A Review: Stoner

Title of Work: Stoner
Author: John Williams
Format:
Published: 1965
Started:
Finished: 2025-08-09\

Posted: Goodreads
Rating: 5/5

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Read this for the condensed experience of living a mundane life. Most of us will.

You accumulate countless disappointments and fewer though still numerous small joys.

Gradually you slow, tiring under the weight of this accumulated life until the slowing inverts and suddenly you’re speeding toward something you hadn’t much considered, something final.

Then, with the last of your attention, you watch the Sun fading before it returns again into the Earth. You are alone and you no longer fear this. You no longer fear the end.

For this, Stoner may be one of the most devastating and memorable books I’ve read.