Finished reading "Stoner", a novel by American writer John Williams.
This is a sad, moving and beautiful book written in smooth and straightforward prose.
The main character is William Stoner, son of a poor farmer in Missouri.
Stoner advances himself thru education and becomes an English Literature professor at the University of Missouri.
He marries a banker's daughter and they produce a girl child.
One would expect Stoner to be a happy man but his life is far from blissful.
Neither his wife nor university colleagues nor his students think much of him. Except one female instructor with whom he has a short extra-marital affair.
Stoner is forced by bad health to take early retirement. Shortly after, he dies at home of cancer.
For me, the novel's last two paragraphs resonate; Stoner dies with a book in his hands. A rare ending.
