Stoner: A Book Review

Stoner has been described as "a little novel that could." While the book was first published some fifty years back, I have only started hearing about it late last year, when it seemed to have a resurgence especially in Europe. Stoner as a character is the most stoic I have ever encountered; even in the post-war era where simplicity was perhaps the norm, his brand of stoicism was probably quite extreme, and more so if put against today's landscape - he owns just a few pieces of clothing, lives in a spartan room, and hardly expresses what he felt. Today's emoticons would be lost on him!

 The novel has a relatively simple story arc as compared to today's literary fictions, but I was kept engaged, rooting for Stoner to overcome the many travails along his life path. One could admire him for his resilience in many ways, although he is by no means a perfect saint (no spoiler alert here, but the source of conflicts that John Williams had planted were highly probable and therefore quite credible).

I like John William's stylistics; it makes the novel a pleasure to read, even when the story events tend to be dull at times.

I've shared a short book review in this June 2014 issue of Expat Living Singapore:

http://www.expatliving.sg/things_todo/things_todo_news/Books-in-Singapore-Great-books-to-read-this-summer-2014-51146.ece



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