John Williams – Stoner – Comment.

First published in 1965, to then appear in Great Britain in 1973, to finally be published in 2024 by Vintage Classics, this astounding novel suddenly caught my attention in 2026. While online, and perusing actual bookstores, the book continued to pop-up, grabbing my attention, as if politely requesting to be read. After many weeks of this repeated phenomenon, I finally broke down and bought a paperback. On the front cover under the title reads, ‘The greatest novel you’ve never read.’ Guardian. This statement cannot be truer. 

We enter the life of a young man from a poor farming family in Missouri. William Stoner’s father insists that he attends university to study agriculture, to better the prospects of the family business. At the end of his freshman year, he signs up for an English class. On one auspicious day, where a particular Shakesperean sonnet is being read and interpreted. Professor Sloane reads the entire piece, repeating the last two lines:

‘This thou perceivest, which makes thy love 

 strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.’

Sloanes eyes came back to Willian Stoner, and he said dryly, Mr. Shakespear speaks to you across three hundred years, Mr. Stoner, do you hear him?’

The young man doesn’t respond immediately and realizes he’s been holding his breath through the entire reading. But in this instant of the moment, Stoner feels what the American philosopher, William James, describes as a religious experience. The soul of the young man has shifted, and it is here that he changes his major to English studies, to attain his undergraduate degree, his Masters, and finally his PhD, where he’s offered a job as a teacher, remaining in this job for over forty years. 

During his teaching career, Stoner lives through two world wars and feels the sadness and waste of the first one, and great anger during the second. 

Stoner believes he has fallen in love with a girl who he pursues and marries within months of the courtship. Edith turns out to be not what she appears and reveals herself to be a selfish and vindictive woman, ensuing years of marital pain and unhappiness. 

There are two central antagonists in Stoner’s life: another vindictive individual, a charismatic cripple, Dr. Lomax, and of course, Mrs. Edith Stoner. Because of a disagreement about a student, a matter of principle for Stoner, Lomax goes to war with our protagonist that lasts forty years. 

This novel is a beautiful rendering of a simple life of a man devoted to his job of teaching. He views his students with care and diligence and constantly endeavors to improve his skills and knowledge. Although the story touches on many themes, above relationships, his one and only experience of real love, and the varied conflicts with small minded and harmful people, the man’s devotion and responsibility for teaching, a job he truly loves, stands as his greatest quality. 

Many readers and critics have described Stoner as a sad account of an uneventful life filled with mundane conflicts in a loveless world. Life is full of unspoken ‘heroes’ who move through this existence without the fanfare of celebrity. Though William Stoner’s life appears insignificant, we see great significance in an individual life well lived. 

The greatest novel you’ve never read.