Stoner

[Anonymous No.22701847]

How can a man be so pathetic and stoic at the same time?

[Anonymous No.22701883]

>>22701847
What embracing the dude weed lmao lifestyle does to a white cuck.

[Anonymous No.22701890]

>>22701847
but he isn't pathetic

[Anonymous No.22701909]

>>22701847
>Rapes and cheats on his faithful wife

He deserved what he got

[Anonymous No.22701912]

>>22701909
>>Rapes
when?

[Anonymous No.22701919]

>>22701912
In the begging of the novel.

[Anonymous No.22701923]

>>22701919
but its his wife?

[Anonymous No.22701924]

>>22701912
Cant consent if youre drunk. He also raped Kate. His wife kept him away from their daughter becausr he couldnt be trusted to keep his dick in his pants.

[Anonymous No.22701932]

>>22701847
he was a weakwilled little man who picked the first girl he met despite her obvious disinterest, failed to notice she was only marrying him to escape her rapist father, then rapes her again in her sleep then blames her for everything.

he is prissy and pedantic about his minor academic position, tearing down disabled undergrads because they rub him the wrong way all the while having an affair with his student. all instead of being present in his daughters life which he again blames the mother for.

he's not meant to be a good or bad guy just a guy

[Anonymous No.22701941]

Never change 4chan

[Anonymous No.22701942]

>>22701932
I think the biggest thing was him being a coward. Thats why one of the few things that actually bothered him was the fact that he was too pussy to join his Chad friends in the war.

[Anonymous No.22701944]

Glad I never picked this book, though the title was just a namelet and not literally about weed.
Smells of anus.

[Anonymous No.22701951]

>>22701944
>Glad I never picked this book
its great though

[Anonymous No.22701982]

>>22701909
>rape
>wife
don't you see a paradox here?

[Anonymous No.22701989]

>>22701951
degeneracy slop, like everything else nowadays.

[Anonymous No.22701994]

>>22701982
Listen I force myself on my gf all the time but if you couldnt see how fucked up Stoners sexual relationship with Edith was then you need professional help

[Anonymous No.22702002]

>>22701989
what?

[Anonymous No.22702004]

>>22702002
The rape stuff. Must be an allegory about female rights amirite bois

[Anonymous No.22702007]

The poor guy just let insane people (his wife and Lomax) run him over. He had no fight to him.

It's also super interesting that the guy who wrote this also wrote Augustus, which is definitely the better novel, and also about a diametrically opposite ensemble.

[Anonymous No.22702008]

>>22701847
He's not so pathetic imo. I felt for him. Being stuck in a shitty marriage sucks and yes he could have ended it but I think he refused to do so because he takes responsibly for his actions. He initiated the marriage, he feels it's his fault it sucks (kind of is because he rushed into it) as because of strong feelings of pride and duty keeps pulling through. Also he's raised methodist Christian, I bet they saw marriage as a sacrament not to be broken. He's not Christian but he honors tradition, just like in the university. Remember he's an idealist.

[Anonymous No.22702009]

>>22701982
i hate my wife boomer tier humour
try harder

[Anonymous No.22702014]

>>22702008
taking responsibility for his actions is not really compatible with bowing out of your child life, having an affair with a much younger student of yours, destroying the careers of undergrads because of petty personal grievances and refusing to divorce the wife you despise. that's not idealism that's avoidance

[Anonymous No.22702013]

>>22701942
Again I will defend him. In retrospect the American involvement in ww1 was just bad. Sure if America had reason to enter the war for self defense and so on. But no. They just joined in for spoils and power. Stoner was based not to join.

[Anonymous No.22702023]

>>22702014
>destroying the careers of undergrads because of petty personal grievances
Eh you mean Charlie Walker? That guy shouldn't have passed. Stoner was in the right. And his idealism of university being a sacred tradition for learning and knowledge played a part in that.

Yeah the affair was dumb. He still stuck with the marriage without complaining though. And I agree his worst flaw was letting Edith hide their daughter from him. He was flawed after all, even if I see him more as a hero than a pathetic cuck.

[Anonymous No.22702033]

>>22702023
Yeah, fuck Charlie Walker. I mean, he genuinely is onto something, but he has to put in the work, and hell, show that he's actually into English literature.

[Anonymous No.22702036]

>>22701847
He's not stoic. He's passive. There's a difference.

[Anonymous No.22702052]

>>22701847
anyone who practices stoicism is pathetic.

[Anonymous No.22702083]

>>22701924
>>22701932
>>22701994
His wife was annoying cunt. If anything he didnt rape her enough.

[Anonymous No.22702090]

>>22702083
lol

[Anonymous No.22702164]

>>22701994
it was fucked up because of edith not stoner

[Anonymous No.22702188]

>>22702052
Agreed

[Anonymous No.22702195]

>>22702033
>>22702023
Charlie Walker was a dick but he was young and excited. His entry into a grad programme isn't that big of a deal and I think there would have been a lot more students like him who Stoner didn't pursue with such passionate fervour. It was obvious that Stoner resented this much younger man for his physical disability, the fact he was rude to the much younger woman he had a crush on, and the fact that he was the star pupil of his enemy the guy with the withered arm (forget his name). His "ideals" about the university as a sacred place are pure egotism. I'm not saying intellectual gatekeeping is bad obviously there should be academic standards but i don;t believe that's what really drove Stoner to destroy the career of that kid, it was more out of those petty grievances.

I don't think he was a pathetic cuck just a regular person and like most regular people he was motivated by short-sighted and myopic little ends and only gave lip service to a ethics, honour etc. I think he wasn't a villain or a hero but just a regular guy

>>22702052
It's a reddit cope ideology for pseuds imo

[Anonymous No.22702202]

>>22702013
That's not how society perceived it at the time, Men go to war cowards dodge drafting

[Anonymous No.22702207]

>>22702004
My nigger what the hell are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.22702219]

>>22702195
No, he didn't destroy his career, he just rejected him from that department because the kid didn't know shit about English lit. Stoner didn't hound him at all, he just failed him.

It's Lomax that was the lunatic hounding Stoner.

[Anonymous No.22702221]

>>22702202
I don't give a fuck about society I would never go to war lol I would do far more embarrassing and selfish things to get out of fighting in a war than Stoner did. I'd go full Ninth Configuration if i had to, no way I'm getting roped into some tiff between nation states that leaves me limbless in a hospital bed begging for death with morse code

[Anonymous No.22702227]

Hey incels, women love rape

[Anonymous No.22702231]

>>22702221
Listen I'm not dying for globohomo either but at that time it was seen as cowardly to refuse to go to war, nowadays it's way more accepted due to the increasingly meaningless wars america has gotten into

[Anonymous No.22702236]

>>22702219
We don't hear anything about him after Stoner destroyed him in a room of his would-be academic peers, I think it's safe to say that his career was off the cards after that.

Lomax was the withered-arm guy, right? He was a dick, but so was Stoner IMO, predictable personality clash among big ego professors who have put too much stock in being he smartest guy in the room at any one time. Many such cases in real life...

Also true to real life academia is that Lomax ends up having to give the speech about Stoner singing his praise at the end of his time with the university. I have literally seen that exact situation play out, it was well-observed.

(To be clear I love this book and think it's great i just don't view Stoner as an honourable or even morally "good" figure)

[Anonymous No.22702237]

>>22701989
You sound like a faggot with an easy excuse to get out of reading a great book. I bet you’ve read naught in your boring life.

[Anonymous No.22702240]

>>22702231
Yeah that is true. I can't remember how he gets out of going to war though? Was he still on the family farm at that time? Lots of farmers didn;t have to go to war and that was socially acceptable because they were providing a vital service

I remember he has a friend that dies in the war very early in the book and that he keeps thinking about him throughout his life like a ghost. that was one of the saddest parts of the book for me especially when he recalls him towards the very end and so much time has passed...

[Anonymous No.22702254]

>>22702240
He didn't get drafted but in his circle volunteering was all the rage and he never did seem to give a good reason as to why he didn't go he just... didn't, I think people called him a coward because he already was a pretty lukewarm man so it was just another insult, I guarantee if he was a strong willed man the war dodging wouldn't even have been mentioned later by Edith

[Anonymous No.22702273]

>>22702236
Yeah, it is true Stoner was too spineless to be called good. It's a great cautionary tale. I know I'm not bending the knee if I run into the kind of insanity Stoner ran into.

[Anonymous No.22702284]

>>22702273
It's not a cautionary tale though. The author of the book called Stoner a hero.

[Anonymous No.22702288]

>>22702284
Really? I got a kinda nihilist realist vibe from both this and Butchers Crossing, I would have assumed he treated the characters in both in a detached way. Maybe he meant in like the greek myth sense iunno. post the quote?

[Anonymous No.22702315]

>>22702284
The author is dead, 'member?

[Anonymous No.22702318]

Did no one here read Augustus, from the same author? It is genuinely the better novel.

[Anonymous No.22702468]

>>22702009
found the redditor browbeaten by le wifey

[Anonymous No.22702539]

>>22702236
>We don't hear anything about him after Stoner destroyed him in a room of his would-be academic peers, I think it's safe to say that his career was off the cards after that.
We do, actually. There's a brief mention a chapter or two later that the Dean essentially drags his feet and lets Walker continue his program at the school. Basically, Stoner did it all for nothing.

>>22702195
>It was obvious that Stoner resented this much younger man for his physical disability, the fact he was rude to the much younger woman he had a crush on, and the fact that he was the star pupil of his enemy the guy with the withered arm (forget his name).
I don't think that's fair. Prior to the fight with Lomax that starts as a result of Stoner failing Walker, Stoner likes Lomax and wants to be his friend, albeit unsuccessfully. Walker isn't even rude to Katherine until he's gone through a whole semester not turning in any work and (as later proven) not knowing a single thing about English literature. Stoner resents him for openly disregarding the field he loves, but the fact that the kid didn't do ANY of the work in the class is still a more than reasonable grounds to fail him.

>His "ideals" about the university as a sacred place are pure egotism.
This I agree with.

[Anonymous No.22702630]

>>22702236
>We don't hear anything about him after Stoner destroyed him in a room of his would-be academic peers, I think it's safe to say that his career was off the cards after that.
My God did you even read the book?

[Anonymous No.22702644]

>>22702195
>I think there would have been a lot more students like him who Stoner didn't pursue with such passionate fervour. It was obvious that Stoner resented this much younger man for his physical disability, the fact he was rude to the much younger woman he had a crush on, and the fact that he was the star pupil of his enemy the guy with the withered arm (forget his name).
You are such a retard its actually shocking. If any other student had completely botched the class in the same way Walker had done Stoner would have failed them just the same. Its Lomax who turns the situation into a disaster because he can't let his boytoy take an F. Even in the hearing Stoner was initially impressed with Walker and started to come around on him, then he realized that Lomax was rigging the whole thing in his favor and he realized the kid is a fraud.

[Anonymous No.22702674]

>>22702236
>Lomax was the withered-arm guy, right? He was a dick, but so was Stoner IMO, predictable personality clash among big ego professors who have put too much stock in being he smartest guy in the room at any one time. Many such cases in real life...
The "personality clash" was completely one sided. Lomax basically ruined Stoner's academic career over one disagreement, and refused to talk to him for the rest of his life even when Stoner just wanted to patch things up.

[Anonymous No.22703062]

>>22701847
The whole thing feels in a way kind of like a cautionary tale for aspiring nietzcheans, the ugly and deformed naturally despise you, the petty nationalists will try to kill u in meaningless wars, women will peacock you into a early grave etc, Stoners greatest sin is his passivity any time he actually excersices his will he gets what he wants, when he forces Lomax to change his schedule or ignores Ediths bitching, or even when he courted Edith. wherever stoner applies himself he actually succeeds his weakness is his lack of will and creativity. ultimately he's just like his father dedicating himself to the barren fields of academia until they devour him, if he'd had the will to power to take the department chair or divorce the slut shit would've turned out different

[Anonymous No.22703832]

>>22703062
> passivity

This is why it's so interesting that the author wrote Augustus as well, about a guy the polar opposite of Stoner. Granted, we don't get much of Augustus' POV there...

[Anonymous No.22703841]

>>22702236
are you retarded? kek

[Anonymous No.22704834]

>>22702539
>Dean essentially drags his feet and lets Walker continue his program at the school
True I don't remember that, it is fitting
Definitely Walker didn't put any work in but i think
>Stoner resents him for openly disregarding the field
is by far the more pressing matter for Stoner.

>>22702630
>>22702644
>>22702674
>>22703841
You don't have to split it up into separate posts anon.
> Personality clash was one sided
You're always going to meet people like that in life
>My God did you even read the book?
Skimmed it yeah
>>22702644
So it's a pissing contest between Stoner and Loma by other means

[Anonymous No.22704878]

>>22704834
> skimmed it

Oh my God, no wonder you're defending Walker. It's not a pissing contest, it's a matter of integrity. You shouldn't reply, but might as well, to keep the thread going.

[Anonymous No.22704884]

>>22704878
Calm yourself

[Anonymous No.22704889]

>>22701924
Crazy how this novel brings out the psychotic nature of simps and roasties. They literally start making shit up point-blank because of what an accurate study of female nature it is.

[Anonymous No.22704922]

>>22704884
Kill yourself

[Anonymous No.22704972]

>>22703062
the lack of will actually rewards him with avoiding the war, but in a way this actually required more effort than not going, the flow would have certainly been to enlist and see what happens. which makes sense because it was such a labored decision from stoner

[Anonymous No.22705016]

>>22704834
>So it's a pissing contest between Stoner and Loma by other means
No, its Lomax trying to get around the rules for his boyfriend and then throwing a tantrum for the rest of his life when Stoner tries to hold Walker accountable for being a fraud. Theres no both sides to this, its entirely Lomax's fault

[Anonymous No.22705185]

>>22704889
I don't think it's about the "female nature", but just the nature of everyone and how it's fundamentally tied to their upbringing.
>Indeed, all of our past education will in some ways hinder us; for our habits of thinking about the nature of experience have determined our own expectations as radically as the habits of medieval man determined his.
Lomax expects that everyone else who was disabled is being unjustly held back by society, and struggles to see past this, even when knows Walker is a shit student. Edith is raised to believe that a woman must live a very particular life, and expect happiness from it. When that life brings her no joy she lashes out at those who she thinks must be to blame, her husband and daughter. There's a reason the thought that keeps coming to Stoner in his final moments is "What did you expect?", the whole book is about our expectations for life and the dangers of not being able to see past them and approach life as it really is.

[Anonymous No.22705191]

>>22704878
Lol hes like the irl walker

[Anonymous No.22705642]

>>22705191
Exactly

[Anonymous No.22705683]

>>22705016
I also remember at the beginning when Stoner and Lomax get to know each other, they click right away at a party and talk until like 4 am. Stoner feels like he has found a friend and tried to take up contact with Lomax at the University, but Lomax acts like it never happened. Clearly he's the prideful one not wanting to admit Stoner and him could be great friends as equals. Though it's not entirely clear exactly why he acted like this.

[Anonymous No.22705686]

>>22701847
I liked Butcher's Crossing better, but apparently that's just me

[Anonymous No.22705730]

>>22702288
I read it in my editions forward (which sucked and I'm glad I skipped it before resding the book). The writer of it quotes a interview with Williams: “I think [William Stoner] is a real hero. A lot of people who have read the novel think that Stoner had such a sad and bad life. I think he had a very good life.”

[Anonymous No.22705732]

>>22705730
I can't write properly atm. Gn

[Anonymous No.22705750]

>>22705686
I’ve been wanting to read that, I hear a lot of McCarthy comparisons. How sound are they?

[Anonymous No.22705850]

>>22705730
I really don't understand this view of the author. Sure, his life had highlights, but it was mostly miserable.

[Anonymous No.22705882]

>>22705850
same can be said of most peoples lives, stoner though is able to immortalize himself in the book he holds in his final moment, a grand child and in the two letters to which driscolls book is dedicated. for a poor farm boy he certainly lived a great life

[Anonymous No.22706066]

>>22705185
That seems like a fairly asinine point. I didn't say the whole book is about female nature. Rather, in painting the nature of everyone in a certain fatalistic or cynical light, it inevitably also portrays female nature in the same theme. The types of people who write the replies I was talking about are perfectly fine with doing this for people in general or men, for example, but not comfortable when this analysis reaches towards the woman as female. Every character in the novel can be generalised to an archetype among men and women. Sure, an argument can be made that the writer's focus was more on nurture than nature, but in that case, I would say yours is a more 'liberal' reading as the book can just as well be said to be about one's unchangeable and fatalistic natural qualities.

[Anonymous No.22706832]

>>22702195

Walker somehow managed to fail Stoner's class after being given multiple opportunities to pass (which was more than he deserved). Then during his meeting he had to get Lomax to hold his hand for every question. Walker also had one specific niche and was heavily lacking in other areas, Stoner says something along the lines that he cannot answer questions that an undergraduate student would know.

[Anonymous No.22706835]

>>22702195
>regular person
>gives lip service to honor and ethics
he represented the hero in us all, the everyman

[Anonymous No.22707015]

>>22705882
And he got to experience love. I think it's a real success. "He wanted to teach and he was a teacher" - he found what he was passionate about and got to work with it his whole life. Not many get to do that. He got to love his daughter and Katherine. He had a friend who cared about him. Not without struggle and hardships, especially from his wife, but he better to live and have loved and than not. The real tragedy would be him losing his job and not being able to study and teach, or worse: not finding this passion at all and working at his parent's farm his entire life, or him offing himself. In contrast to this, his life was indeed good.

[Anonymous No.22707167]

>>22705185
>>22706066
You're both right but the libtard is slightly less right for obviously inserting his own agenda into the analysis

[Anonymous No.22707980]

>>22702318
No but it's on my list. Think long and hard why a novel like Stoner would appeal to 4chan users.

[Anonymous No.22707989]

/lit/ may suck ass but stoner was good af. that was a legit rec.

[Anonymous No.22708076]

>>22707167
>"this book reveals the terrible truth of the female nature"
>"actually, it doesn't"
>"only one of theses anons is inserting his political agenda into his analysis"
both of them are inserting their agendas into the analysis you moron, that's what they're discussing. the political opinion that you hold is not inherently a neutral one, it's still an opinion.

[Anonymous No.22708275]

what do y'all think was the significance of the cold window motif (ie all the times stoner would empohasize the contrast from the indoor warmth to the outdoor chilliness typically in a postive manner) and how do you compare this to the stifling warmth of the sun room he's forced to use as his study. to me it symbolizes the comfort provided the university as an escape from cold world which intern makes it possible to appreciate and even venture into this world as conscious observe untethered by the security of tenure. While I think the heat is paramount to the overbearingness of the world as stoners domestic life falls apart he's forced to escape further into the university and driscolls apartment (all of the time he spends with Driscoll the cold is particularly emphasized especially when they take their trip to the ozarks). The most interesting point here is that stoner dies in the sun room. does this prove Dave masters point that stoner could not survive without the safety of the university or does it represent an acceptance and merging of the world domestic and personal spirit of stoner in his final moments.

[Anonymous No.22708631]

>>22707980
I mean, it's obvious, but there is also that meme about men thinking about the Roman Empire every day. I can definitely believe that about a lot of anons.

[Anonymous No.22708648]

>>22704889
Pretty much
Kek

[Anonymous No.22709233]

>>22708076
If you think an interpretation can be inherently apolitical then that's a political opinion you're inserting. Everything has its priors and a work can either be looked at under one lens or another, so you're just being obtuse.
I'm not saying the novel is political, not by any means. But if you want to derive some sort of meaning out of it, you have to draw definitions somewhere and choose what the author is trying to highlight.
That's why I prefer to not talk about interpretations altogether and focus instead on the sublime qualities or the aesthetic preoccupations (think Nabokov) of a work of art.

[Anonymous No.22709303]

>>22708275
I think that Dave Masters' speech towards the beginning of the book is essentially the thesis. I had never considered the cold window motif in that light, but the way that you describe it makes a lot of sense. The sun room being the apex or excess of that energy embodied by the university is also something I had never considered. It seems that Stoner suffers, as many do, from the excess of comfort in modern life and the fact that his wife forces him into the sunroom is a smaller version of her forcing him to buy a much larger home that he could hardly afford. It seems to me that university obviously appeals to him as being more comfortable than farm labor but he was never built for the comfort of a domestic suburban life, the university represents the happy medium of meaning and comfort, and that he pursues Driscoll in the excess cold to make up for the excess heat at home both literally and in the relative risk/comfort of the two places. I appreciate your perspective

[Anonymous No.22709430]

>>22705016
Lomax simped for Charles because he was a cripple like him, not everything is a hidden gay romance.

[Anonymous No.22709477]

>>22709430
I dunno, theres a moment where Stoner says to Gordon that he doesn't know whats going on between Walker and Lomax, and that he doesn't want to know. Feels like if it was as simple as the obvious connection between two cripples Stoner wouldn't have any difficulty understanding it. Also Lomax acts like a homo in general

[Anonymous No.22709878]

>>22709233
I don't know why you're acting as though you disagree with me, I literally said both posts inserted political opinions into their analysis.

[Anonymous No.22710659]

Because stoics think they're all badasses smoking cigarettes in the corner and taking everything in their stride like Mad Max whereas in real life people see people like that as school shooters with no social skills, sense of humour etc

[Anonymous No.22710666]

Literally me
>tfw no wife to (not) rape

[Anonymous No.22710693]

>>22710659
People thought niggers were animals and now they’re allowed in schools and the workplace. People thought fags deserved to be hanged and now they celebrate them and throw parades in honor of faggotry. Measuring yourself by what the herd thinks will turn you into a nigger-faggot.

[Anonymous No.22710698]

>>22710693

It will also help you to have a fulfilling life surrounded by friends and loved ones instead of an angst filled subexistence of ennui culminating in throwing yourself from a balcony. Humans are social

[Anonymous No.22710701]

>>22710698
Your weakness isn’t universal.

[Anonymous No.22710834]

>>22702007
I enjoyed the "parallels" between Stoner and Augustus. Two opposite men, nearly the same ending for them

[Anonymous No.22711126]

>>22701924
holy kek

[Anonymous No.22711424]

>>22710834
Life always fucks you in the end.