Stone

I have just finished reading Stoner, the novel by John Williams, which I started shortly before Christmas. Everyone on Amazon seems to have read it in a single sitting, possibly while waiting for the kettle to boil or the microwave to ping, but it took me weeks. Even so, this is good going for me, as I famously read books fairly slowly. It's not that I have any particular problem with reading per se – indeed I am getting quite adept at it nowadays and can tackle, almost without hesitation, several fairly long words – but that I actually prefer to read books slowly, to make them last, so that the experience of entering the mind of William Stoner, and sharing his sadnesses and joys, and reflecting on what ultimate meaning there is to his life or mine or anyone's, stretches out for a significant period of time, rather than just filling the awkward pause before the tea is brewed.

Given the gentle pace of the novel and the unassuming character of the hero, it seems apt that the book has been rediscovered almost fifty years after publication and lauded as an overlooked classic, one which is able to touch the hearts of a new generation of readers who you might have thought have better things to distract them than such a sombre and subtle story. Perhaps such profundity is missing from too much of our modern society. Perhaps, in a world where the printed book seems on the path to extinction, there is a need for a novel that celebrates the emotional pull of literature.

Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only