The Extraordinariness of Ordinary Life
I wanted to share with you a book I just finished reading: "Stoner," by John Willims.
The author, John Williams, was born in Texas, but earned his Ph.D. at the University of Denver, where he spent the rest of his life as professor and director of creative writing. He published his first two novels while earning his Masters at the University of Missouri. William Stoner, the main character, was born on a farm but went to school at the University of Missouri, where he spent the rest of his life teaching. Williams won the the National Book Award for "Augustus," his historical novel about the great Caesar. He should have won it, and a few other prizes, for "Stoner." Williams died in 1994. He did not leave us nearly enough to read.
I came across "Stoner" while perusing the New York Review of Books list of classics. Something about the description caught my eye. I have a good eye. Stoner is more popular in Europe than here in the U.S., and that's a shame, because "Stoner" reflects the very best of American writing. This review is a salute to a great writer, whose existence has been relegated to the recesses of anonymity.
“Stoner” is about an unassuming man, who lives a boring, ordinary life. Born to farmer parents, he toils in the fields, until his father sends him to college to learn agriculture and return bearing the latest techniques in the field. But at school he falls in love with English, switches degrees, earns his doctorate, and teaches at his college, never to return to farm or family. He marries a city girl, who despises her life and blames him for it. He dotes on his happy, young daughter who returns his love, until his wife’s jealousy transforms her into human flotsam. He experiences true intimacy followed by loss, when he develops a relationship with an admiring younger teacher that his colleagues later ruin. Lastly, he dies as quietly as he lived. In the end, no one remembers him. That’s it. That’s William Stoner’s life.
“Stoner” is easily one of finest pieces of literature I have ever read. But it is not for everyone. There is no action or mystery, except the action and mystery of your mind as it ponders Stoner's life.
Why bother with a story about an ordinary life? Because ordinary, even pedestrian lives often teach us extraordinary truths about the human condition. Stoner’s life is emblematic of many lives, all lived in quiet desperation, passively yearning for that transforming moment, when a spark awakens a dormant sense of wonder impregnating life with meaning. Few are granted such moments. How many of us would live more meaningful lives if only we knew how to do so?
Stoner waits for his moment his entire life, without realizing he is doing so. He is no hero, no, not at all. Having inherited the stoicism of the prairie farmer, he is too mild-mannered, too quiet, too agrarian to assert himself in an increasingly competitive world. His unassuming, even submissive nature allows others to run roughshod over him. He is an unobtrusive observer of his own life, watching what is unfolding before him as if it is happening to someone else. The last thing he wants to do is impose himself on others.
He marries a beautiful but emotionally damaged creature with sufficient psychological problems to fill a textbook. Over the years she so distances herself from him, that she seems more like a distant relative who has come for an extended stay than his wife. Unassertive where she is assertive, kind and forgiving where she is vindictive and relentless, Stoner submits to her will permitting her to infect their home with despair and loneliness.
She takes his one source of happiness, his daughter, from him and molds her into an unhappy, emotionally barren thrall chock-filled with strange notions about propriety and conduct. Like a fading color on an aging painting, she slowly retreats into the background of life, until no one notices her missing. His daughter, too, becomes an unobtrusive observer of her own life, and the last thing she wishes is to impose on others. No one lives a quieter life of desperation than his daughter.
William Stoner is a tragic figure. His wife is a tragic figure. His daughter is a tragic figure. They all wait for something to transform their lives, to replace despair with meaning, but that something never comes. A squelched scream of agony frantically claws at their throats trying to get out.
But unlike wife and daughter, and countless others, one day, after a lifetime of waiting and reflecting, Stoner realizes his transforming moment occurred years ago, when as a young man he chose his passion for reading, writing, and teaching over farm and family. He finds his happiness in that which gives his life meaning: literature. And if he had not made that decision all those years ago, to this day he would be doing what his parents had wanted him to do -- plowing fields and shucking corn -- instead of what he had wanted to do. All these years waiting for his transforming moment, only to realize it had already happened. He just hadn’t known, because there were no trumpets trumpeting, no heralds heralding, no crowds cheering or applauding.
And this is how it is for most of us. We live our lives quietly yet meaningfully, because each decision we make on our journey through life transforms us, each setting us on a new direction through life. Like Robert Frost's two paths, we all face forks in the road, but whether we choose one path or another, the very act of choosing transforms us. William Stoner is lucky enough to realize this before he dies, and that makes his life worth living.
John Williams' simple, elegant prose makes the story all the more accessible. He's mastered the power and emotion of understatement. Many passages hit slowly at first, then build in momentum, until they bowl you over with their elegance and power. This is some of the best writing I have ever had the pleasure of reading and is reason enough to read “Stoner” again and again.
I will let Williams himself demonstrate the power of his writing by leaving you with a passage from the book. In a few simple paragraphs Williams introduces us to Edith, Stoner’s wife, in whose childhood are scattered the seeds of desperation that grow into the inept and tragic figure she becomes. There are many passages as powerful as this one, but you need to read the book to enjoy them.
“She was educated upon the premise that she would be protected from the gross events that life might thrust in her way, and upon the premise that she had no other duty than to be a graceful and accomplished accessory to that protection, since she belonged to a social economic class to which protection was an almost sacred obligation.”
“Her moral training, both at the schools she attended and at home, was negative in nature, prohibitive in intent, and almost entirely sexual. The sexuality, however, was indirect and unacknowledged; therefore, it suffused every other part of her education, which received most of its energy from that recessive and unspoken moral force. She learned that she would have duties toward her husband and family and that she must fulfill them.”
“Her childhood was an exceedingly formal one, even in the most ordinary moments of family life. Her parents behaved toward each other with a distant courtesy; Edith never saw pass between them the spontaneous warmth of either anger or love. Anger was days of courteous silence, and love was a word of courteous endearment. She was an only child, and loneliness was one of the earliest conditions of her life.”
"So she grew up with a frail talent in the more genteel arts, and no knowledge of the necessity of living day to day. Her needlepoint was delicate and useless, she painted misty landscapes of thin water-color washes, and she played the piano with a forceless but precise hand; yet she was ignorant of her own bodily functions, she had never been alone to care for her own self one day of her life, nor could it ever have occurred to her that she might become responsible for the well-being of another. Her life was invariable, like a low hum; and it was watched over by her mother, who, when Edith was a child, would sit for hours watching her paint her pictures or play her piano, as if no other occupation were possible for either of them.”
That’s good stuff.
The author, John Williams, was born in Texas, but earned his Ph.D. at the University of Denver, where he spent the rest of his life as professor and director of creative writing. He published his first two novels while earning his Masters at the University of Missouri. William Stoner, the main character, was born on a farm but went to school at the University of Missouri, where he spent the rest of his life teaching. Williams won the the National Book Award for "Augustus," his historical novel about the great Caesar. He should have won it, and a few other prizes, for "Stoner." Williams died in 1994. He did not leave us nearly enough to read.
I came across "Stoner" while perusing the New York Review of Books list of classics. Something about the description caught my eye. I have a good eye. Stoner is more popular in Europe than here in the U.S., and that's a shame, because "Stoner" reflects the very best of American writing. This review is a salute to a great writer, whose existence has been relegated to the recesses of anonymity.
“Stoner” is about an unassuming man, who lives a boring, ordinary life. Born to farmer parents, he toils in the fields, until his father sends him to college to learn agriculture and return bearing the latest techniques in the field. But at school he falls in love with English, switches degrees, earns his doctorate, and teaches at his college, never to return to farm or family. He marries a city girl, who despises her life and blames him for it. He dotes on his happy, young daughter who returns his love, until his wife’s jealousy transforms her into human flotsam. He experiences true intimacy followed by loss, when he develops a relationship with an admiring younger teacher that his colleagues later ruin. Lastly, he dies as quietly as he lived. In the end, no one remembers him. That’s it. That’s William Stoner’s life.
“Stoner” is easily one of finest pieces of literature I have ever read. But it is not for everyone. There is no action or mystery, except the action and mystery of your mind as it ponders Stoner's life.
Why bother with a story about an ordinary life? Because ordinary, even pedestrian lives often teach us extraordinary truths about the human condition. Stoner’s life is emblematic of many lives, all lived in quiet desperation, passively yearning for that transforming moment, when a spark awakens a dormant sense of wonder impregnating life with meaning. Few are granted such moments. How many of us would live more meaningful lives if only we knew how to do so?
Stoner waits for his moment his entire life, without realizing he is doing so. He is no hero, no, not at all. Having inherited the stoicism of the prairie farmer, he is too mild-mannered, too quiet, too agrarian to assert himself in an increasingly competitive world. His unassuming, even submissive nature allows others to run roughshod over him. He is an unobtrusive observer of his own life, watching what is unfolding before him as if it is happening to someone else. The last thing he wants to do is impose himself on others.
He marries a beautiful but emotionally damaged creature with sufficient psychological problems to fill a textbook. Over the years she so distances herself from him, that she seems more like a distant relative who has come for an extended stay than his wife. Unassertive where she is assertive, kind and forgiving where she is vindictive and relentless, Stoner submits to her will permitting her to infect their home with despair and loneliness.
She takes his one source of happiness, his daughter, from him and molds her into an unhappy, emotionally barren thrall chock-filled with strange notions about propriety and conduct. Like a fading color on an aging painting, she slowly retreats into the background of life, until no one notices her missing. His daughter, too, becomes an unobtrusive observer of her own life, and the last thing she wishes is to impose on others. No one lives a quieter life of desperation than his daughter.
William Stoner is a tragic figure. His wife is a tragic figure. His daughter is a tragic figure. They all wait for something to transform their lives, to replace despair with meaning, but that something never comes. A squelched scream of agony frantically claws at their throats trying to get out.
But unlike wife and daughter, and countless others, one day, after a lifetime of waiting and reflecting, Stoner realizes his transforming moment occurred years ago, when as a young man he chose his passion for reading, writing, and teaching over farm and family. He finds his happiness in that which gives his life meaning: literature. And if he had not made that decision all those years ago, to this day he would be doing what his parents had wanted him to do -- plowing fields and shucking corn -- instead of what he had wanted to do. All these years waiting for his transforming moment, only to realize it had already happened. He just hadn’t known, because there were no trumpets trumpeting, no heralds heralding, no crowds cheering or applauding.
And this is how it is for most of us. We live our lives quietly yet meaningfully, because each decision we make on our journey through life transforms us, each setting us on a new direction through life. Like Robert Frost's two paths, we all face forks in the road, but whether we choose one path or another, the very act of choosing transforms us. William Stoner is lucky enough to realize this before he dies, and that makes his life worth living.
John Williams' simple, elegant prose makes the story all the more accessible. He's mastered the power and emotion of understatement. Many passages hit slowly at first, then build in momentum, until they bowl you over with their elegance and power. This is some of the best writing I have ever had the pleasure of reading and is reason enough to read “Stoner” again and again.
I will let Williams himself demonstrate the power of his writing by leaving you with a passage from the book. In a few simple paragraphs Williams introduces us to Edith, Stoner’s wife, in whose childhood are scattered the seeds of desperation that grow into the inept and tragic figure she becomes. There are many passages as powerful as this one, but you need to read the book to enjoy them.
“She was educated upon the premise that she would be protected from the gross events that life might thrust in her way, and upon the premise that she had no other duty than to be a graceful and accomplished accessory to that protection, since she belonged to a social economic class to which protection was an almost sacred obligation.”
“Her moral training, both at the schools she attended and at home, was negative in nature, prohibitive in intent, and almost entirely sexual. The sexuality, however, was indirect and unacknowledged; therefore, it suffused every other part of her education, which received most of its energy from that recessive and unspoken moral force. She learned that she would have duties toward her husband and family and that she must fulfill them.”
“Her childhood was an exceedingly formal one, even in the most ordinary moments of family life. Her parents behaved toward each other with a distant courtesy; Edith never saw pass between them the spontaneous warmth of either anger or love. Anger was days of courteous silence, and love was a word of courteous endearment. She was an only child, and loneliness was one of the earliest conditions of her life.”
"So she grew up with a frail talent in the more genteel arts, and no knowledge of the necessity of living day to day. Her needlepoint was delicate and useless, she painted misty landscapes of thin water-color washes, and she played the piano with a forceless but precise hand; yet she was ignorant of her own bodily functions, she had never been alone to care for her own self one day of her life, nor could it ever have occurred to her that she might become responsible for the well-being of another. Her life was invariable, like a low hum; and it was watched over by her mother, who, when Edith was a child, would sit for hours watching her paint her pictures or play her piano, as if no other occupation were possible for either of them.”
That’s good stuff.
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