Episode 8.3: ‘Stoner’ by John Williams
‘Stoner’ is a classic campus novel that has been on my (Sophie’s) TBR for years and years - it’s one of those novels that is almost universally loved.
It’s going to be very interesting to see the comparisons between seminal campus novels from opposite sides of the Atlantic. We’ve featured Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Brideshead Revisited’, and now it’s the turn of ‘Stoner’.
William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father's farm. Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely.
Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value - of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history - and in doing so reclaims the significance of an individual life.
We are so excited to get stuck into this modern classic and explore its linked to ‘The Secret History’ and its path through the campus novel to dark academia as a genre.
In this episode we discuss:
The differences between the UK and US college systems
A discussion of Edith: is she unfairly maligned in reviews of ‘Stoner’?
The unusual path to success for the novel
You can listen to it here:
TEXTS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
‘Stoner’ by John Williams
‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley
If you fancy taking a chance on ‘Stoner’, we’d love it if you considered using our bookshop.org link below to purchase your copy of the book which helps us fund ‘The Dark Academicals’ and gives back to independent bookshops at no extra cost to you.
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