THIS BOOK ISN’T APPROVED! STONER.

               Hello everybody! I hope you are all healthy and doing super well.

      Today, it will be a bookish talk! It has been such a long time since I published something book related on my blog. And it is mainly because I took this year as a pause from printed books and gravitated more towards online updated books. Mainly, Wattpad would make the most known source of such kind of books. Hopefully, by the end of the year, I will write a detailed article about how this experience was and how it helped me improve both my writing and speaking in English.

So today is the comeback! I will be speaking about a book that nearly everyone swears by! I don’t want to anticipate anything but I want to clarify some points. So, to anyone reading this, please bare in mind the following:

1-      I am not perfect.

2-      I am not a book reviewer or critic. It is not my job or my field of studies. So any opinion I share, only represents me as a reader who judges according to who they are.

3-      My statements aren’t to be taken as facts; again, they are based on my own perspectives which may not agree with the majority’s.

That being said, let’s start our talk! Today, I will perceive: Stoner by John Williams.

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      Stoner, William Stoner, the main character in the book entitled “Stoner “written by John Williams. First published in 1965, in the USA (United States of America).

      “William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.

      John Williams’ luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.”

 (Goodreads.com).

      Reading this small introduction before reading the actual book gave me a lot of thoughts on how the book would actually look like. I had a small image about the content as I thought it would reflect me somehow. I went and purchased the book. I somehow felt like I need to read something similar to save myself from the frustration I’ve been through back in the days.

When I started reading the book I just noticed how the main character’s personality was weak. I actually tried to sympathise with him and his miserable situation but it wasn’t possible. It gave me a vibe of confusion that I couldn’t answer for days after. Stoner was somehow without a specific goal in life! He lived mainly to fulfil his parents’ wish, which was studying agriculture and know more about the land in order to help his farmer dad improve their land’s harvest.

Stoner went to the university and fell in love with English! He abandoned agriculture because he didn’t love it and got bad grades. Although we never knew what he loved, IF he loved something to begin with. He started taking classes of English and just happened to become a teacher at the university. I really cannot tell you how dry his attitude was when speaking in that book! The way he “fought” for what he “loved” that is “English” was not convincing at all!

Speaking of his personal life now. He liked a woman that he eventually married and shared a very plain life with! It was said that somehow this woman had not had those deep feelings for him! He even described that there love life came out of a sort of obligation! And he had his wife pregnant and having a daughter. His wife was mostly sick that she was not even able to take care of their child. It was severally mentioned that he took care of his daughter himself probably most of the time if not all the time. It was that turning point of the story where his wife decided to go at her parents and not show up for a long time. Until that day came when she returned having a completely different aura from her old self and becoming the cold wife towards her husband.

William being the good father and husband tried to understand what was happening but he was unable to figure things out.

*Fin*

      Well no! it is not the end of the book. But rather where I decided to put that book back on the shelf!

I have never been the kind of people who starts a book and leaves it unfinished. I would rather read a book that is not worth being read and rate it with half a star and come for my arguments. But Stoner for John Williams was not the thing I felt like finishing because all i felt from reading it was simply irritation.

If I were to justify why I hate the main character:

Basically because he seemed to me that he was a normal person with nothing special. Rather a reckless young man who had no goal in life and just fell for what fell right at the time! English stood for him because he wanted to see what he could do so he went for it and happened to do well at it!He cared about what people had to say about him and let this thing influence his choices. He didn’t even love his wife but married her because he felt like marrying her! When he had his daughter , he treated her well because simply she was the only one left for him and he wanted her to be by his side later on!

I felt really sad and even cried when I decided to put an end to my journey with stoner! Probably because I expected someone who would stand up for his causes!

I wanted him to convince me that it is okay to mess up a choice and then become better. But all I could feel was a shaking persona who cared about opinions rather that inner perception.

This book is described as a work that is close to perfection ! but to me it just spoke of a coward who let life drive him however and had nothing to do in life so he just went on with it.

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      I know that there are a lot of people who probably do not know yet what they want from their life yet. But at least they try to see what suits them! They just try things for the sake of tracing a guiding line that would lead them towards being their true selves. Nobody knows yet what they are but everyone feels deep doan that the fit somewhere! So they do things to be there!

I am sorry stoner but you did not help me, nor inspire me.

You let things slip out of your hand because you didn’t know what to do.

I don’t care of you changed later , or probably you kept the same attitude.

But you wasted a great deal of your life wasting huge events in the path of self discovery.

*Blogpost finished*