Stoner By, John Williams

Stoner is known as, the "Greatest American Novel You've Never Heard Of." It was first published in 1965 and sold less then 2000 copies. It was reissued in 2003 and 2006. There are many, many reviews of this book, because it is so highly regarded, but once again, unheard of. There are a plethora of explanations as to why it never received the acclaim it deserved.
William Stoner was born and raised on a farm in 1891, in Missouri. Like his parents, Stoner expected to work as a farmer, after graduating high school. Stoner was recommended for college to study agriculture, to learn the 'new and developing ways' of working the farm.
Stoner attends the University of Missouri, studying agriculture and is required to take a literature course, Freshman Composition. Stoner read a sonnet, written by Shakespeare, which deeply moved him. He then makes the decision to drop all of his science courses and focus on literature classes only.
After discussing this with his mentor, Professor Sloane, he is recommended for a teaching position, contingent upon completing his M.A. Once achieved, he studies and then obtains his PHD from Columbia. His dissertation is on "The Influence of the Classical Tradition upon the Medieval Lyric." Stoner does eventually publish his dissertation, as a book.

He develops a friendship with 2 other professors, Dave Masters & Gordon Finch. The first World War begins, and Dave and Gordon enlist, but Stoner refuses and chooses to continue teaching. It was a difficult decision for Stoner, as he acknowledges he felt 'pressured' to enlist, but still chooses not to.
Stoner is offered and accepts the position at U. of Missouri, where he attended as an undergrad, by his mentor, Archer Sloane.
Sloane notes, that it is somewhat ironic, that the course, he will be teaching, Freshman Composition, is the course, which provided Stoner's introduction to and love of Shakespeare.
Its passages likes this, that I believe make this novel, so extraordinary:
"So Stoner began where he started, a tall thin, stooped man in the same room in which he had sat as a tall, thin, stooped boy listening to the words that had led him to where he had come. He never went into that room that he did not glance at the seat he had once occupied, and he was always slightly surprised to discover that he was not there."
It's these quiet reflections that say so much in just a few words. Its an insightful resignation, that even after he has achieved so much, he is back where he started, a 'tall thin stooped boy.'

Stoner speaks for all of us who have felt 'less than', living a benign life of underachievement.
In all of us, there is the strife of  'the human condition.' This book addresses every person's struggle to achieve, be successful, happy and 'fulfilled'. Or, in reference to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the elusive and mystifying, climbing the pyramid to "Self Actualization."

Stoner marries and has a daughter. It is one struggle after another, and the book does not end well.
The author, John Williams was a professor at the University of Missouri and notes in the introduction, that the book is a "work of fiction."

The book has been described as "a work of quiet perfection", a "simple novel with powerful prose and depth", "the archetypal literal every man", "luminous and deeply moving" and my favorite, "terse language that leaves space for narrative distance."

I will end in the words of Stoner's final passage in the book. He reaches for the book he wrote and states, " He left his fingers rifle through the pages and felt a tingling, as if the pages were alive. The tingling came through his fingers and coursed through his flesh and bone, he was minutely aware of it, and he waited until it contained him, until the old excitement that was like terror fixed him where he lay."

Please let me know what you think.