Why a Booktrail?
Mid 1900s: Stoner tells of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history, and reclaims the significance of an individual life.
Stoner
What you need to know before your trail
Stoner is at first sight a novel about the sad, uneventful life of a professor in an American university. Yet it is written in such a way that as a reader you are transported and challenged to read on.
He is a student and farmer, gets married, has a daughter and a half failed career yet because he is so humble,you just want him to get on. You may shout and him and will him to change in some way – whether it is standing up to a difficult work colleague or his demanding wife. Yet, he never does – like an passive object floating down a river, Stoner will also choose the path of least resistance.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
William Stoner goes to study at the University of Missouri at age nineteen to study agriculture. The novel is dedicated to the author’s colleagues in the English department but he says he has taken liberties with the geography of the grounds and some names so don’t expect to see the places in the book in exactly the same way.
It’s not this subject that he ends up getting inspired by however but rather it’s a seminar on English literature which changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father’s farm. Instead, he becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and unforgettable.
The setting adds much to the feel of the book – given that the bulk of the action is set in the 30’s and 40’s. The social mores and standards at the time are omnipresent. Stoner’s marriage, however, is painfully frozen in time. It’s like an existential trip with a background in America and the school.
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