"And literature is written to be entertaining?"
"Absolutely. My God, to read without joy is stupid."
That exchange between an interviewer and John Williams, author of the novel Stoner, is quoted in the book's introduction. The two were talking principally about the way in which English literature was taught in universities (Williams was retiring as professor after thirty years in academia), but of course the opinion has wider relevance.
The hero of Williams' novel is William Stoner, assistant professor of English at the University of Missouri (we met him briefly the other day), and hero he is in the eyes of his creator for although the plain facts of his life are nothing out of the ordinary, his seriousness and his deep love of his job - and all that that meant for those he taught - is the key to the man.
Stoner's epiphanal moment, the one which leads him to his career, is almost the result of a chance remark, a set of circumstances sliding into place. His subsequent marriage is similarly a fate born of a moment, and so life seems to lap around his ankles like a wave of which he's barely aware until he realises that in fact he is soaked through. His marriage is unhappy, his career undistinguished, and yet through his integrity, his inherent modesty and the sense of discovery and of being part of something larger which he communicates to his students, his life as scholar and teacher means and amounts to something.
The book is marked by its elegance and its compassion. It's a very fine, wise work, though a sad one, but it could be a portrait of any one of us - yes, details would be different, but the essence is almost universal. Its subject treads a narrow path, but there is a breadth and depth within him which give the novel its scope and provide, in Williams' words, "an escape into reality". To return to the quote with which I began, its beauty and clarity mean it is a joy to read.
