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Stoner (John Williams Collection)

By: Francis Collin Agency
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557280290
ISBN-13: 9781557280299
Released: 15 Mar 1988
RRP: £16.50
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Customer Reviews

Understated masterpiece. - By: Michael Leone, 19 Jul 2003
It's appropriate somehow that this American novel is in-print in England, because it's so unlike most fiction America produces: it's quiet, somber, compact & gracefully written, thoroughly unhip & un-modern. It is a simple tale about a somewhat banal English professor in the midwest whose life just sort of floats by him. The prose is rich & terse, never ostentatious, & for a novel whose setpieces occur mostly in an academic setting, it's utterly engrossing. Williams writes with humanity & insight about relatively normal people we would pass by in the street, & in being so faithful to their aches & appetites, he convinces you -- like alll good fiction from Homer to Tolstoi -- that these are real human beings you're reading about. Nothing less than extraordinary. Please buy this book!
Why is this novel not famous? - By: A Reader, 22 Mar 2003
It's great to have Stoner back in print in the UK, along with Augustus, both with wonderful new introductions. It's been 30 years since I first read Stoner & reading it again for the third or fourth time I can only confirm that the novel more than stands the test of time. It is a story of an honest man, of personal integrity in the face of considerable obstacles. Very few contemporary novels have moved me to the same extent or depth as this one. C.P. Snow in a review of the first British edition asked the question, "Why is this novel not famous?" Why not, indeed.