Stoner

What a captivating story. A classic up-from-the-hardscrabble-farm tale. But with only ordinary success at the end. The title has an unfortunate modern meaning that it did not when first published in the 1950s, but you soon realize that it doesn’t apply.

A story of love, with all of its tragedy. Sad, yes, but with enough joy to know the difference and Stoner finds much of his joy in his work. “What did you expect?” the teacher asks himself again and again in a Victorian-style deathbed scene. One without the comfort of an explicit god, yet full of the religion of life.

Stoner’s appraisal of his student-lover’s book: “The prose was graceful and its passion was masked by a coolness and clarity of intelligence,” is a fitting summary of his creator’s effort as well. With the exception of a few long, vague sentences I had to reread several times before I could understand half the sense. So I moved on. For the most part the telling was seductive and endearing.