Stoner

John Williams

A Lovely, serene, deeply spiritual book that deserves to be a classic, Stoner by John Williams, written in 1965 tells the life story of a Professor of English. The novel takes place in the early part of the 20th Century.

The writing is such that one goes back and rereads passages. This is a tremendous achievement and should be read by any lover of great fiction. I seldom fall in love with a book, but I did with this one. The simplicity of the writing is deceiving for in the words lies much about the truth of human nature and circumstances of individual lives. A simple story of a man’s life from poor farmer to educated professor of literature, in the end is a story of all our lives; a story of you and me. How our daily efforts one day all end in silence, a silence not affected in the least by the activity and effort we put forth. What we perceive as our failures are but yarn that make up the beautiful patchwork of our lives.

Unless one is adept at words, one can take away from the experience of a work of art. So my descriptive attempts of this book do not do it justice. All I can add is that one must read this book and experience the beauty of this work or art. This is a Five-Star Book!

Review by Tony Kainauskas

Please do not read the introduction until you have finished the book… it contains many spoilers.