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“The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words.”

― John Williams, Stoner

Dear Reader,

As some of you know, I’ve had cancer. I have a genetic mutation. I’m prone to melanoma and other kinds of cancer. At this time of year, I have to stay out of the sun.

I’ve adapted. I go for evening runs, hike under the canopy, and swim at dusk, but the sun is a formidable thing to avoid. Hot, bright days can make me feel restless and trapped.

I have too much time to wonder if my cancer will come back.

The other day, after a fitful sleep, I woke up to an alert. Over night, my website traffic had spiked.

This has happened a few times, like 1) when my website was attacked by spammers, or 2) the author Carley Fortune recommended How to Survive a Bear Attack at her event (thank you, Carley).

This traffic came for a different reason. People were looking for an essay I wrote in 2013 about a book, Stoner by John Williams.

Stoner was first published in 1965. It’s about a boy, William Stoner, born on a farm in 1891. He enrols at university, discovers Shakespeare, becomes an academic, marries, has a child, an affair, then develops cancer and dies.

A nothing plot, isn’t it?

In 2013, I became interested in Stoner when I saw it had become a bestseller in The Netherlands. The more I heard about the book, the less I could understand the fuss.

Then, I read Stoner.

In 2007, Morris Dickstein wrote about Stoner in The New York Times, “…rarer than a great novel—it is a perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving, that it takes your breath away.”

The book took my breath away when I read it, too. But why, in 2013, it had caught people’s attention again?

As a staff writer at The Millions, I investigated:

“I expected to find a story of undiscovered genius and a neglected book…

…when I looked into the story behind Stoner, what I found is the opposite. It is surprising precisely because this book has not been overlooked. This is a story about a novel that is so extraordinary that it’s been remembered.” [full article]

And now, as evidenced by the traffic on my website, Stoner is being remembered again.

I just re-read the novel. This time, more than ten years later, I found Stoner even more powerful.

In parts, it’s hard to read. Life is shown on the page. Sometimes it’s messy. Stoner ebbs and flows through loves and losses. The events are ordinary.

It’s the last 50 pages, or so, that tilt the novel into something completely captivating.

“Lust and learning,” Katherine once said. “That’s really all there is, isn’t it?”
― John Williams, Stoner

"What did you expect?" Stoner asks himself as he’s dying.

He reckons with being ordinary, that his work might be inconsequential, and that he won’t leave a huge impression. I don’t want to give it all away, but Stoner moves toward acceptance—life isn’t about an end, but the pursuit. Eventually, the mysteries of his mind and heart show themselves.

It's Stoner Season

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