Stoner – A Personal Review

 

Several months ago, I read a review of the 1965 Pulitzer Prize winning novel – Stoner by John Williams.  The plot was described as life story of a man who goes from farm life to college to get an agricultural degree but gets sidetracked and ends of being a college English professor instead.  That seemed very similar to what happened to me so I was interested in two things – were there any parallels – psychological or otherwise and were there any examples of stream of consciousness prose?  Stream of consciousness is one of my literary and psychiatric interests.  I was not disappointed. 

For comparison, I went to college because I had a football scholarship. I did not apply to several colleges – I only went to one because of the scholarship and my vague goals of teaching physical education and possibly coaching.  I developed a serious case of appendicitis and sepsis so football was not a possibility. A series of events followed that involved the many of the faculty of that college that resulted in me graduating as a chemistry biology major and eventually going on to medical school.  None of that was planned by me and in retrospect it seems like I was swept along by the enthusiasm and concerns of my professors.  I don’t think that would have been possible at any other place than the small liberal arts college that I attended. I know several others who had similar experiences there and went on to highly successful professional careers. Ironically, when our small college closed two years ago, it left behind a tragic void—all the unrealized potential of the students who will never get to attend.

William Stoner was born as an only child and raised on a farm in late 19th century Missouri.  As the story begins, we hear about the rigors of farm life and the stoic approach taken in his family of origin. His father talks with him about a new agriculture degree available at the College of Agriculture at the University of Missouri in Columbia.  He explains the crop yields are low and more scientific methods may improve the yield and sustainability of their farm.  Stoner accepts his father’s suggestion and arrangements to live on his mother’s cousins farm where he can work for room and board while paying for tuition. He expects to complete his degree and return to the farm.

From the outset he is described as tall, thin, awkward, and having a stooped posture from all of the hard physical labor on the farm. From the outset Williams describes him as an unremarkable and not memorable man.  His physical labor is only slightly diminished with his initial living arrangements.  His first year in school was routine.  In the second year he had a life changing event. 

He was taking a required survey of English literature from Prof. Archer Sloan.  Sloan was described as being disliked by most of his students because of his detached teaching style as if he knew he was unable to convey all that he knew about literature to the students.  Stoner notices he was getting frequent images of Sloan and his speech patterns away from the classroom and engaged in other activities.  He had initial difficulty with the class.  One day in class Sloan asks about Shakespeare’s Seventy-Third Sonnet – specifically what does it mean?  He calls on two students and after giving an elaborate introduction of the poem calls on Stoner.  Stoner is unable to answer and the class is dismissed.  With no explanation we learn in the next semester that he dropped his science courses and added history, philosophy, and English literature.  The process suggested to me that he identified with Prof. Sloan at some level. 

The next two years he was immersed in study and experienced a change in his experience of reality. In his fourth year, he has a more cordial meeting with Sloan who asks him about his plans and then announces that he is going to be a teacher. They outline a plan to get him on a path to his master’s degree and then his PhD. At this critical point, Sloan possesses a clearer vision of Stoner's path than Stoner himself does.  When Stoner asks for clarification of his certainty, Sloan replies “You are in love, it’s as simple as that.” Referring to Stoner’s love of the subject material.

All of this happens in the first chapter that ends with Stoner explaining to his parents that he will not be returning home after graduation.  They are shocked but deal with it in the expected quite desperation of deeply disappointed parents who never express much emotion. Williams describes these scenes perfectly in third person narrative.     

The next chapters follow the course of Stoner’s life and relationships.  His erratic marriage to Edith and his personal relationship to their daughter Grace.  Edith is described as a thin attractive women shaped by her privileged upbringing to expect that she will be taken care of.  She has no interest in academics and her attachment to Stoner fluctuates significantly over the course of the book. At times Stoner had to care for the home and their young daughter when Edith was withdrawn and isolative.  They eventually come to an equilibrium where she is concerned but at a considerable distance. 

He has two close friends that are described more as acquaintances.  One of them eventually becomes a Dean at the University and offers him some cover from the department head who is his arch enemy and would fire him if possible. An affair with a younger instructor that eventually leads to scrutiny and pressure that causes her to leave and move to another college. The effects of two world wars and various health crises are described.  One of his two friends is killed in WWII almost immediately. As time passes, Stoner is becoming more of an academic and a better teacher.

Stoner’s relationship to his daughter Grace becomes a central part of the book. During the time when he is caring for the home while Edith is isolated and seemingly ill, he is also responsible for taking care of Grace.  He alters his work and preparation schedule so that he can do more of it at home and watches her at the same time. He sets up his study to accommodate her and she draws while he is working on his courses. Edith eventually takes a more active role in Grace’s life, bans her from Stoner’s study and fills her schedule with social activities.  She becomes a frail and anxious person like Edith, hardly talking with Stoner.  She ultimately becomes a more tragic figure after losing her husband in the war.  She returns home visit him at one point and although she has developed a problem with alcohol – Stoner thinks he is glad that she has alcohol to comfort herself.

The main characters outside the family in this novel include Katherine Driscoll – a young instructor in Stoner’s department and Hollis Lomax the head of the department.  We see Lomax become Stoner’s arch nemesis early in the plot when they disagree on the promotion of a graduate student.  During an oral examination, Stoner demonstrates that the student lacks the basic knowledge base to continue in the graduate program but Lomax disagrees.  After Stoner refuses to compromise, Lomax increases his teaching burden of lower-level courses, refuses to promote him even though Stoner has tenure and is a well-liked and productive teacher.  The conflict becomes more heated when the affair between Stoner and Katherine Driscoll becomes widely known and Lomax threatens to fire her. Both Lomax and Stoner are communicating through surrogates at that point.

Katherine Driscoll and Stoner have an intense intimate relationship. Stoner if fulfilled by the relationship and it causes his to examine his thoughts about love over the course of his lifetime.  When the relationship becomes more known – it leads to the inevitable ultimatum from Lomax and societal pressure to end it.  In Katherine Driscoll’s interest she decides to move to another school and is eventually successful there and published a book that Stoner reads.  He notices that it is dedicated anonymously to him.

I will not discuss the ending except to say that it continues the main themes of the book.  Many reviewers suggest this book is about an average man living an average life.  They suggest it is a celebration of that averageness.  I see it somewhat differently.  Just living anywhere requires a tremendous sustained effort.  Many force that thought out of their awareness every day as they go to work and either do a job they do not like or as in Stoner’s case – work a job they but suffer because their manager is not a reasonable person.  In those cases, most people do not rebel and lash out but put their shoulder to the wheel and keep pushing ahead no matter what.  Stoner’s life was permanently altered by his love of literature.  He becomes a devoted teacher protecting the integrity of his discipline.  When pressured he retreats into this work with stoic discipline and dedication.

I had the random thought last week that nearly all of the professors who taught me in college and medical school are dead.  They were all dedicated scholars but none of them were famous.  I was profoundly saddened by that thought. All of that work and dedication – to be celebrated by a few grateful students in relative anonymity. Getting back to the questions posed at the outset of this post – yes - I think this story reflects some of my experience in college and how it changed my life.  And – yes - there is some stream-of-consciousness writing – but not much. Williams writes a precise and almost perfect third person narrative about William Stoner.  He describes an episode of delirium near the end of the book that is very good and relies on elements of stream of consciousness.  The Shakespeare Sonnett epiphany in class that changed Stoner’s life trajectory was another brief example:

“…He looked away from Sloane about the room. Light slanted from the windows and settled upon the faces of his fellow students, so that the illumination seemed to come from within them and go out against a dimness; a student blinked, and a thin shadow fell upon a cheek whose down had caught the sunlight. Stoner became aware that his fingers were unclenching their hard grip on his desk-top. He turned his hands about under his gaze, marveling at their brownness, at the intricate way the nails fit into his blunt finger-ends; he thought he could feel the blood flowing invisibly through the tiny veins and arteries, throbbing delicately and precariously from his fingertips through his body.” (p. 13)

Many critics write about Stoner as an existentialist novel.  Whenever I think of existentialism I reflect on Yalom’s dimensions of death anxiety, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. Those themes apply not only to Stoner but several other characters in the plot line.   In Stoner’s case his isolation within his own marriage is an extension of the emotional isolation he had growing up with distant parents.  He carves out an existence within his that home as Edith isolates herself and removes Grace from his influence.  Although Stoner seems to live a life of tolerance and passive acceptance of his predicament – his life trajectory is altered by radical freedom of choice when he chooses to abandon farm life in favor of academia, refuses to pass an incompetent student over his department head’s strong objection, and elects to end his affair with Katherine Driscoll rather than ruin her career.  Although more implicit at no point did, he consider divorcing his emotionally estranged wife. 

In terms of meaningfulness, Stoner treats scholarship and teaching as an intrinsic good and an organizing factor in his life. He recognizes that his contributions to his field are modest.  His only book was a monograph from his doctoral thesis that was not widely read and did not bring him any fame.  In the final analysis, it was proof he had lived a life faithful to his goal of scholarship. 

Stoner’s sophomore epiphany can also be seen in psychodynamic terms.  Identification occurs when an individual unconsciously adopts the traits, values, or posture of an admired figure, incorporating them into their own ego ideal.  He does not want to just learn from Stone – he wants to be like him.  He introjects Sloan’s love of literature, institutionalized approach to university life, and self-discipline.  Any identification with his father and farm life are gone at that point.  In this type of identification, it does not stop with introjection it also requires generativity consistent with the identification and Stoner does that throughout his teaching career.

In reading a book like Stoner, it may be temping to think “I am Stoner.” Or “We are all Stoner” because of some of the common elements.  As I mentioned at the outset, my trajectory was very similar to Stoner and as an old many who teaches psychodynamics – I have attributed it to identifying with many of my undergraduate and medical school professors.  In most of those cases I worked with them intensely for 3 or 4 months and never saw them again.  The identification in my case opened up a world of possibilities that I could not have imagined.  But Williams’ novel points out all of the nuances in a life beyond what you do or do not imagine for yourself and who you identify with.  The interactions between Stoner and all of the important people in his life – especially the emotional tone cannot be predicted and there are rarely any good resolutions. There are too many permutations of what can happen in any life to say you would probably react like Stoner.  In the end, Stoner achieves hard-won satisfaction with his life despite multiple failures because he can claim it as his own.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

 

Supplementary 1:  Even though I did not come right out and say it – I highly recommend this book.  Reading it is without a doubt more enjoyable than reading my obsessive review.  I have not encountered a novel written like this before and it is very unique.  All of Stoner’s 60+ years are packed into 278 pages and Williams keeps it moving right along.  The description of characters who are emotionally unexpressive or unpredictable expressive is first rate.  Anyone involved in academic or medical administration politics will relate immediately to the type of conflict Stoner has with his department head.

Supplementary 2:   Physicians may find this novel particularly interesting.  Stoner’s monastic academic career resembles the career of most physicians. Lifelong study without acclaim and the only reward being the knowledge that you are doing an adequate job.  The field has to be approached with the same level of integrity that Stoner approaches English literature.  The impact on the family is high even though in Stoner’s case – his wife had a large role in that.