>tfw edith was raped by her father of course, i was unaware

I raped your wife.

>>9491366
I was unaware until you pointed it out.

>>9491363
Edith mentally raped Stoner for the entirety of their relationship. She was in the wrong.

>>9491366
Thank you.

>>9491396
BUT SHE'S A WOMAN!!!!
STONER HAD TO TAKE CARE OF HER AND MAKE HER FEEL SAFE!!!!
HE HAD TO LEAD HER BETTER, EVEN THOUGH WOMEN ARE INDEPENDENT AND DON'T NEED NO MAN!!!!
BUT IN THIS CASE HE HAD TO DO IT!!!

>>9491396
it's not about "right" or "wrong" anymore. when grace played in stoner's office, edith probably feared that the same thing was happening to her daughter—no matter how irrational the notion. when grace got knocked up, edith (who had totally lost her marbles and started referring to herself in 2nd-person) mumbled "oh, no—just like your father."

edith may have been a bitch, but she wasn't the incomprehensible bitch i first thought she was.

>>9491366
reported to the cyberpolice

>>9491363
Specific passage that hints at this or were there just context clues?

>>9491560
i don't have the book in front of me, but the key scene was when her dad died, her "queer" reaction, and her burning of his possessions. also in her introduction as well as their honeymoon.

it would also explain her mild reaction to stoner's affair—"thank god it wasn't grace!" the subtlest part of the narrative, imho, and further cements its status as an undiscovered american classic.

>>9491560
>>9491577
oh, and it's why edith's mother sent her to boarding school at such a young age and would help explain why her dad killed himself once he lost his money.

>>9491577
Undiscovered? Are you fucking retarded?

>>9491560
It's been a few years but I think she burnt all the stuff from her dad when he died.
And the awkwardness of the marriage consummation.
Some other things could be there, but some of them are stretching.

>>9491617
outside of /lit/ and certain circles of literati, yeah. apart from a concerted effort a few years back (by the new yorker, et al) to canonize it, it remains forgotten next to faulkner and hemingway.

>>9491396
why does stoner such a push over? Most of his hardship can be solved by standing up to edith

>>9491630
because they're trying to canonize Stoner in an era where everybody can read, but do not read books.

additionally, it's mostly second-rate fiction that ties with the great gatsby as "easily accessible book with simple themes" and OKish characterization

Pnin is a much better Stoner than Stoner is, where academia is already a shit-hole and not some paradise lost because they're letting in liberals

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>>9491509
>probably feared that the same thing was happening to her daughter
Well, my night is now ruined.

>>9491577
I'm ashamed to say I completely missed all that my first time through, Edith as a character makes a lot more sense now.

>>9491680
op is talking out of his ass

>>9491363
>Stoner is a modern retelling of Richard 3.

I can't believe you are all so thick, is this what happens when /pol/ takes over a board.

>>9491922
you are pulling that out of thin air. if lomax is richard III, it's the most muted allusion i've seen. besides, lomax is hardly the central character you dolt.

I think edith's freaking out when stoner let grace play in his closed office is the most convincing clue for this reading. That's when shit really ramped up in terms of her bitterness toward stoner.

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holy shit, OP's wife is completely right. the more i think about it the more it makes sense

>>9491647
The author answers this in an interview.

He said. "He a push over because he do okay."

"He is hero actually okay."

>>9491363
It makes sense, but it's also a bit far-fetched. There exists a much simpler (albeit less interesting) explanation, and that is the one provided by Stoner: Edith is the victim of her parent's incompetent parenting. For example, I often got the impression Edith was raised to rigorously adhere to the expectations of a perfect daughter/family (she always forced Grace to live a life she deems to be correct). Edith's reaction to her father's death could simply be an outrage because she is aware of her mental problems and blames him for it. Edith's sabotage of the relationship between Stoner and Grace could simply be the misguided conception that children shouldn't bother adults when they are working. It could all just relate to the way she was brought up.

>>9492511
How do you explain her robotic explanation of her past when Stoner first visits her? Surely that's a sign of trauma

>>9492537
Or just of a lack of passion for life. When Stoner summarizes her past he mentions several interesting things: she was raised to have as only goal to fulfill her duties towards her husband and family, her family did not have an emotional bond but behaved towards each other with a "distant courtesy", she was incredibly lonely, and the activities she pursued she did because her mother demanded it rather than out of passion.

>>9491363

Typical post-modern feminist reading of a text.
>of course, i was unaware until my wife pointed it out
Your wife is an idiot and you are a yes-man.

>>9492666
Thank you, based Satan.

>>9491363
>>tfw edith was raped by her husband
Of course, I was unaware until my wife's son pointed it out.

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>>9491363
Holy shit Edith just turned into 99% less of a bitch and it all makes sense now. John Williams was a fucking genius.

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>>9492666
>>9492735

>>9491648

I don't believe you that Pnin is better, mostly because you hold Gatsby and stoner in the same regard, but I'm going to track it down and try it now. I'll be very disappointed if you're wrong, anon

>>9491363
Mind Blown

>>9494178
I 100% stand by my statement, Pnin is better in every way.

Stoner relies too much on Stoner being a quizzical wimp that suddenly turns into a competent adulterer, with an ending that's pure sympathetic trash.

Pnin/Stoner are both sent off in the same way, but Pnin is given life because VN is the better artist.

what are good books about/with rape victims?

>>9491560
I hadn't thought about it until now either, but she found having sex genuinely disgusting and repulsive, and it seemed to have little to do with Stoner. Very common among adults who suffered sexual abuse as children who've never properly dealt with their trauma.

now that I think about it, did Williams ever reference that the Stoner parent's way of living was changed the same way the Universities' was when they admitted liberals*?

One lost their heir, the other adopted everybody elses.

*By liberals I mean the generic wide-world, not necessarily political.

>>9491363

I'm surprised there's a debate at all. People don't turn out as horrible as edith just because their dad was really strict about piano lessons and yelled at them.

>>9492364
Huh, I never thought of it that way.

>My son's wife

>>9491648
>>9494178
Pnin is great, but don't go in expecting the wrong thing, it is slow. And knowing a little bit of russian helps, there are lots of puns where, for example, someone is named with a rhyme of the Russian word for squirrel.

Anyways I love Pnin, and hope you enjoy it.

>>9495152
This. Nabokov was probably the most talented author of the 20th century, no one had his lucidity and precision. Ahead of Joyce IMO

>>9495184
Well damn. I'd always thought my disdain for sex was a conscious thing like it was just a waste of time. Never considered it might be related to what I did with adults as a kid.

>inadvertently helping fix a glaring awareness issue
Thanks Anon.

dont know why but this post give me goosebumps, i feel so sorry for this fiction people that i can related so much