Stoner by John Williams
No not a book about drugs but a story about a university life. Not what we might call a successful life, but not a failure either. A suppose it could be regarded as a story about personal success, or the success of a no-body.
It is the story of an English professor who never seems to act, but instead life simply goes by and he lives. But he is a success in certain ways: he lives his life the way he wants, marries the woman he wants and although it doesn’t work out and they are never happy he does manage to find a certain amount to happiness elsewhere, but that too ends. Then again every thing ends doesn’t it?
Stoner spends his life teaching, the only thing that he ever wanted to do, and although a conflict with a colleague means that he never becomes a “great” or highly recognised teacher he is respected by his students and those who know him. Also it doesn’t matter to him, in the end he gets what he wants. He teaches what he wants and in the end he and his wife seem to come to some form of understanding.
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