Stoner (1965) - John Williams

Until recently, John Williams had been a largely forgotten author. A Wikipedia search instantly recalls the entry for the Star Wars and Jurassic Park film composer, but maybe that's just because he's still alive. The author's own entry on the internet encyclopedia is relatively short (nearly a stub, in Wiki-speak), and unlike many authors there is little discussion of his novels. Yet, despite his absence in the literary canon, Williams was a truly accomplished author in his time. He founded the creative writing department at the University of Denver, and served on its staff for thirty years. In 1973, he won the National Book Award for his novel Augustus, a story of the Roman Republic and its political machinations. But until the New York Review of Books published Stoner in 2006, and Butcher's Crossing this past year, Augustus was the only one of his five works still in print. Thankfully these past wrongs have been righted, and now his first novel, Nothing but the Night, and a book of poetry only remain out of print.

Stoner, much like the novel's hero and namesake, is a quiet, disheartening romance and a clever, experienced critique of academia. If there is anything grander to write about than the human experience, it won't be found here. In one neat and perversely amusing opening paragraph Williams sums up the protagonist’s life, and essentially the whole novel.

"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. 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. This manuscript may still be found in the Rare Books Collection, bearing the inscription: 'Presented to the Library of the University of Missouri, in memory of William Stoner, Department of English. By his colleagues.'"

For such a seemingly dry subject—academia—Williams prose is never labored or pretentious or impenetrable. In fact it reads so cleanly, and with such thorough entertainment, it's easy to forget the novel was written 42 years ago, and that the characters are set a generation even earlier. William Stoner, born in the plains of Booneville, Missouri and raised on his father's farm during the 1890s, brings to his education a work ethic that is distinctly Midwestern—“thoroughly, conscientiously, and with neither pleasure nor distress.” He leaves home to study agriculture, however, through the guidance of a curmudgeonly English professor, Stoner discovers a surprising love for literature, and with it a life-long desire to educate.

Throughout the novel, Stoner continually must balance the conflicts of his love. He meets the attractive young daughter of a St. Louis banker, and whisks her back to small town Columbia. But, within a month, Stoner knows his new marriage is a failure. His wife, Edith, is distant and frigid, the result of a maladjusted childhood. She lacks any semblance of passion, and throughout their marriage she becomes only more bitter and vindictive. Some of Williams best writing is in the exchanges between husband and wife. After Edith comes to the misguided conclusion that having a baby will increase her happiness she asks Stoner if he too would like to have one. Stoner says he would but is surprised because the topic had never been broached before. Typical of Edith's stunted maturity is the following scene:

“William looked at his watch. ‘I'm late. I wish we had more time to talk. I want you to be sure.’
A small frown came between her eyes. ‘I told you I was sure. Don't you want one? Why do you keep asking me? I don't want to talk about it any more.’”

We experience their marriage through Stoner's perspective, and so while we yearn for him to get out of a terrible situation his circumstances, and the mores of the time period, offer no relief. It's then that we discover that Stoner's true love will always be academia, but that too will prove an unsatisfying escape.

Early in Stoner's career, just after he has published his first criticism and received tenure, he becomes embattled in a departmental war of politics. When Stoner refuses to let a student pass an oral exam to remain enrolled at the University, the head of the English department, and mentor to the failing student, makes it his personal mission to mire the rest of Stoner's career by assigning him a bulk of freshman English classes amongst other disparages. Part of Stoner's problems lie in his difficulty to properly express himself, something Williams succeeds in demonstrating through his use of the limited 3rd person perspective. While his intentions are always noble, if selfishly stubborn, his actions are interpreted as prejudiced, or in the case of Edith and his home life, rarely interpreted at all.

Throughout the novel, Williams balances the ups and downs of Stoner’s life. The author later spoke about the character of William Stoner and how many of his readers believed the professor led a horrible life. Williams insisted though that he was a "real hero" because of the dedication he gave to his job, not his unfortunate circumstances. Compared to many men of his generation he fared incredibly well. He lived through both World Wars, deferring from combat in the first, and escaped many of the hardships of the Great Depression through his employment in academia. Williams portrait shines not with heroic deeds but with brutal realism. If Steinbeck and Faulkner had written about university life and the middle class, they would have written Stoner's story.

Stoner is a monument to higher education, both its noble aims and their troubled fulfillment, as well as to early 20th century America. Any English graduate should put it on the top of their reading list, and hopefully with his return to book stores, a new generation, or even the old generation, will garner Williams a little more respect in the canon. The least we could do is bulk up his Wikipedia entry.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988) - Michael Chabon

[A recycled piece from Sam V.'s magazine 'Diary' (April 2007). Full review of 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union' to follow, soonish. -JH]

Michael Chabon’s new novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, is set to hit stores this May, and is sure to be both critically and popularly acclaimed. Unfortunately, we here at Diary have still not received our complimentary galley for review. What gives, Mike?

Instead, with a new movie adaptation in the works, starring the notoriously bitter Sienna Miller, we will take this opportunity to reflect on Chabon’s first novel, 1988’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Also purchased with petty cash. Mysteries is Chabon’s bildungsroman, his coming-of-age tale of sexual identification. Set near Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University campus over one hectic summer, Art Bechstein falls for a boy...and a girl. Through happenstance Art meets Arthur, and his friend Phlox, a wily student-librarian. Their triangled relationship is a microcosm of a much longer period, and is fueled to the breaking point by the freedom only the summer months can provide. Meanwhile, disenchanted by his father’s life in the mob and their un-familial encounters in a high-priced hotel restaurant, Art meets Cleveland, an aspiring thug looking for his own “made” life. Yet it’s Cleveland that Art begins to admire.

Mysteries is full of choices and dichotomies like these, but the novel’s beauty is in its shades of gray. Chabon is never heavy-handed, and doesn’t pull his punches. When Art is in the deepest emotional confusion and turmoil, the reader is forced to bear it out with him. The lack of sexual “resolution” is just as satisfying as any contrived ending could have been. Instead, Chabon has written a highly entertaining, authentic novel of a modern young man’s maturation.

Pure Drivel (1998) - Steve Martin

This fall, the man who somehow brought us both The Jerk and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, will be publishing his memoir, Born Standing Up. Perhaps the story of Steve Martin's early years in stand-up comedy will better inform us of his latter film choices, three decades of both enlightened and dubious roles. Whatever theatrical missteps he may have taken along the way, Martin has clearly made up for in recent bouts of surprising literary ambition.

Culled from a series of essays first published in the New Yorker, Pure Drivel preceded Martin's first critically received writings, the novellas Shopgirl (2000) and The Pleasure of My Company (2003). Martin already had a dozen screenplay credits to his name, including The Jerk, as well as the decades-old, out-of-print essay collection, Cruel Shoes (1979). Pure Drivel, instead, showcased for the first time Martin's breadth of literary talents, from variations on the short story to creative non-fiction. The strongest of which sophisticatedly satirize popular culture and human nature, but Martin finds success just as well in absurdist, and joke-heavy pieces.

The sheer variety of the essays causes the book to stumble at times, but at an average of 3-5 pages the next is never far away, and the throwaway pieces are often bookended by much stronger works. "Mars Probe Finds Kittens," a string of half-funny kitten jokes, is followed up by the much stronger "Dear Amanda," a series of letters from Joey to Amanda, who recently broke up. Each letter reiterates Joey's threat/plea, "this will be the last letter I write you." The first is heartfelt, thanking her for their "wonderful experience," but as they continue Joey slowly undermines whatever dignity he had left by finding more excuses to continue to write, call, or stop by Amanda's apartment. The letters are filled with clever one-liners, such as the warning Joey offers Amanda about her new boyfriend, Francisco: "Latins. One woman is never enough." But aside from the jokes, the piece is also sad, and the letters are pathetic. In them Martin shows us the depths a broken heart can reach, even if many of us would never feel the need to return a single sake cup for the chance of an otherwise fruitless visit.

Martin's strongest literary devices, seen throughout the book in his best pieces and combined together in "Dear Amanda," are his inventive use of form and his portrayal of the hopeless hero. Pure Drivel opens with "A Public Apology," in which Martin assumes the identity of an imprisoned political figure and offers a blanket apology speech for both his mundane and quite illegal/inhumane transgressions. Martin's unique take on form can also be seen in "Taping My Friends," in which a man prods his closest friends to repeat embarrassing secrets they have already revealed so that he may tape them on a hidden recorder, a la Linda Tripp. Another example from "Side Effects," a rambling collection of a fake drug's side effects: "May cause stigmata in Mexicans."

These specific essays are genuinely funny, but alone they could probably do just as well in a set of Dave Barry gift books. The combination of these quick punches with the few short literary works, however, is an adept prelude to Martin's later quirky, eartfelt novellas. In the short piece "How I Joined Mensa," Martin takes the self-confident yet pathetically hopeless hero, and follows him as he tries to infiltrate the group of geniuses with IQs of 132 and above. Through an absurd set of circumstances, which informs the reader that he clearly doesn't belong in Mensa, Rod stumbles into one of their dinner parties. How does he know it's a Mensa party? Words like "'feldspar,' and 'eponym' filled the air." And then there is Lola, for whom he recites the poetry of Goethe, and then promptly forgets his own name. This is a slyly amusing short, and Martin effectively satirizes the intellectuals, and imposters alike. In the novella The Pleasure of My Company, Martin revisits a similar character, a social misfit with OCD, from a much more sympathetic point of view, but the "Mensa" short serves as an entertaining appetizer to that longer piece.

Pure Drivel is reminiscent of Woody Allen's collection of essays Getting Even. Both are hard to categorize, and deal with a plethora of neurotic and hopeless characters, so it's unfortunate then that both are labeled "Humor," and probably found alongside the Garfield Jumbo 3-Packs. There are intriguing ideas at work in both, and they just so happen to be funny and written by stand-up comics more famous for their film work than prose. Random House has done a nice job of recently releasing Woody Allen's Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose, selling it alongside their regular trade paperbacks. It'd be nice to see a similar collection for when Born Standing Up hits stores in November. It could be one big catchall for Martin's short pieces, Pure Drivel and Cruel Shoes, as well as his longer plays "The Underpants" and "Picasso at the Lapin Agile." There's more to Steve Martin than the actor in The Jerk and those Cheaper by the Dozen movies. Ultimately, though, the most rewarding gift he could give this holiday season would be another novella, or maybe even a full length novel this time around.

The Snake (1964) by Mickey Spillane

Written in 1964, The Snake was a return to pulp fiction for the prolific Mickey Spillane. Two years earlier he revived his signature series, starring Detective Mike Hammer, with The Girl Hunters, after nearly a decade of forgoing fiction for the glamours of working in Hollywood.

In this novel, Mike Hammer returns to work alongside some old pals in the NYPD, this time carrying a federal badge whose power he continually abuses. The story begins when an old flame, Velda, shows up in town after a seven year absence. From there, a young girl, her District Attorney-turned-Gubernatorial-candidate father, some hitmen, a dead skeleton with a shotgun, and a gang of 1950's muscle mobsters are thrown into a circular, yet convoluted plot involving a seemingly botched bank robbery.

Spillane's major faults as a writer are largely involved with such grandiose plot lines. He relies on one liners to often explain huge chunks of a character's back story, such as Velda's absence: "It took seven years," she says, "to learn a man's secret and escape Communist Europe with information that will keep us equal or better than they are." Spillane's oversimplification, and vision of a spy subplot, hinder the advancement of the story he is telling. Other times he gets so wrapped up in the scale of the world he has created, Spillane simply loses our suspension of disbelief, particularly with the extent of the mob's involvement in a seemingly petty affair, and Velda's thirty odd year chastity for Hammer.

At other times Spillane sounds as if he's already spent his most ingenious plot twists on his seven earlier Detective Hammer novels. Nearly all major plot turns are outrageously coincidental and improbable, the most egregious being the novel's necromantic finale. Despite as much, the quality of Spillane's storytelling is what makes The Snake so addictive, and delightful, including the skeleton in the last scene. It's by far one of the most predictable and yet shockingly hilarious endings to any mystery I've read.

Spillane writes a truly engaging and cinematic mystery, with only a few narrative speedbumps. His knack for details can bring to life the most preposterous of scenes. And sometimes he can be just downright poetic:

"One of the hookers spotted my two twenties on the bar and broke away from her tourist friend long enough to hit the cigarette machine behind me. Without looking around she said, 'Lonely?'

I didn't look around either. 'Sometimes.'"

Hammer's larger than life ego, and infallibility, doesn't carry the literary weight of Raymond Chandler's introspective Philip Marlowe (and far more amusing drunk) or nearly the cleverness of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (whose tale "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" is inversely echoed in The Snake), but instead, Hammer offers us pure entertainment.

Spillane often referred to his audience as "customers" rather than readers,and I think I've got at least another Mike Hammer purchase in me, even if it is just for an airplane.

about Sidney's Catalog

While this site has not yet been officially launched, I'll fill you in on my project. I'd like to post a critique of all the books I'm reading. My goal is to post one review weekly, or bi-weekly. This is by no means an attempt to keep up on all the newest releases, but simply a place where you will find, hopefully, thoughtful takes on an assortment of literature. Coming soon...