Stoner is a most-remarkable story of a relatively unremarkable life. The author writes in a prose so clean, calm, simple and unhurried that it brings to mind Ishiguro and Tolstoy at their best and it shares – with these legends – the same refusal to raise their voice or get into grand proclamations of life. It has the same quiet-dignity and the trust that plainness will carry the weight and it would still land very hard. Simple can be, and is often, the most stunning. Ironically, a life that doesn’t take itself seriously is taken (or should be taken) most seriously. 

In terms of the plot, almost nothing extraordinary happens: it’s about a man’s early life, college, marriage, failures, twilight, etc. And yet each blow along the way lands as though it was personally inflicted on one’s own skin; similarly, the few triumphs and victories are also felt personally and celebrated.  

That is the trick of it all, I think. Like all great books, it creates a world – simple enough to visualise – and inviting/relatable enough for to you migrate to and inhabit for a while, and then, once done, remember visually forever; not as something merely-read, but as something witnessed or lived – personally. 

I strongly recommend this. Trust me, It is certainly one of the greatest books you have probably never heard of, let alone read.

But you should. 

And I mean now.