‘Stoner’ From the Farm to the University: A Touching Tale of Love, Betrayal, Academic Ascension, and Departmental Dissension.
“I don’t think you’re fit to be a teacher; no man is, whose prejudices override his talents and his learning.”
Set out at the University of Missouri, ‘Stoner’ is a “classic novel of university life” authored by John Williams. Key themes of the novel, as the title of this article suggests, are love, loss, grief, betrayal, the incalculable nature of human relationships, academic success & setbacks, campus politics, and the moral code/responsibilities of academicians.
William Stoner, the central character of the novel, is born in a village, as the only child to his parents, at age six he starts performing different tasks such as milking cows, and gathering eggs from chicken flocks. After he finishes high school, his father, on the advice of an official agriculture expert, decides to send him to university to study agriculture.
With barely 3 pairs of clothes, a worn-out coat, and 25 dollars (“which his father had borrowed from a neighbor against the fall wheat”) Stoner sets foot in the university, astonishingly looking at the tall buildings. His accommodation is arranged at the place of his mother’s cousin, in return, he has to take care of live stocks, before and after university. It was the second year of his degree that he had to take a mandatory course in English literature, instructed by a middle-aged professor named Archer Solane. Though initially, he found it very difficult to keep up with the course content and performed poorly, it played a decisive role in his career.
As the second academic year came to an end, Stoner dropped basic courses in science and “took introductory courses in philosophy and ancient history and two courses in English literature”. It was at this time that Stoner started some inward reflection, he began spending more time on campus, wandering around, visiting the library, glancing over, and reading a few pages of books now and then. Archer Solane, who was to become a lifelong mentor of Stoner, once summoned him to his office, having discussed Stoner’s plans and knowing that he was clueless about what he wanted to do, (except having no intention of returning to the farm) Solane told him about his prospect of getting the instructor position if he was able to do his master’s and enroll for a doctorate.
One of the most downhearted moments in the novel is when Stoner graduates in the year 1914 and his parents travel from the village to attend his graduation ceremony, after a lot of hesitation, stoner gathers the courage to have a strenuous conversation with his parents, he informs them that he does not intend to go back with them. His father asks some innocent questions such as “You get yourself in some kind of trouble?”, Stoner tries to explain his ambitions and what he intends to pursue, as his mother sits crying silently, his father says, “I didn’t figure it would turn out like this. I thought I was doing the best for you I could, sending you here. Your ma and me has always done the best we could for you.” “If you think you ought to stay here and study your books, then that’s what you ought to do. Your ma and me can manage.”
Over time, Stoner manages to finish his master’s and enrolls in the doctoral program. He gets to teach two courses to newcomers. Unlike his fellows, he decides not to volunteer for war and accepts the offer of full-time instructorship as he finishes his doctoral thesis. One freezing winter evening, at a dinner party, he meets a gorgeous young lady named Edith Elaine, the daughter of a banker. They meet each other a few times later and Stoner is drawn towards her strange and complex aspect of life. Shortly after, without getting to know each other at length, Stoner and Edith get married, in quite haste and unusual manners, Stoner’s parents and some close colleagues attend the marriage.
As fragile, as human relationships are, things do not turn out as anticipated, Edith soon turns indifferent to stoner, and things start falling apart. It was Edith’s upbringing in a dysfunctional family, inculcation of values and morals that were “negative in nature & prohibitive in intent” with other things that made her the person she was, rendering their relationship devoid of any passion and intimate emotions. A daughter was born to them, named Grace, but their relationship remains the same.
As time elapsed, Archer Solane, the mentor of William Stoner passed away, and a Harvard-educated man named Lomax came to replace him, during the same time Stoner was promoted to assistant professorship, and he spent most of his time in the university. Edith got the home loan approved by his father and they bought a house of their own. One evening he got the news of his father’s sudden death, he stayed in his village for a week, his mother had become too frail but she was not ready to move from the place she had spent her life, he would visit her on weekend after father’s death but not longer than a year his mother joined his father, was buried beside her husband.
“Stoner stood alone in a cold November wind and looked at the two graves, one open to its burden and the other mounded and covered by a thin fuzz of grass. He looked across the flat land in the direction of the farm where he had been born, where his mother and father had spent their years. He thought of the cost exacted, year after year, by the soil; and it remained as it had been — a little more barren, perhaps, a little more frugal of increase. Nothing had changed. Their lives had been expended in cheerless labor, their wills broken, their intelligence numbed. Now they were in the earth to which they had given their lives; and slowly, year by year, the earth would take them. Slowly the damp rot would infest the pine boxes that held their bodies, and slowly it would touch their flesh, and finally, it would consume the last vestiges of their substances. And they would become a meaningless part of that stubborn earth to which they had long ago given themselves”.
Amid stoners’ dysfunctional, chaotic, and bitter family life, and a quiet but balanced professional life, two characters appear who change the whole course of events. Charles Walker, a differently abled PhD student with extraordinary “scholarly and critical abilities” and Catherine Driscoll, A young instructor in her late twenties finishing her doctorate. Both happen to attend Stoner’s seminar on “Medieval Latin Literature’’. Walker, somewhat academically challenges Stoner, but the seminar continues amid his untimely and off-the-mark remarks. Things take an unpleasant turn when Walker deliberately delays the submission of his seminar’s term paper and on the day of his presentation, deviating from the assigned topic, ruthlessly criticizes Catherine’s paper (presented earlier, on Shakespeare’s use of “Donatan’’ tradition). This lands him in the bad book of Stoner and he awards him an F also questioning his suitability to be a doctorate candidate.
With the failure of the seminar and poor grades in an earlier course Walker had taken, an oral examination was held as per rules, to asses if he was capable of continuing his doctorate. In the committee was Stoner as well, and on his turn to ask questions, he gave an arduous runaround to Walker, from medieval to renaissance to 19th-century literature, he asked one after another question leaving Walker slack-jawed. For Walker to pass the oral exam, the endorsement of every member of the committee was needed. Stoner fails him, and stubbornly holds his ground, resulting in a hostile relationship between him and Walker’s supervisor Lomax, who was to become the next chairman of the department.
Stoner’s attempt to keep Walker from continuing with his doctorate fails, and his dissension starts as his seminar and other courses are listed down from schedule because Lomax becomes new in charge of the department. This unexpected crashing down of the castle of his academic career took him adversely. He tries to make a truce with Lomax but Lomax refuses, saying “I’m going to be very frank with you, Stoner, I don’t think you’re fit to be a teacher; no man is, whose prejudices override his talents and his learning. I should probably fire you if I had the power”.
At this crucial juncture, Stoner unconsciously embarks on a journey of personal reinvention. What started as a matter of common courtesy turns into an ill-fated but ecstatic love affair. Catherine Driscoll gives her dissertation to Stoner for his feedback. It starts with the stoner’s visits to her apartment to provide her with this and that reference…and to sum up “They grew from a passion to lust to a deep sensuality that renewed itself from moment to moment”. This affair was soon in the knowledge of everyone around the campus. As Lomax prepared to start a misconduct inquiry against Stoner on grounds of this scandal. Catherine leaves the town resigning from university,
Following Stoner’s illness and disregard and dismissal of his attempt to do some experimentation in introducing different text than prescribed in the course. His daughter Grace who grew up in a conflict-ridden environment, possessed a complex nature, she married one of Stoner’s students in a very unusual manner as did her parents. Stoner suffers from a tumor in his stomach, and takes retirement, an idea he resisted earlier, but his poor health left him no choice. He got a promotion the day his farewell was held. He remains bedridden, and finally, as he draws his last breath he holds his book in his hands “fingers loosened, and the book they had held moved slowly and then swiftly across the still body and fell into the silence of the room”.
Stoner is a very captivating read, once you begin reading you will feel not only deeply immersed in but also like living, aging, and dying with the main character of Stoner. Its themes and characters & their behaviors and personas feel very real. You find all aspects of an ordinary human’s life beautifully reflected and encapsulated in it.
