An epiphany of knowing
Nice piece by Morris Dickstein about John Williams’s Stoner in the NYT yesterday. Always fun to read Dickstein. I liked this phrase he quotes from the novel:
In literature he senses a depth of human understanding beyond his power to express, an epiphany of knowing something through words that could not be put in words.
I haven’t read Stoner, but Dickstein’s description reminded me a bit of Alan Seager. The early 60s really were the 50s, as strange Nan Talese says in the Ian McEwan documentary I also also happened to catch this weekend. I’m struck by the sincerity with which guys like Williams and Seager tried to reconcile a life devoted to literature with the the gray-flannel values of 1950s America. Is that kind of thing still done, do you think?
The documentary reminded me: I still hate McEwan’s stuff. Why do I hate so much contemporary fiction? Then I happened to pick up Lewis Robinson’s stories for the first time this weekend and I realized, no, I don’t hate everything.
June 28th, 2007 18:52
Hey GRJ,
I’ve been tipped off that the books column in the Denver Post this weekend will also be about John Williams. I’ve not read Stoner (have it laying around here somewhere though), but did read a novel excerpt by him in a creative writing class in the last 80’s that was just incredible, but sadly never seemed to make its way to book form.