Why do you dorks like this book?

I think you misread the book in a big way. The book is an exercise in empathy with the characters that are not Stoner. His wife is a prime example. You just think she is petty and mean but completely miss the reasons that are presented in the book as to why she is this way. One of the most important aspects of the book is to realise that every one of these characters is as justified and human as the protagonist.

>everything was futile and empty
Which is refuted in the final pages of the book.

I pretty much agree with this. He isn't self pitying. Just because a man has a hard life doesn't mean he has to hate it. We see him struggle through most of the book, we don't see him pity himself through the book.

All of those people had realistic and emotionally valid reasoning for their opposition to Stoner though, it just isn't made explicit for the dumbass reader

You obviously missed the fact that Edith is frigid and cold because her father molested her at some point in her life (remember when she playfully accuses Stoner of raping their daughter?). Walker may have been lazy and underqualified, but he was also intelligent and had an intuitive grasp of literature by Stoner's own admission. It's understandable that Lomax, a character who actually turns to resentment and self-pity, would sympathize with a fellow outcast who seems to have some unrealized scholastic potential.

Stoner isn't a failure and doesn't think everything sucks. He's successful by his own criteria, his calm, unflagging nature, his quiet accomplishment in his work, and total and absolute lack of self-pity in the face of tedium, nihilism, and adversity, which he recognizes but steadily endures. He doesn't see himself as tortured in any degree whatsoever. He simply acknowledges pain and works through it

Frankly you sound like a brainlet layover from /pol/ who yesterday was the sullen teenager he accuses Stoner of being, and today is trying to grapple with the novel through the lens of his very affected Petersonian posture of psychological resilience. But it's obvious the book was too hard for your 110 IQ brain, so you should either read it again or stop talking about it entirely

Sorry, exactly when does Stoner empathize with Edith? Is it when she’s destroying his work on purpose to spite him, or when she’s nagging him to spend too much money to maintain her lifestyle? Show me points in the book where she’s depicted positively or with any warmth.

It’s a lot easier to find instances of Stoner seeing everyone around him through the lens of their total insignificance. Like his being glad that his daughter has “become almost happy with her despair” because at least she can drink and that the obnoxious, pretentious Charles is destined to rise because people like him who don’t REALLY know about literature (unlike Stoner, with his deep view of life) always succeed

Stoner is convinced that his life is a waste and only the pure study of literature can save him from the essential shittiness of his life, the world, and everyone he knows. He’s a self-pitying ass

>Sorry, exactly when does Stoner empathize with Edith?
That was never anyone's point.

>It’s a lot easier to find instances of Stoner seeing everyone around him through the lens of their total insignificance.
The book isn't written by Stoner. He is a character. It is what the author tries to get the reader to do that is important. Rather than just showing us how these other characters have as much of an inner life as Stoner he does it in a way where the reader as to figure this out for themselves.

>oner is convinced that his life is a waste and only the pure study of literature can save him from the essential shittiness of his life, the world, and everyone he knows. He’s a self-pitying ass
Contradicted by the end of the book.

Stoner’s endless recognition of “tedium, nihilism, and adversity” isn’t his being heroically stoic and heroic, it’s his being unable to see anything in life other than despair. He 100% sees himself as tortured, or else why would the world treat him so cruelly at every turn?

I don’t go on pol or read Jordan Peterson but I certainly have had times of being very sullen and negative about life (and have written stories before with protagonists tragically mistreated in a bitter world) so you’re right about that

That part where my nigga died, I cried.

It is impossible not to somewhat conflate the author with Stoner because the world Stoner lives in is so clearly depicted as reflecting how Stoner feels about it

>Self-pitying protagonist who is wronged at every turn by cruel society
How so? He had bad disappoints in his life but also had a stable career and a lifelong friend who always looked out for him.
>Cold bitch wife who goes out of her way to torture Stoner at every turn for no reason
No reason? She had a sex phobia because of being sheltered and abused by her dad. Consumating the marriage is what started her hatred of Stoner.
>Bleak perspective on life which is confirmed at every turn by his negative opinions of everyone around him (like the student who is OBVIOUSLY so in the wrong and Stoner so in the right)
Stoner likes plenty of people in the novel. He didn't like that student because he was straight-up bad
>Stoner's enemies all are physically deformed
Lomax and the student both being deformed is important, they obviously bonded over it and Lomax ended up unprofessionally aiding him
>Alcoholic author who got divorced four times
This makes the writing bad how?

>Face it, William Stoner's problems were his own fault
He certainly causes problems by being inept at certain things and also has problems caused by circumstance and other people. Like real life.

good sentences, moving story, plot like a steel trap.

OP is probably one of those "i also hate Ulysses and Moby Dick" goobas

Same

I agree with you all that mentioning Williams’ biographical info in the original post was wrong because you have to look only within the text.

But having said that, just within the book, it’s a portrait of a basically blameless guy who perseveres despite how cruel and mean everyone is to him. The sympathies of the author so totally lie with the saintlike hero and are so totally against the forces that have tortured him so

I just don’t get how you can not find it ridiculous. I have a hard time even taking its relentless negativity seriously. Like: “within a month he knew his marriage was a failure, with a year he stopped hoping it would improve.” And the line about being glad his daughter is inevitably going to fall into total despair. It’s almost like a satire or something

Ulysses is a great example of a book where the world around the hero IS depicted with warmth and empathy, unlike Stoner. It’s the difference between Molly’s “Yes” and Stoner’s climactic slipping off into a meaningless death. I happen to like both of those books but don’t have any patience with books like this that are all about how shitty life is

sounds more like self-righteousness without a cause
"I'm better than everyone but I have nothing to do so I'll just sit here meditating on the slings and arrows"

His cold wife is his problem?

oh so you like ulysses

maybe i was mistaken, you're actually the guy who hates the bible because God is too mean in the old testament

Self-righteousness without a cause is actually a good way of describing it. He is VERY self-righteous, and it makes the book ridiculous

She's a big part of the problem, yes? Half the book is about how miserable she makes Stoner

Nope, don't hate the Bible. Maybe if Stoner had spent more time trying to follow Jesus' example of compassion towards others, he wouldn't have seen the world as so unforgiving and bleak.