? The central character will be dead by the end of the novel, and has so little charisma that his students can’t remember him? I haven’t met him yet, and I’m wondering why I should want to.
Yet, I read on. Was I, perhaps, influenced by that recommendation on the cover? Not really. I’ll admit to a contrary streak that makes me suspicious of statements like those, particularly when they’re plastered to the front of re-issued novels.
It wasn’t my brother’s recommendation that kept me reading, either. Much as I love him, I value the fact that our tastes in the arts are individual.
It was, in the first place, the writing I fell for. I liked the apparent simplicity.
He was born in 1891 on a small farm in central Missouri near the village of Booneville, some forty miles from Columbia, the home of the University.
There is an elegance in presenting the concrete details without flamboyance. The story, this style seemed to promise, was yet to come. The first nineteen years of William’s life is covered in two pages, because it needs no more. It describes, without detail, the long hours of monotonous labour that are small-farm-life at the beginning of the twentieth century. Only then do we move in closer to the characters.
His father shifted his weight on the chair. He looked at his thick, callused fingers, into the cracks of which soil had penetrated so deeply that it could not be washed away.
This is economy. Here is no high drama, it is a domestic scene. Look at how William takes his father’s suggestion that he should go to the new school at the University in Columbia, the College of Agriculture:
William spread his hands on the tablecloth, which gleamed dully under the lamplight. He had never been further from home than Booneville, fifteen miles away. He swallowed to steady his voice.
I was four pages into the novel, and I believed it. From that point, I stopped counting. I forgot to notice how the pages turned, or the morning passing. It’s not a long novel. I finished it by lunchtime.
To tell you more would be to spoil what is a beautifully paced and presented tale-of-a-life. If you’re looking for a new read, I’m recommending this book, though I offered it to a visitor a couple of days later, and she said, ‘Read it. I hated it.’
When I saw my brother again, I pushed him for an opinion, but he wasn’t to be shifted. ‘Odd,’ he said. ‘Not like anything else I’ve read.’ So I suppose that will have to do.
I hear there’s talk of turning it into a film. I don’t think I’ll want to watch it. Talking through a book is one thing, seeing how someone else envisions and understands it, that’s a wholly different type of spoiler.
I don’t know this novel but now I do want to read it. I also appreciate economy of language as you describe it here. Thank you for the recommendation!
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I hope you find it as rewarding as I have, Maria.
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I have been tempted before, and now you’ve tempted me again! I enjoy spare writing as much as the Baroque language I occasionally go for.
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If you do finally succumb, I hope you find it rewarding, Chris. The friend who said she hated it described it as a marmite book, but I’m not sure my brother’s reaction fitted in with that theory.
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Hmmm. I don’t think this novel’s my cup of tea, as it were, but I admit that early death of the title character has me intrigued as to where on earth the novel’s going. Sometimes we need this sort of balance in our reading diet; that’s why I’m taking a break from reading fantasy for a bit of nonfiction, then probably some scifi, and then probably some Austen before heading back into fantasy.
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You sound like you’ve given yourself a good change in reading styles and paces, Jean. I like jumping around the genres too. I hope you’ll be posting about your choices, I’m curious to see how you’ll mix and match that combination, and what impact it’ll have on your own writing.
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Oh! I always feel my choices are a bit humdrum, but you know, I could give it a go…. π
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Hum drum to you, maybe. I doubt it they are to us. π
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Aw, shucks. π
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Thanks You description tunes in with how the novel might unfold. Seems a slow read, which I like.
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A ‘slow read’ is the perfect description, Ashen. Even though I read it in a shortish space, I felt that I was sharing a whole life time with William Stoner, and the closer I got to him, the closer I wanted to be.
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This is a profound & essential read. See my review on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/166997.Stoner
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I like books like this. Thanks for the great review. I know everyone has different tastes. Sometimes the most ordinary life can be extremely interesting.
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I agree Darlene, both about the different tastes and the finding interest in apparently ordinary lives. For someone who’s set up so blandly, William Stoner completely captivated me.
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Sounds like a good one. Never heard of it or the author before. Thereβs an ocean of excellent novels out there!
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So true, Neil. It’s so hard to keep up with them all, but I love trying to. I’m usually at least ten years behind everyone else.
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I’ve had my share of ‘odd’ books, but non are non-fiction. If I’m honest, I’ve never heard about this one either. Still, like you, I don’t like to watch the movie of a book I enjoyed.
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I did wonder, as I wrote my review, whether I was about to find that I’m the last person in the western world to discover this novel. Discovering odd books is, I think, turning out to be a speciality of mine – a happy one, though.
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I hadn’t heard of this book, Cath, and it still sounds odd to me. But I’m a believer that every life has a story, and perhaps this is a great example of that. Thanks for the recommendation. π
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If it hadn’t been for my brother, I probably wouldn’t have given this one a second glance, Diana. As so often, the unlikely turn out to be important – in my life, anyway. I’m so glad to have read Stoner, not least because, as you say, ‘every life has a story’ and most writing advice suggests this kind of thing doesn’t make good ‘story material’.
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My husband has told me repeatedly how good this is but those extracts and your reaction really show me why he is such a strong advocate…
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Thank you. I’d like to claim that I’d been artful over my choice of quotes, but the truth is John Williams wrote consistently good prose in this novel. I might have to track down something else of his and see how it compares. Thumbs up to your husband, does he blog his recommendations, too?
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he blogs occasionally on here but he tends to read a lot more non fiction
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Thank you for this, Cath. I’ve known of this novel and of the claims made for it, for quite some time. But it has sat in my head on the pile marked ‘worthy, ought-to reads’. You’ve shown me the beauty of the book; I love slow, sparce writing such as this and I’ll be amazed if I don’t love this book. Definitely one I need to pick up soon.
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Thanks for the thanks, Sandra. It so nice being able to share my ideas about reading so widely. It does sound like you should enjoy it.
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I had never heard of it, but there was a recent write-up about the author and the novel in “The New Yorker”, and it did sound interesting. I may have to pick it up …
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I’ll have to track down that New Yorker review and compare notes. If you decide to buy it, I do hope you’ll also review it. I’ll be interested to see what you make of it.
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I loved reading your progress through the reading experience! I was totally bewitched by this novel, despite some scepticism.
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Thank you, Simon. Bewitched is such a good description of how this novel caught me. I wish I’d thought of saying that too.
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Ah, a novel that you read simply for the beauty of the language. We have lost that. Everything is all fast-paced and car-chased and mystery (I’m guilty of it myself), but to read just for the ebb and flow of language is a gift.
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Indeed, Pam. This is a story that I’ve enjoyed so thoroughly I’m tempted to borrow it back from the person I passed it along to and start it again.
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Great analysis of style!
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Thank you, so glad you’ve enjoyed my review.
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