I think the difference IMHO is that Stoner earns his right to talk about a boring life, and has the scholarship and experience to write about other things. In the hands of a lesser writer it would not work.
I'm sure that with talent it could be done right. Plus the innovators deserve more respect than the epigons. It's just that I'm a bit jaded about this genre.
I think the difference between this and other entrees in the genre is its lack of cynicism. There is a nobility in William's prose and in the character of Stoner that you do not find in almost all contemporary fiction, which can treat this sort of person either as an objective of satire or with a sort of knowing disgust. Williams simply is not like that.
A few years ago I read another novel of his--Augustus--and it is similar both in themes and tone. Perhaps you might consider that book and then decide whether you like it enough to read this novel too.
Very good review, thoughtful. Yes, the problems with the Bible, and maybe more generally with soul, beauty, poetry. So Stoner's parents and their milieu are portrayed as brutish, without language. But the frontier was settled with Blackstone and the Bible, and King James is a stylistic masterpiece. Read not just Lincoln, but virtually any 19th century small town newspaper -- the frontier may have been brutal, but it was lyrical. Of course one might say similar things about the poetry and literature to which Stoner -- for reasons completely unexplained -- devotes his life. Without a soul, why old poems? Etc. As you say.
On another, weird note: Europeans love Stoner, have heard about it more in that context than this.
This seems like an early entry in the genre that now dominates american literary fiction: the boring lives of boring scholars.
I think the difference IMHO is that Stoner earns his right to talk about a boring life, and has the scholarship and experience to write about other things. In the hands of a lesser writer it would not work.
I'm sure that with talent it could be done right. Plus the innovators deserve more respect than the epigons. It's just that I'm a bit jaded about this genre.
I think the difference between this and other entrees in the genre is its lack of cynicism. There is a nobility in William's prose and in the character of Stoner that you do not find in almost all contemporary fiction, which can treat this sort of person either as an objective of satire or with a sort of knowing disgust. Williams simply is not like that.
A few years ago I read another novel of his--Augustus--and it is similar both in themes and tone. Perhaps you might consider that book and then decide whether you like it enough to read this novel too.
Thank you for the suggestion.
Very good review, thoughtful. Yes, the problems with the Bible, and maybe more generally with soul, beauty, poetry. So Stoner's parents and their milieu are portrayed as brutish, without language. But the frontier was settled with Blackstone and the Bible, and King James is a stylistic masterpiece. Read not just Lincoln, but virtually any 19th century small town newspaper -- the frontier may have been brutal, but it was lyrical. Of course one might say similar things about the poetry and literature to which Stoner -- for reasons completely unexplained -- devotes his life. Without a soul, why old poems? Etc. As you say.
On another, weird note: Europeans love Stoner, have heard about it more in that context than this.
Anyway, very nice, thank you.
I really liked this book. Perfectly written, as you say.