There is plenty good about Stoner but the thing that really jumps out is author John Williams’ ability to write such a deep and emotionally engaging story about what can be considered a mostly ordinary life. The titular character begins life on a farm but the story quickly follows his progression to college life where he settles into comfortable surroundings, pursues a career as a lecturer and academic, marries and has a daughter. The novel practically canvases Stoner’s entire life in around 280 pages and not […]
You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school
“Young folk […] they don’t know what to do with themselves.” A young man in the 1870’s drops out of Harvard and finds his way to Butcher’s crossing. He finds a reputable man who offers him a job managing the finances of the buffalo trade, but it’s not enough for Will Andrews. He tracks down a man named Miller who knows of a secret spot where there’s an untouched buffalo herd, ripe for the killing. All he needs is a little money. Andrews has that […]
For the glory of Rome!
John Williams was a professor of English literature whose previous novels dealt, In muted emotions, with the lives of very humble men. So it is with a little surprise that one picks up this book, his most critically successful novella, about the life of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, born Gaius Octavius Thurinus. Augustus (Ocatavian), a real historical figure, adopted by Julius Caesar as a young boy, who used the latter’s assassination as a galvanizing force to raise an army of his own and start […]