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.
