/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11487645]

Books that fucked you up

[Anonymous No.11487651]

What's the deal with Stoner? Why it make everyone depressed?

[Anonymous No.11487657]

>>11487651
because it's gay and they're gay

[Anonymous No.11487658]

>>11487651
Because it goes to show that life is mundane, sad and books or literary activities can't help you overthrow that basic truth.

[Anonymous No.11487662]

>>11487645
More like books that everyone misses the point of.

>DAE hate edith and Lomax XD

[Anonymous No.11487692]

>>11487662
They are both unlikable characters that were made to be disliked whats your point

[Anonymous No.11487697]

>>11487657
based and redpilled
>>11487658
cringe and reddit

[Anonymous No.11487702]

>>11487692
Stoner raped Edith

[Anonymous No.11487714]

For the past few years Stoner has become the darling of so many in the literary world, who argue that it has been unjustly neglected. Personally, I find the novel wholly unconvincing — not so much in its realism but in the moral message that so many readers seem to attach to it, the sense that the life it depicts is quietly heroic and more than a little tragic. To me, the novel reads like hagiography, an unbalanced attempt to make the eponymous Stoner out to be a noble-souled victim of his neurotic and unstable wife. I have no problem believing that some women really are as bad as the horror show of a person Professor Stoner married — Pride and Prejudice’s Mrs. Bennet comes to mind — but Jane Austen, unlike Williams, is careful to show us that the blame goes both ways. Mr. Bennet chose poorly and in Austen’s estimation bears a good deal of the blame for what happens in the Bennet household. Williams, in contrast, lionizes Stoner. But let’s be realistic — the man was old enough to know better. A 20-something Ph.D. student in literature, some of it rather deeply concerned with love, he wasn’t an innocent fresh off the farm when he courted his haughty, unappealing wife. His subsequent unwillingness to stand up to her when she was, in his view, tormenting their daughter makes him not a victim but a coward who valued his own domestic peace over what he believed was his daughter’s best interest. Believable yes? Tragic in its way? Sure, I guess. But Stoner’s no hero, unless poor judgment, passivity and an abdication of moral responsibility are your ideas of what constitutes the good.

[Anonymous No.11487751]

>>11487697

[Anonymous No.11487752]

>>11487645
OK SOMEONE EXPLAIN ME THIS BOOK! WILLIAM IS LIKE I LOVE LITERATURE BUT I DONT KNOW WHY CAUSE HE NEVER SAID WHY. AND THEN HE IS LIKE ALL SHUT BUT SOMEHOW HE STILL GOT FRIENDS (KINDA) AND EVEN WAS ABLE TO GET A JOB OFFERED TO HIM. AND THEN HE STARE TO A WOMAN FOR 2 HOURS AND THEY MERRY WTF WHY THIS GUY KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS? AND ALSO WHY ALL CONVERSATIONS IN THIS BOOK ARE CONTAINED AND AWKWARD AND THE AUTHOR KILLS THE ONLY CHARACTER THAT IS ABLE TO ARTICULATE HIMSELF?

[Anonymous No.11487757]

>>11487714
I was aware that he was a pathetic coward throughout the entire book. I don't think that Williams wrote the story to paint Stoner as a victim. He's at fault for how his wife and kid turned out.
>Stoner's no hero
no shit?

>>11487702
I'm not saying stoner was a good guy.

are both of you women?

[Anonymous No.11487778]

my diary desu

[Anonymous No.11487789]

>>11487757
i always thought that the book is about love and that stoner first lost his love for Edith, then katherine and in the end for literature, the love of his life, because he couldn't read anymore and then he died.

[Anonymous No.11487828]

Got this book from the liberry the other day and I really like it. Feels like it was written by a guy who knew Pynchon and Farina but skipped all the dope. Pretty comfy, unsettling stuff.

[Anonymous No.11487942]

>>11487651

The entire narrative was normalized around his sex romp with Katherine so the whole rest of his life was relatively depressing.

He was also a textbook autistic, had no social context (besides a book he didn't write), was obsessed with categories and divisions of English literature (to the detriment of his career) and essentially was basically a retard until his near death experience made him somewhat tolerable.

>>11487752

What does it mean to be a good student? According to Stoner, learning should be life itself and not a means to an end. But it's unclear why the WWII veterans thought like this when the previous students couldn't (besides the economic recession).

Masters would probably claim that knowledge is a tool to create a giant controversial shitstorm, and Cripple Jr. would agree with him.

>>11487789

This book is about mortality and fossil fuels. As a farmer he survives on nutrients in the soil. Then he discovers a denser source of sustenance. While his friends bleed all over Europe, Stoner becomes a vampire, consuming the university's library. Eventually his appetite exceeds the source and he has to requisition food from other universities to write his thesis.

In Stoner, people are commonly described with "sunken eyes" as the corpus is a coal mine and their vitality takes up volume behind the visage. Finally the amount of freshman essays Stoner consumes takes their toll, as they reproduce uncontrollably inside him and he gets cancer and snuffs it.

How come the fat fuck never snuffs it? Genetics, kids!

[Anonymous No.11487950]

>>11487645
>Books that fucked you up
>Stoner

AYYYY

[Anonymous No.11487999]

How did Edith know about the mistress? Did she have an affair with lomax? That kiss at the party between the two was unsettling.

[Anonymous No.11488029]

>>11487999

>How did Edith know about the mistress?

He was Edith's science torture experiment and his daily routine had like two variables, so his sudden transformation into a regular ol' chippy chopper combined with the fact that they were hypersensitive of each others' presence at home. Also, Edith had secret spy sources because her theater clique was tactically infatuated with the small town student body or whatever.

>That kiss at the party between the two was unsettling.

You mean the completely platonic kiss? The one so not awkward it was unsettling because it was at odds with his crippled exterior? That just gives Lomax an aura of mystique and further establishes his status dominance over Stoner, who is a cowering fruitcake.

[Anonymous No.11488041]

>>11488029

That being said Edith would have fucked everybody else to further her plans for world domination (i.e. make Stoner feel dumb) but her rape PTSD would probably stop her.

[Anonymous No.11488056]

>>11487714
Claims book portrays him as innocent victim
Points out that book portrays him as not innocent

Wat?

Are you a gril? This is non male logic.

[Anonymous No.11488096]

>>11487651
I read Stoner during an depressive episode. It actually lifted my mood.

[Anonymous No.11488106]

>>11488056

hir argument is almost as bad as yours, Mr. gas the sex war Stoner did nothing wrong.

I'd argue that Stoner was actually legendarily idiotic considering how little he interacted with the living. After the bar conversation w/ smarty and fatty he never has a real discussion until he meets Katherine. he only lectures about niche topics. Considering he conflated love with psychosomatic presence, it's not enough to use "20 something PhD student" to override his weaponized stupidity. especially since he dropped out of science to study a humanities...

...W0W S1CK BURN

[Anonymous No.11488157]

>>11487651
>Why it make everyone depressed?
probably all the homophobia, misogyny, ableism.
only channers could relate to someone so problematic.

[Anonymous No.11488160]

>>11487751
>>11487697
Why are any of you browsing /lit/

[Anonymous No.11488164]

Here's a philsophical question for you: why is eating shit bad? Do you think eating chicken is bad? How about sushi? Carrots? If you answered no to ANY of those, then you shouldn't have a problem with poop. Poop is LITERALLY digested food with a bitter aftertaste. Nothing wrong with eating yummy poop!

[Anonymous No.11488167]

>>11488056
>>11488056

to clarify, the "quietly heroic" phrase appears only in the introduction, which is not part of the book and authorial intent doesn't matter (even though the analogy is clear enough because he decides not to fight in WWI)

so "innocence" is conflating things a little since it assumes that a quiet hero can do no evil, which is ridiculous. Stoner's views on literature literally don't exist. In the course of Stoner's entire life the narrator (from stoner's POV) makes only one vague semantic argument ("learning is life itself"). He reads verbatim something about grammar and the middle ages.

Besides from these two wholly unimportant things Stoner ejaculates no actual knowledge. After he gives no response to Sonnet 69, he learns only historical facts and remains devoid of any opinion. This contrasts to Lennox Jr., who has only opinion but lacks the prerequisite (supposedly) knowledge.

The crux of the disagreement is when Stoner claims that the PhD represents discrete knowledge of useless facts (when was this poem written?) whereas Lemming argues that the PhD should be a tool for social welfare. They're both wrong and the reality is whatever you think. as long as you can articulate to the class what Sonnet 420 means, of course.

*hits bong* it means, like, life, bro

>Over the next 20 years, Stoner's popularity with his students eventually increased, which obviously means he knew a lot more about English and stuff. Trust me I'm the narrator I wrote this shit.

[Anonymous No.11488175]

>>11488164

>Do you think eating chicken is bad? How about sushi? Carrots?

I put Chinese takeout in a blender one time (cuz I thought it would make it faster to eat) and it tasted terrible. Your intestine is a blender. Therefore, feces is LITERALLY terrible.

Checkmate, atheists.

[Anonymous No.11488201]

>>11488157

>homophobia, misogyny, ableism

He chills out after he gets hearing loss and almost dies.

That's why Masters was a genius -- he was on his way to becoming an eldritch overlord at level 20, but he accidentally too much blood and died instead of almost dying in the mud.

[Anonymous No.11488271]

Reading this makes me think of Hal and the problem with talking

[Anonymous No.11488436]

Lotta meth
Lotta rape

[Anonymous No.11488475]

>>11487645
Books that made you dropout from STEM

[Anonymous No.11488599]

Should I drop my business major and switch to english and become a professor?
I just wanna live a fulfilled life

[Anonymous No.11488615]

>>11487645
The Torture Garden.
No matter what you society won't change for the better, unless there's a massive purge.

[Anonymous No.11488636]

Teared up at the end of Narcissus and Goldmund

[Anonymous No.11488727]

>>11487651
You spend the entire book pissed at his complete passivity, then that anger turns to pity, and you watch him die thinking about what he might of done different. Seeing someone die with regrets while living a lackluster life is depressing and gives you a bit of an existential crisis about living a fulfilling life.

[Anonymous No.11488797]

>>11487645
Intensely underrated on here - really fucked me up at 18

[Anonymous No.11488812]

>>11488599
Fulfillment doesn't come with a career path. Fulfillment comes from leading a full life. I move furniture for a living. It's not the career I thought I'd have, but my life is the best it's ever been, because I surround myself with great people and do shit that I love.

[Anonymous No.11488860]

[Anonymous No.11489532]

>>11488812
>another mover browses /lit/
God bless you son. I did it for two years to save up to finish my degree. Heck of a job

[Anonymous No.11489584]

>>11487714

Fuck off with this retarded analysis. The book was set in the early 20th century when social norms, courtship and family norms were completely different. Edith's neurotic behaviour was the product of her time: her upbringing, her social standing, societal taboos, etc made her into a neurotic bitch. It was not Stoner's fault she turned out how she did.

Stoner was a hero because he was "the strong, silent type". He did what he had to do. Throughout all of his life's disappointments and unfulfilling relationships he still followed his passion for literature and led an honorable life. I think that's why the author and most readers see him as a hero.

A lot of people connect with the book because they're probably reading it in their early 20s at a point where they're uncertain about their future; they don't know what they want to accomplish in their lives, and feeling a sense of unfulfillment as though they're not taking advantage of opportunities that come their way. I think a lot of readers can picture their banal life following a similar course as Stoner's did.

[Anonymous No.11489662]

>>11487645
>threads that fucked you up

[Anonymous No.11489664]

>>11489662
>posts that fucked you up

[Anonymous No.11490235]

when should i read stoner? been depressed for 3 years now and starting uni soon.

[Anonymous No.11490252]

i should probably throw away or sell my copy if i dont want people to know i come here huh

[Anonymous No.11490741]

>>11490235
Read it before starting university.

[Anonymous No.11490758]

>>11490235
Read Zhuangzi