Stoner

This was an oddly compelling read about an unremarkable guy and his flawed life. I don't have a huge love of classics, and I likely would never have read this book if not for my book club friends reading it this month, but I'm actually glad I read this one.

Stoner could be anyone you come across, and you'd never know. He grew up dirt poor, went to college woefully unprepared, and managed to stumble on something he enjoyed much better than his family's farm in the process. Neither farmers nor scholars of that time period are known for their emotional development, so when he's confronted with the intense emotions that an infatuation can bring on a person, he conflates that with love, and mistakes are made. Stoner experiences low points, manages to make his way out of those low points, and finally manages to make his stumbling way towards the end of a life that, to anyone else may look unremarkable and boring, but to him he managed to find some contentment and peace(?) at the end.

I really like the idea that you don't have to lead a spectacular life to find a measure of contentment at the end. Maybe it wasn't a well-lived life and Stoner does experience regrets, but that's true of any one of us. Would I recommend this book to anyone and everyone? Maybe not, but I still greatly enjoyed it for what it made me think about.

Reading fiction has always been a double-edged sword for me. Some of the most intimate moments I've spent alone is while reading fictional stories, while at the same time, feeling a pang of disappointment for myself because I wasn't doing anything "productive." Is this mere entertainment? Am I just escaping my real-life responsibilities and reading stories of make-believe? While I still haven't found sincere answers to these questions, I've grown more confident of what I enjoy and what I don't, which has consequently helped me find peace with this conflict. Over the years, I've realized that reading good literature is therapeutic for me - not to be used as an afterthought but essential to keep me functional.

Stoner was another great session in my therapy.

A story that on the surface feels depressing and sad, but curiously enough has immense hopeful undertones. This is the ordinary story of a man whose only goals in life are to attain two of the most notoriously difficult things known to mankind - knowledge, and love. He fails in both, but if you look underneath the surface, he succeeds in attaining both as well - just enough to make him feel satisfied but not enough to make the world think the same. The story is simple. A man hailing from rural American farmland attends university, falls in love with literature, and decides to dedicate himself to fulfill his passion. He starts teaching at the university, gets married by following his desire, but without falling in love, has a passionate love affair and, in the end, dies without having accomplished much.

But the way Mr. Williams writes this simple story is mesmerizing, to say the least. There's an existential dread in all the interactions, always pulsing with energy, and the prose flows with a perfection, almost to a fault. When I looked back at the book having finished my 4-hour marathon run through it, I noticed that for the first 100 pages or so, the book had a lot of markings - sentences I had loved, descriptions I had enjoyed - however as it moved further, I got tired of doing so, simply because it only got better and better. If I had continued, the whole book would have been messed up by my pencil.

Throughout the book, I could sense Camus's influence on his writing; the existential dread always present. All the characters felt as if they could easily exist in my universe. The slow torment that the protagonist went through, at times, felt too personal, as if someone had mercilessly ripped out a few chapters from my life and laid it bare for the world to see. One of these moving passages is written at approximately two-third of the book, which I can't help but quote below:

In his extreme youth, Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity, he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which he ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt, and an embarrassed nostalgia. Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart.

He had come to that moment in his age when there occurred to him, with increasing intensity, a question of such overwhelming simplicity that he had no means to face it. He found himself wondering if his life were worth the living; if it had ever been. It was a question, he suspected, that came to all men at one time or another; he wondered if it came to them with such impersonal force as it came to him. The question brought with it a sadness, but it was a general sadness which (he thought) had little to do with himself or with his particular fate; he was not even sure that the question sprang from the most immediate and obvious causes, from what his own life had become. It came, he believed, from the accretion of his years, from the density of accident and circumstance, and from what he had come to understand of them. He took a grim and ironic pleasure from the possibility that what little learning he had managed to acquire had led him to this knowledge; that in the long run all things, even the learning that let him know this, were futile and empty, and at last diminished into a nothingness they did not alter.

Život seljaka, one vrste s početka 20. stoljeća i američkog juga na kojem je William odrastao uvjetuje ovisnost o zemlji, ćudljivom gospodaru koji zahtjeva fiksnu količinu rada i svakodnevni trud, ali čiji prinosi se ne mogu predvidjeti niti se na njih može pouzdati. I ljudi su to prihvatili, ne možeš se pobuniti protiv prirode, ako prinos izostane ostaje im jedino ponoviti cijeli proces i nadati se boljoj godini. Odnos prema zapreci ove vrste traži prihvaćanje datog stanja kao nepromjenjivog, fokus seljaka umjesto na promjenu uvjeta mijenja se na odnos prema ishodu, očajavanje nije izbor, valja prilagoditi svoje radnje, prilagoditi zalihe i nadati se boljim uvjetima sljedeće godine.

U idejnoj izgradnji lika Williama Stonera odrastanje u ovim uvjetima stvara obrazac  kojim će se on nastaviti odnositi prema događajima u svom životu i nakon života na farmi. Gradski život ne može brzo prihvatiti kao normalan, on sam hoda drugačije od drugih, nema novaca da sudjeluje u igrankama, vidi se vanjskim dijelom društva promatrajući ljude oko sebe slično kako Mersault to radi kod Camusa. U tome ima smisla njegovo nalaženje eskapizma u književnosti, apstraktnim idejama srednjeg vijeka i renesanse, radi se o nečemu što je potpuno izvan interesa struje društva, nešto što nikakvu promjenu neće unijeti, što je eskapistički interes Williama i njegovih kolega. 

“It's for us that the University exists, for the dispossessed of the world; not for the students, not for the selfless pursuit of knowledge, not for any of the reasons that you hear. We give out the reasons, and we let a few of the ordinary ones in, those that would do in the world; but that's just protective coloration. Like the church in the Middle Ages, which didn't give a damn about the laity or even about God, we have our pretenses in order to survive. And we shall survive—because we have to.”  

Vjerujem kako Williamova karakterizacija kao osobe koja se ne vidi dijelom društva, služi kao metafora za cijelu katedru književnosti, barem u ono doba, mjesta gdje profesor sa svojim studentima analizu pjesme stare 500 godina doživljavaju smrtno ozbiljno. I to se uzima posve logičnim. Eskapističko mjesto koje služi za utočište za sve Stonere ovog svijeta, jer jedino oni ga i mogu vidjeti privlačnim.

Čitajući knjigu pitao sam se cijelo vrijeme je li William sretan čovjek, je li imao dobar život. Njegov stoički ako ću iskoristiti pozitivan pridjev, pasivni ako ću uzeti negativni, pristup stvarima van fakulteta donosi mu neuspjehe na društvenoj skali. U Edith se zaljubio, jer je u njoj našao svoj unutarnji ideal ljepote, ali za čiju ljubav se prestao boriti nakon nekoliko tjedana braka kad je shvatio da ona želi čovjeka koji on ne može ili možda ipak preciznije, ne želi biti. Njeno zamjeranje je logična reakcija, za razliku od Williama ona je produkt tog vremena, odrasla u visokoj klasi očekujući od muža da pokaže inicijativu i pruži joj sve ono što žene njene klase očekuju imati, stvari za koje William nikad zainteresiran nije bio. Da se njega pitalo nikad onaj mali stan ne bi napustili, ali opet i njih dvoje su tokom godina našli načina da funkcioniraju kao cimeri, ako već ne kao supružnici. Izgubio je kćerku koja je razvila isti eskapistički bijeg od stvarnosti kakav je pokazivao i njen otac, nije imala knjige, ali je pronašla alkohol. Našao je ljubav sa djevojkom iz svog svijeta sveučilišta, u čijim očima on je bio velik, ali čija veza nije mogla trajati u fatalističkom svijetu gdje oboje sebe vide strancima kojima nije predviđen put glavnog junaka modernih priča. Nije moglo završiti drugačije za njih dvoje. Ali opet, ako proglasim Williama Stonera nesretnim, zar time ne pretpostavljam očekivanja životu vođena idejom individualca koji treba imati sve ili umrijeti u pokušaju. U stvarnom životu to baš i ne funkcionira tako, s te strane mi Williamov stav daje nadu, njegovo neprihvaćanje patnje kao baznog stanja bez obzira na okolnosti i fokus na pozitivne dijelove koji će se uvijek pojaviti bez obzira na ukupnu sliku.

Ho iniziato ad odiare questo libro sin dall'inizio perché l'autore non rispetta la regola base: Show, don't tell (Mostra, non raccontare)
Andando avanti mi sono accorto che la vita di Stoner era proprio così, non vissuta ma raccontata. Insomma questo libro andava scritto proprio così, perché il protagonista sembra seguire la propria vita dall'esterno senza viverla in prima persona, senza fare una singola scelta consapevole.
Pian piano mi sono affezzionato a Willy Stoner e ho iniziato a solidarizzare con lui, fino alla fine, quando guarda in faccia la morte e finalmente fa qualcosa per prepararsi. Lì mi ha addirituttra commosso e mi ha fatto piangere. Odio quando giocano così con le mie emozioni... ma in realtà quando un autore riesce a coinvolgermi così è perché è bravo. 😀

Per quanto rigurda i contenuti ho ammirato molto l'abnegazione e il senso del dovere di Stoner che di certo è un gran lavoratore. Ma non potrò mai perdonargli di non aver combattuto per la figlia.
Mi ha fatto pensare la sua storia d'amore. Anche in questa non ha scelto, si è semplicemente lasciato andare, come se l'è lasciata sfuggire di mano senza far nulla.
Praticemente condivido in toto quello che scrive nella postfazione Peter Cameron.
La domanda che dovremmo farci è: "Nella nostra vita siamo noi a decidere cosa fare o ci lasciamo trascinare dagli eventi come Stoner?"

This is a beautifully written novel, one that will stick with me for quite awhile. William Stoner seemed to be living a quiet life, and yet his was a life full of tragedy, loneliness, defiance, and passion. Stoner had plenty of opportunity to show integrity and be true to himself, and he did. He discovered the truth and meaning in his life. That is success.

The English professor who opened William Stoner's eyes in the beginning of this story is Archer Sloane, who has a memorable speech about the young men who are leaving school to fight in WWI.

"...A war doesn't merely kill off a few thousand or a few hundred thousand young men. It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. And if a people goes through enough wars, pretty soon all that's left is the brute, the creature that we--you and I and others like us--have brought up from the slime...the scholar should not be asked to destroy what he has aimed his life to build."

I'd recommend this to anyone.

Leste norsk utgave av denne. Denne boka fortjener all oppmerksomhet den har fått. Det er selvsagt spennende at denne boka ble glemt og gjenoppdaget, men det er urettferdig for bokas vedkommende å fokusere for mye på det. Boka er veldig god, helt uavhengig av tilblivelseshistorien.

Boka handler om William Stoner, som har en vidunderlig evne til å se forbi dagliglivets trivialiteter (men som desverre selv ender opp som en trivialitet). Stoner forstår ofte andre bedre enn de forstår seg selv. Han undrer seg over folk som tror på sin egne irrasjonelle oppførsel, og fanger seg selv om han er på vei i samme felle. Flere ganger får man innblikk i bare starten av Stoners ressonnmenet, og må fullføre det selv.

Boka åpner med å oppsummere Stoners liv i (veldig) grove trekk. En nokså naturlig måte å oppsummere et menneskets liv på. Når man så vet hva som skjer med Stoner i hans liv, får man bli med på Stoners opplevelse og oppfatning av verden rundt seg.

Bokas er på sitt mest spennende i Stoners rivalisering med andre ansatte på universitet hvor han jobber, og på sitt inderligste i hans forhold til sin egne foreldre og familie. Selv om boka raskt bevegde seg forbi mitt stadie i livet, var det vanskelig å ikke relatere til Stoner gjennom hele boka.