Stoner by John Williams

The story of a professor who marries unhappily, this should be miserable, but is in fact the opposite. It is one of the most tender books I've ever read, the object of that tenderness the sweet, stoical Stoner, who is touched by literature and taken from his farmer destiny into something else, a la Jude the Obscure, and marries into a lonely coupling which he perseveres with through a meaningful affair. It runs from the early years of Stoners life to his death. It is the essential story and at the end Stoner literally lays down the book of his life, the same tone of the ending to the Book of Good Skills I always dreamed of. Almost the same ending in fact. Stoner's book is an academic study. Work, the steady digging of academia, is valued. The "ivory tower" as criticism is viewed through a wiser prism, romance is questioned but love is valued, beauty is held dear, but the valuing of "genius" and the artist as something outside of normal humanity is handled wearily. Nothing in it is untrue. I loved this book. In fact I not only loved this book I felt rescued from it, having been unable to finish a novel in three goes, which in itself is worth a think about, this book made me feel like literature has something for me still, can take me closer to the divinity within me. This book enriched my soul and in doing so reminded me of its existence.