Stoner

>>9957841
This book is generally loved here, we're not /mu/.

>>9957841
>I know 4chan is generally contrarian by principle
/lit/ is one of the reasons this book is popular rn

>>9957841
excellent book, made me cry, but the author is a normie fuck

i love this book!! reminds me of the impact one persons 'ordinary' life can have

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>>9957841

As much as I love this book... I found the obligatory, cliched, boilerplate "literature professor sleeps with student" incident to be embarrassing.

Can there ever just be a literature professor who doesn't sleep with his students? The first time I read it, no problem. But EVERY FUCKING TIME?

>>9957977
It was written before that became a common trope.

>>9957957
How so?
>>9957968
>reminds me of the impact one persons 'ordinary' life can have
Really? That's not what I got from it, it seemed to be a central theme how 'unspectacular' and impactless everything was, what impact do you mean exactly?
>>9957977
I mean it wasn't there just to be there, it was a pretty essential part of his life

I still don't get how the dynamic worked with Edith and William. It goes practically unacknowledged that the relationship is entirely broken from the beginning, and they spend their time trying to ruin each other.

>>9958033
I think he's not too aware until it's way too late.
And i feel that that dynamic makes the end even more powerful

>>9958033
>getting divorced pre-baby boomers

>>9957977
White Noise

How do we explain Edith's actions and general atttitude towards Stoner and Grace?

I initially read the book as her just being a bitch but when it came to burning the stuff her father gave her it made me wonder what impact that relationship had on her. Did he abuse her? He clearly didn't rape her as she is said to be a virgin but him sexually abusing her does something to explain how she acted on their wedding night. Could it be that him being an over-bearing father caused her to become introverted and then she did the same to Grace? Or is she just a bitch/a mentally deranged individual?

I would love to hear what theories people have on her character or what they might be able to explain about her that I may not have picked up on.

>>9958469

Sorry, by wedding night I should have said when they consumated their marriage.

>>9958469
It was most likely sexual abuse by her father. Elizabeth found the prospect of sex repulsive. She practically celebrated her dad killing himself. There are several instances where she is incredibly unnerved by Grace being alone in a room with William and makes up some dumb excuse for why she needs to not be in there. A lot of people might see her being a narcissist who wants attention from her kid, but it looked more to me like a woman with a childhood so fucked her husband being alone with her daughter triggers paranoia.

>>9957841
Stoner was a push over. He deserved it

I just finished this last night so I'm still digesting it.

The ending was sad but in a quiet and painless way. The really agonizing part was Stoner's acquiescence to Edith's rage, manipulation, and eventual destruction of not just her own life but Grace's and, largely, Stoner's.

Meek, calm, disinterested acceptance was a good way for Stoner to die, but not to live. It seemed especially prominent in the later chapters (as Grace is growing up) that Stoner acknowledges and quietly accepts an almost total passivity as his way of life, punctuated only by his occasional and anti-climactic (and even to him rather unsatisfying) shots fired back at Lomax for taking away his graduate classes, and Edith for trying to keep bitching at him in his older years. Even then his "victories" win him little more than strained peace: he gets back his graduate classes, but his teaching schedule still sucks and Lomax still doesn't talk to him; Edith stops yelling at him but he still sleeps on the couch and never gets his study back from her.

It's even sadder with Grace, who starts with so much more potential, gives up so much earlier, and falls so much more dramatically.

It's sad but in a contemptible way. It's a rejection of the vigor and activity that has always made men great and alive. I'm not saying I don't empathize, because I absolutely feel like I give in and give up more often than I should; but those parts of me and the failures that they lead to are the things I hate most about myself and the things I try to eradicate.

Which isn't to say that the book advocates that kind of life. IMO it presents it as an option but unfavorably, as there's always your discomfort while you read, caused by Stoner's genuine but always suppressed love of literarure, Grace's beautiful but stifled personality, everything thaf could have been beautiful and even great but fell away because the characters weren't willing to fight for it.

Anyway like I said I just finished it last night but that's my main impression so far. Would like to hear what you guys think since this is the first Stoner thread I don't have to avoid, now that I've read it.

>>9958731

Thanks for the response. You've clarified things a bit more for me. I think I was right to take this interpretation.