Read: Stoner, by John Williams
I went into this book blind, based purely off the back of mass recommendation; in retrospect, I think that was probably the best preparation I could have given myself. Stoner is a remarkable novel in how it covers so little, but in such rich detail that every tiny beat reverberates for hours afterward.
The back cover sums up the plot fairly succinctly: “William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. Later, he becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death his colleagues remember him rarely.” This has all the quiet beauty that the Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master has - not much happens, but the characters are shown in such stark detail that you can’t help but be drawn in. There are entire sequences where a few men sit in a room talking that feel charged with a thrill you don’t expect. A romance halfway through is heart-wrenching to read from page to page.
This novel also contains the best description of death from a first-person perspective that I’ve ever read. It’s really quite something. You should stop reading this, and start reading that.