Hellgoing by Lynn Coady

Hellgoing by Lynn Coady | Published in 2013 by Astoria | Paperback: 240 pages | Source: I bought it

Hellgoing by Lynn Coady | Published in 2013 by Astoria | Paperback: 240 pages | Source: I bought it

My rating: 4/5 stars
 Goodreads

Synopsis:

With astonishing range and depth, Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Lynn Coady gives us nine unforgettable new stories, each one of them grabbing our attention from the first line and resonating long after the last.

Equally adept at capturing the foibles and obsessions of men and of women, compassionate in her humour yet never missing an opportunity to make her characters squirm, fascinated as much by faithlessness as by faith, Lynn Coady is quite possibly the writer who best captures what it is to be human at this particular moment in our history

I apologize for posting the following self-congratulatory tweet, but for book bloggers, I don’t think it gets better than being acknowledged by an author you love. The Giller Prize’s Twitter account asked us to review a long-listed book in 13 words exactly:

Hellgoing Tweet

It’s true, though, “trapped” was the first word that came to mind after reading this collection. Reading these stories was uncomfortable and claustrophobic. I was literally squirming at times. Coady gets us so close to her characters, it’s almost embarrassing, and I have a real problem with vicarious embarrassment. I’m one of those people who have to change the channel when a character is too exposed, or being made a fool of.

The first and last stories were the strongest. Maybe that’s just primacy bias, or maybe it’s my own experience that made these stories devastating – the first is about an alcoholic, the second about a teenage pregnancy, both topics that tend to punch me in the gut.

“Wireless” opens with a hangover, and it’s one of the best descriptions of one I’ve read:

She lay flat on her back for twenty minutes, gauging the pain, the depth of her dehydration. The song in her ears. She sat up, and a second later her pickled brain slid back into its cradle in the centre of her cranium. Time to throw up.

I haven’t had a hangover in five years and reading that made me shudder. The whole story is disconnected and fuzzy, like that poor, pickled brain. What’s with the two mentions of Beanie Babies? What’s with the title? What’s the deal with Ned, the man Jane meets, another alcoholic who is lying to her for unknown reasons? We never find out.

The last story is “Mr. Hope,” and it’s another strange one. This is the one that really prompted my “uncomfortable” response. There’s something off about the whole thing and I can’t figure out what. Is it because the narrator refer’s to her teachers large belly as his “D,” as in the shape of a “D,” given the (gross) internet meme thing “she wants the D?” Because the way Mr. Hope interacts with the kids is kind of age inappropriate, and you wonder what else inappropriate is going on? Like this scene, where he is inexplicably trying to force a grade one class to come up with a definition for “love:”

“You: gap-tooth.”
“Love is when you hold a puppy.”
Mr. Hope slammed his fist against our sweet-faced grandma-teacher’s desk.
“LOVE IS NOT,” he bellowed, “WHEN YOU HOLD A PUPPY.”
Behind me, I could hear someone’s breath hitching rapidly in and out and I tried to shush whoever it was as quietly as I could.
“Where is it?” Mr. Hope demanded to know. “What is it? Think about that, people. You’re all so sure about this thing, and you can’t even answer the question. I’m not asking you when it is. A rock is a small hard round thing. Okay, that’s not great, but at least it’s a start. So what kind of thing is love? Big or little? Soft or hard? Black or white? Or coloured?”

And it gets more awkward from there. I reread this story in it’s entirety for this review, and it struck me differently this time. That’s the great thing about these stories – they’re ambiguous, not in an unresolved way, but in a way that you can read into differently each time.

A few of the other notable bits include:

  • A story that’s made the best use of texting I’ve encountered in fiction- and I know that’s quite a feat, have heard from authors who’ve set their stories in the past specifically to avoid having to deal with technology,
  • An Edmonton winter story that should have been in the 40 Below anthology; I know so because I drove myself nuts searching for it in my copy of 40 Below while writing my review,
  • Stories about self-harm, anorexia, self-doubt, and general dysfunction. Cheery stuff.

Some of these stories stuck with me. Some of them made little impression at all. I want to see what Coady can do with a novel-length story. I know, it’s probably a book-snobbish way to think, but it’s true. Rather than the recent and critically acclaimed The Antagonist, I want to start with Strange Heaven which sounds right up my alley. Another story about a teenage mom – I really should branch out.

The Giller Effect
Reviewing the book’s Goodreads page, I was surprised to see only 101 ratings. The Giller Prize was announced a few weeks ago, and the long and short lists have been out for months. I’m not sure if Goodreads ratings is a valid criteria, but it’s easy to do a few comparisons:

Past Five Giller Winners:

  • Hellgoing – 101 ratings
  • 419 – 4000 ratings
  • Half-Blood Blues – 6563 ratings
  • The Sentimentalists – 1691 ratings
  • The Bishop’s Man – 3187 ratings

The other 2013 shortlisted titles have around 100 ratings each too, so maybe they just need more time. Though somehow long-lister Claire Messud has nearly 10,000 ratings for The Woman Upstairs!

To ensure this wasn’t a Canada thing, I checked out the recent National Book Award recipient Good Lord Bird – 500ish ratings. Maybe people (or, more specifically, people who are active on Goodreads) don’t give a shit about award winners. Compare (and weep) with Dragon Bound’s 15,000 ratings.

As for whether or not Hellgoing  deserved to win, well, you’ll have to wait for my review of Caught for my final thoughts. I only read these two, so I can’t weigh in on the travesty of The Orenda not making the shortlist. Totally a coincidence that I read the two female authors on the shortlist too, I swear!

 

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Moonstone

My rating: 3/5 stars
Goodreads
Read-along post #1

For someone who does a lot of read-alongs, sometimes I feel like I’m not very good at them. On the appointed day for our midway posts, I decided to post nothing and finish the book instead. I also feel like a bit of an outsider, as everyone else is positively swooning over The Moonstone, while I was left a little cold.

For a detective/mystery story, I didn’t feel much suspense at all for 90% of the book. It was only at the very end, when reading the factual, precise account of what happened to the moonstone, that I felt any real urgency to keep reading. Oh, I was curious about what happened to the moonstone. Sure. Who wouldn’t be? But the book utterly failed to make it matter beyond the whodunit aspect and that just wasn’t enough for me.

I think the ambivalence was intended, because the heroine and owner of the jewel is just awful, not to mention it comes to be in her family’s possession through murder. And colonialism. Her uncle is basically looting in India and kills a few Indians in the process. I don’t know what the general feelings on colonialism were in 1850, but the set up is so egregious I can’t help but think Wilkie (yes, we’re on a first name basis) wanted us to root for the Indians. India was still nearly 100 years from independence (wow) but really, it’s their damn diamond, maybe, I don’t know, give it back rather than be cursed and ruin everyone’s lives. JUST A THOUGHT.

What I don’t think was intended was the failure (to me) of the romance between Rachel and her first cousin Franklin. I struggle with the cousin thing. I know, different time, different culture and so forth. Maybe it’s because I share a family resemblance with a lot of my cousins so I just imagine these two making out and looking the same and it’s very Flowers in the Attic. Maybe it’s because Rachel has two romantic interests and they’re BOTH first cousins and I just think she needs to get out more. But I really didn’t care if Rachel and Franklin ended up together or not.

All that said, I did enjoy the book and would recommend it on the strength of the narrative structure alone. I’m a sucker for an epistolary novel, and Wilkie does it so well. We begin the novel with sweet, self-deprecating, sexist Betteredge, the Verinder family butler, hopelessly devoted to his Lady, his pipe, and Robinson Crusoe. You’d be hard pressed to find a more endearing narrator (in spite of the rampant sexism) or a funnier one. Pretty sure I snorted when I read this:

On hearing those dreadful words, my daughter Penelope said she didn’t know what prevented her heart from flying straight out of her. I thoughts privately that it might have been her stays.

Betteredge repeatedly addresses himself directly to the reader, here admonishing us to pay attention. Guilty as charged, I was totally thinking about my new bonnet while I was reading this…

Clear your mind of the children, or the dinner, or the new bonnet, or what not. Try if you can’t forget politics, horses, prices in the City, and grievances at the club… Lord! haven’t I seen you with the greatest authors in your hands, and don’t I know how ready your attention is to wander when it’s a book that asks for it, instead of a person?

The next narrator is one Miss Drusilla Clack and she was my favourite part of the whole book. I wish she’d narrated the whole thing. I wish the book was about her. She’s so delightfully hypocritical and a loves to play the martyr. She has a way with words; remarking on France’s “popery” and her aunt’s “autumnal exuberance of figure.” And then there are her tracts. Modern readers might be familiar with Chick Tracts (I was personally handed one at a Marilyn Manson concert in 1997 which is definitely in the top ten of “most 90s things that ever happened to me”) but Miss Clack’s tracts sound much more entertaining:

Here was a golden opportunity! I seized it on the spot. In other words, I instantly opened my bag, and took out the top publication. It proved to be an early edition of the famous anonymous work entitled THE SERPENT AT HOME. The design of the book is to show how the Evil One lies in wait for us in all the most apparently innocent actions of our daily lives. The chapters best adapted to female perusal are “Satan in the Hair Brush;” “Satan behind the Looking Glass;” “Satan under the Tea Table;” “Satan out of the Window” — and many others.

Seems like Clack needs to reread a few of those tracts herself. #Humblebrag alert:

On rising the next morning, how young I felt! I might add, how young I looked, if I were capable of dwelling on the concerns of my own perishable body. But I am not capable– and I add nothing.

I made a ton of annotations in Betteredge’s and Clack’s sections, and nearly none in the ensuing ones, narrated by the family’s lawyer, that dreamy first cousin Franklin, and a Mr. Jennings who I can’t really explain without spoilers. The rest of the book was interesting and well written and the ending was satisfying, but I just missed the first two narrators so much, I couldn’t get into it.

The Read-Along
Despite not loving the book, I had a lot of fun with this read-along! The #readWilkie hashtag was active, the bloggers were committed, and there is something very endearing about a group of girls so earnestly in love with a 19th century author (no judgement, I’m currently crushing on Anton Chekhov.) I heartily encourage you to visit the other #readWilkie bloggers, who may do a better job of convincing you to read The Moonstone. 

There are a few more, but these are the bloggers who posted a mid-way post.. you know… who followed the rules.

THANK YOU to Ellie for hosting, and I eagerly await the flood of reviews at the end of the month!

Novellas in November Update #2: Memories of my Melancholy Whores and a Vlog

Novellas in November continues! If you’re new to this concept, well, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Previous posts:

I was catching up on The Moonstone this week so I only finished one measly novella. And I vlogged! May I just say that I hate the word vlog?

Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
memoriesofReminiscent of Love in the Time of Cholera but ickier due to 75 year age difference between the romantic leads, I’m not sure what to make of this book. Familiar themes of unrequited love, the passage of time, mortality, and love as disease and cure are here. Certain passages are so beautiful that they sweep away the reservations, but the reservations creep back in.

It’s not just that this 90 year old man falls in love and, well, sexually assaults a 15 girl old girl. It’s that the girl is an object, a thing to be projected on; to be named, and watched, and dressed and posed like a doll, and rejected and pined for. I am at once relived that the “Maestro” doesn’t consummate his passion (I don’t think he did, anyway) and disappointed that the girl is so loved but never gets to participate in any way other than as a passive… not even observer, because her eyes are always closed.

Someone suggested to me that this would not be a good choice for your first Marquez and I agree. Read Cholera first, then give this a try. Here are some quotes so you may judge for yourself.

Real talk, Marquez style:

I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature. I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about other people’s time.

Not sure if this romantic or cheesy as hell:

Blood circulated through her veins with the fluidity of a song that branched off into the most hidden areas of her body and returned to her heart, purified by love. Before I left at dawn I drew the lines of her hand on a piece of paper and gave it to Diva Sahibí for a reading so I could know her soul.

Why you can’t resist those “OMG remember the 90s” Buzzfeed lists:

The adolescents of my generation, greedy for life, forgot in body and soul about their hopes for the future until reality taught them that tomorrow was not what they had dreamed, and they discovered nostalgia.

Vlog: Novellas in November Library Haul
One thing about having kids is you are almost never alone in your house, which makes vlogging rather difficult. I found myself alone for a couple hours on Friday and rather than do something rational like sleep , I decide to do this. Thanks for the inspiration, Fourth Street Review!

As always, thank you to Novellas in November host Another Book Blog! Chat with us at #NovNov on Twitter. 

Snap Scene: Picture Me Reading

Apparently using memes and GIFs is a “controversial” technique for reviewing books. While I’m certainly not clutching my pearls over this (I’ve used memes and GIFs myself,)  I agree with the article’s assertion that they can be overused and just as cliche as calling a book “staggering” or “unflinching” or whatever.

So, maybe you should create your own visuals. Yeah, you can take a picture of your copy of the book, but that’s pretty boring too. Why not take things a little further and recreate an entire scene? Or take a picture of something that evokes the ambiance or the theme of the story? This is the idea behind Snap Scene, an Instagram project from Jessica Kluthe, author of Rosina, The Midwife (my review here.) From Kluthe’s website:

What is Snap Scene? It’s a simple concept. It offers another way for a reader to encounter a story/book/novel: through a photograph (a “Snap Scene”) that illustrates an otherwise text-only scene. It will offer the viewer some value by taking the viewer inside the story, the novel, the book, the essay…

If you’re a writer/author, this is a great chance to connect with some new readers. If you’re a bookworm, this is a great chance to find your next read.

What do you need to do? Stage a scene that illustrates a passage from a book/novel/story/essay. This can be as simple or as elaborate as you please. Along with the scene, in the caption below the photo I’d like to include 3 – 4 sentences from passage that inspired your Snap Scene.

Here’s an example Snap Scene of Love Letters of the Angels of Death, reviewed here not so long ago:

“I love how his headstone is so elegant and simple,” you say, defying the prejudices of no one in particular. “Remember that when you’re ordering one for me, Brigs. I don’t want anything too fussy–no statues or angels or lambs.” “I thought gravestone lambs were just for dead babies.” You’re turning away from me, waving one hand. “Everyone’s the same age in heaven.” – From Jenn Quist’s Love Letters of Angels of Death.| #author submitted #snapscene| http://www.jenniferquist.com

To date, Snap Scene’s contributors have mostly been local authors promoting their own books, but I think the potential for reader participation is huge. It’s a cool way to share what you’re reading and help other people discover a new book that’s a little more creative than #FridayReads. It also reminds me of wildly popular Tumblr Slaughterhouse 90201, where literary quotes are juxtaposed with pop culture images, so the appetite for this kind of thing is there. Continue reading →

Novellas in November Update #1: Summer, The Pearl, The Night Before Christmas, and Bonjour Tristesse

Mini reviews for mini novels! See the start up post on Another Book Blog, and my introductory post here.

Summer by Edith Wharton
Summer

My rating: 5/5 stars
Goodreads
Synopsis:

A new Englander of humble origins, Charity Royall is swept into a torrid love affair with an artistically inclined young man from New York City, but her dreams of a future with him are thwarted.

I started reading Summer at the end of October so I could squeeze one last regular classic in before Novellas in November kicked off. I knew nothing about it except it was free on my Kobo. I quickly found out it was a novella. Score! Oh and it’s supposedly an erotic novella. Double score. And yeah, it was pretty hot! I mean, check out this filth:

All this bubbling of sap and slipping of sheaths and bursting of calyxes was carried to her on mingled currents of fragrance.

Bubbling sap indeed. And this:

A clumsy band and button fastened her unbleached night-gown about the throat. She undid it, freed her thin shoulders, and saw herself a bride in low-necked satin, walking down an aisle with Lucius Harney. He would kiss her as they left the church….She put down the candle and covered her face with her hands as if to imprison the kiss.

This book is part Tess of the D’Ubervilles, part VC Andrews’ Heaven and all kinds of awesome. Tess because of the pastoral and natural elements, and the fallen woman thing,  and Heaven because our heroine comes from dirt poor, likely inbred mountain folk and you know what they say, you can take the girl off the mountain…

Charity is such an interesting heroine because she’s selfish, flighty, and well, not that bright. Or at least not at all interested in intellectual pursuits. A realistic teenager, in other words. I’m always surprised by a non-bookish hero, and think that it must be difficult for a writer to get into that head space. Wharton nails it. This book was a delight and my I think it just knocked House of Mirth out of my “favourite Wharton” spot.

Here’s a lovely, more detailed review, if I haven’t convinced you to pick this up. Continue reading →

The Moonstone Read-Along: Post One (Introduction)

Moonstone

It’s time to start The Moonstone Read-Along, hosted by Ellie at Lit Nerd! I’m about 50 pages in to this behemoth and it was slow going for the first few chapters, but Betteredge, the hilarious butler and our narrator, has won me over.

My Copy
I’m reading the free Gutenburg on my Kobo. So far it’s not too bad (sometimes the freebies are riddled with formatting errors.)

I also shelled out $4.99 for a cheap paperback, as I’ll probably need to flip back when posting my reactions. Ereaders are great but I hope there’s a crack team of scientists somewhere working out the flipping issue because I am a flipper – backwards when I have a “who is this guy again” moment (often) and forward when I have a “I just need to make sure everything turns out ok!” panic attack.

What I Know About the Book
Nothing. Honestly nothing. I didn’t even know what the “moonstone” in question was till I started reading. Once I found out that it’s a humungous, yellow, cursed diamond,  I immediately thought, “hey didn’t JLo have a yellow diamond engagement ring and maybe that would explain a few things in her life?” This article rounds up celebrities that have famously worn yellow diamonds, including JLo, but check out the entry on Marilyn Monroe, with eerie similarities to The Moonstone:

“The incredible 24-carat yellow diamond, famously known as the Moon of Baroda, was worn by Monroe at the Hollywood premier of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The diamond belonged to the royal dynasty Gaekwad Maharajas and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Reportedly to be cursed, the diamond was said to have been the source of Monroe’s misfortune and ultimately, her death.”

via pulpinternational.com

via pulpinternational.com

What I Know About the Author
Also nothing. I though he was a she until recently. Wilkie is a guy’s name, I guess!

What I Hope To Get Out of the Read-Along

  • Cross off another 1,001 Book
  • Cross off another Classics Club book. I actually had The Woman in White on my list, because the title reminded me of Days of our Lives. If you watched during the 90s you get it. I switched it out for The Moonstone because of this read-along.
  • Chat with some new book bloggers. I don’t know many of the participants, so I look forward to discovering some new blogs!

I’m chatting on #readWilkie Twitter and will do a mid-way post around November 16th.

Have you read The Moonstone? If you’re reading along, what do you think so far? 

Novellas in November: Introduction

Thanks to Another Book Blog for hosting this event – go read the intro post!

This isn’t one of those events with a million rules (thank god) but I think I will hold myself accountable by doing a weekly post on Sunday night(ish) recapping what I’ve read.

As the title suggests, the idea is to read lots of novellas. Naturally, my first thought was “what’s the criteria for a novella?” and the answer is, there is no answer. Some people say under 50,000 words. Some say less than 40,000. It’s not that easy to find word counts, so I’m going with page numbers and calling it 150ish.

All important questions.

Pretty sure I’ve actually Googled each of these at one time or another

On to the books! I have a few more on my Goodreads list, but here are the novellas I’m most excited about.

thepearl

The Pearl by John Steinbeck (90 pages)
I read The Pearl in 8th grade English. I wasn’t that taken with it, and didn’t read Steinbeck again until I was in my late 20s. I need to revisit this book with adult eyes.

thesuicideshop

The Suicide Shop by Jane Teule (169 pages)
The premise, which is exactly what it sounds like, appeals to the former goth teen in me. A bargain at $2.95 on Kobo.

thetestamentofmary

The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin (96 pages)
Man Booker shortlisted, lots of buzz. Not shelling out $25 for the hardcover though. Library it is.

bonjourtristesse

Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan (154 pages)
“Bonjour Tristesse scandalised 1950’s France with its portrayal of teenager Cécile, a heroine who rejects conventional notions of love, marriage and family to choose her own sexual freedom.” You had me at scandalised.

memoriesof

Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (115 pages)
Do I really need a reason? The title and the author aren’t enough?

I’ll be chatting novellas at #NovNov on twitter. Join in and feel free to suggest other novellas that are must-read!

 

 

Reading Roundup: October 2013

October was a little slow, reading and blogging-wise, but I got bookshelves! This is a big deal. I haven’t had bookshelves in my room for five years. My bedroom finally feels like home. No more #shelfies of shame for me! I’m not quite done arranging everything, but here’s a quick peek at some of my favourites:

Favs

And the obligatory duck-faced, overexposed #shelfie:

ShelfieLaura

Book Events:

I met some very cool people this month:
Continue reading →

40 Below: Edmonton’s Winter Anthology edited by Jason Lee Norman

40 Below: Edmonton's Winter Anthology edited by Jason Lee Norman | Published in 2013 by Wufniks Press | Paperback: 205 pages | Source: Review copy from the editor

40 Below: Edmonton’s Winter Anthology edited by Jason Lee Norman | Published in 2013 by Wufniks Press | Paperback: 205 pages | Source: Review copy from the editor

My rating: 4/5 stars
 Goodreads

Synopsis:

40 Below is Edmonton’s Winter Anthology. Stories, poems, and essays about or inspired by winter in Edmonton.

Like many (most?) book bloggers, I have some writerly ambitions of my own. Last winter, I spent the tail end of my maternity leave picking away at a submission for the 40 Below anthology. There’s nothing like a new baby and a two-year-old to make you feel the isolation of an Edmonton winter, so my story wasn’t particularly positive. Nor was it particularly good. Earier this year I received a very nice, personalized rejection email from editor Jason Lee Norman (author of Americas, my review here.) I have absolutely no hard feelings (it was pretty bad) and really enjoyed the whole process of writing and revising. If nothing else, it gave me something to do at 2am other than the usual dead-eyed scrolling through Twitter.

I was excited to find out who did make the cut. It’s a who’s who of Edmonton writers, including a whole bunch who’ve been reviewed here on Reading in Bed: Michael Hingston, Jessica Kluthe, Diana Davisdon, and Jennifer Quist. Not that it’s all #yegwrites establishment. There are plenty of authors I’ve never heard of, and even a couple of kids. Variety is the strong point of the collection. With that in mind, here are a few of my picks:

  • Story that I related to on a personal level: Sirens by Diana Davidson. It actually resulted in a Twitter therapy session as two other Edmonton book bloggers and I read it around the same time. They both happen to be pregnant, and Davidson’s story is about a first-time mother struggling with postpartum depression in the dead of winter. I brought my first baby home in literal 40 Below weather and went through postpartum depression too. Davidson gets it just right and I was shaking at the end.
  • Favourite very short story, I’m talking 9 sentences: Moon Calling by Don Perkins. Mostly for the last sentence: “But that moment of the infant embracing its own future ripeness, that’s the moon that calls.” You have to read the other eight, trust me.
  • Story that’s really a parenting lesson: A Winter Lesson by Alan Schietzsch. That lesson? Go outside. Your kids don’t feel the cold.
  • Story that reminds you exactly of being a kid: Sandwich Season by Margaret MacPherson. Kids are weird and do weird things, just like in this story.
  • Story that I didn’t want to end: Conversation by Ky Perraun. I read it and then read it again because I need to know what happened!

This book is an obvious buy for anyone who is into the arts scene here in Edmonton, but I think it has some crossover appeal too. It’s actually a great gateway drug for people who don’t read short stories. The pieces tend to be very short, and the theme is very accessible, so it’s easy to dip in and out. It would be so cool if people in other Northern climates, or even those who don’t talk about wind chill for six month of the year, picked up this book. I’d love to read some non-local reactions. I also think it would make a great bathroom book and I mean that as a compliment.  I am very picky about what books are kept in my bathroom.

Oh and if you were wondering, my story was about my memories of New Years Eve 1997, when we got the first snow of the year and the temperature dropped from zero to minus twenty over the course of a few hours. I was out without a coat (because: teenager) and made a rash decision based on getting out of the cold that affected my life for years afterward. Maybe I’ll try to fix it up someday!

 I hear winter’s about to hit Edmonton this weekend. Should be plenty of snow on the ground for the two 40 Below launch events:

Thank you to the editor for sending me a review copy of this book!

PS: Reading in Winter reviewed it too. 

Stoner by John Williams

Stoner by John Edward Williams | Published in 2006 by NYRB (originally published in 1965) | Paperback: 278 pages | Source: Library

Stoner by John Williams | Published in 2006 by NYRB Classics (originally published in 1965) | Paperback: 278 pages |          Source: Library

My rating: 5/5 stars
 Goodreads

Synopsis:

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’s 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.

Stoner must be the most famous “under appreciated” book around. It seems that everywhere I look, a blogger or a literary critic is entreating us to give this forgotten classic a chance. It was reprinted by the highly regarded NYRB Classics in 2006, and just a few months ago was endorsed by Ian MacEwan. But, it’s not on any of those top 100 or 1001 lists, and its Wikipedia page is just a tragedy. And it did, predictably, make an appearance on BookRiot’s Most Underrated Books list.

Stoner was my Classics Club Spin pick, and it was from my “dreading it” list. I was intimidated, as the bloggers talking it up were all really smart and I was afraid I would be in over my head; and I was managing expectations, because the last time I got all excited because of a bookish-internet frenzy I was let down.

Oh, and I could tell from the blurb that this was going to be one of those “poor little privileged white dude is bored, cheats on his wife but feels really bad and conflicted about it, wah wah, epiphany of some sort, the end” stories. So there was that. And it absolutely is one of those stories. But, once I got over myself and started reading, I quickly realized that, like most people’s real lives, you can present William Stoner’s life as a happy story or a sad story, depending how you look at it:

  1. The “Quit Whining, Privileged White Dude” version: Stoner doesn’t have to fight in either world war. He loves literature, and is able to study it then teach it. He attains tenure, and so isn’t really at risk of losing his livelihood during the depression. He marries the first girl he ever asks out. They have a daughter without having to try too hard (more on THAT later.) He has a torrid mid-life love affair, but his marriage survives. He lives a quiet life and dies surrounded by his family.
  2. The “I Feel Really Bad Now” version: Stoner grows up in abject poverty. He alienates his parents when he goes to University, and alienates his friends when he chooses not to enlist in WWI. He discovers a love of literature but his career is mired in petty politics and he never achieves any real recognition. He marries a deeply damaged woman who seems wholly incapable of love. He enjoys a close relationship with his daughter until his wife cruelly turns her against him. He finally finds a woman he can love and is forced to give her up. His never reconciles with his wife, and his daughter descends into alcoholism. He dies a protracted, painful death, having never resolved any of these issues. Continue reading →