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Stoner
by

John Williams,

John McGahern (Introduction)

jessica's review

Sep 22, 2019

it was amazing

i have started and stopped writing this review several times because i cant seem to find words big enough to do this book justice or words strong enough to hold how i feel about it.

this is a story about an average man living an every day life. it could be considered unglamorous, boring, and even frequently disappointing. but isnt life often unglamorous and boring and disappointing? and i think thats the genius of this novel. to take a common man and make you love him because you realise that you and him arent unalike, that you too feel common.

but when you have the opportunity to see an entire life in front of you, such as william stoners, you realise that the beauty is in the little things. that the simple life, the quiet life, is significant. that the individual life is worth examining.

and it gives you hope and comfort to know that if the life of an average man is of value, then yours is too.

and there are no words to describe that.

↠ 4.5 stars

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Quotes jessica Liked

“Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.”
― John Williams, Stoner

1059 likes

“The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print—the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.”
― John Williams, Stoner

290 likes