The Farm Boy and the Sailor

Although I've been able to catch up on a lot of long-overdue reading (is that a library joke? in the first sentence?) recently, I encountered only two truly incredible works of fiction during this quarantine period. The books were Stoner by John Williams and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It's rare that I'm completely blown away by literature, but these works got the job done.

I plan to use this post to discuss each book and compare them a bit. If all goes well, we should reach the end with a better understanding of what these texts can tell us about the human condition. If not, well, at least we had a good time. 

It seems unlikely that I'll be able to achieve any sort of analysis of either book without a few spoilers, but I'll do my best to include as few as possible. Consider that a general spoiler warning. 

First, we enter the late 19th century with Stoner, opening in rural Missouri. The book relates the life of William Stoner, who is just a teenage farm boy at the beginning of the novel. Stoner is sent to the University of Missouri to get a degree in agriculture science, which would be employed back at the farm to generate more crops and revenue. He certainly didn't expect to fall in love with the English language, but he does. Hopelessly. Possessed by the language, Stoner switches majors, attains a Master's degree, and begins teaching literature. The book is largely centered around the years he spends as a professor. In this time, he falls in love and quickly out again, finding himself trapped in a toxic marriage; fights internal battles over enlisting in World War I; watches friends and mentors die; and, at last, finds love again, more distinct and powerful than the sum of his miseries.

Stoner

John Williams' prose is simple yet elegant, occasionally providing moments of such breathtaking beauty that you can't help but start, awed at his ability to manipulate the language so efficiently, yet so powerfully. One such quote:

"In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt, and an embarrassed nostalgia. Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart."

For me, it just doesn't get much better than that.

The second great work of fiction I read was Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. Published in 1844 and clocking in at a staggering 1276 pages, it's a testament to Dumas' extraordinary power of narration that the book remains a page-turner today. 

The plot of The Count is complex, but revenge lies at its core. The young sailor Edmond Dantes is wrongly jailed by conspirators who have much to gain from seeing Dantes behind bars. In jail for 14 years, Dantes absorbs all the knowledge he can from the learned Abbé Faria. Dantes is born again. The Abbé eventually tells Dantes the location of his secret treasure, which he seeks out upon (surprise!) escaping from prison. With the assistance of the fortune, Dantes adopts the moniker Count of Monte Cristo and seeks revenge on those who wronged him. Over the course of many years, Dantes assumes multiple disguises and employs clever chicanery to enact his revenge. In the end, Dantes must ask himself if it was right for a man to act as the hand of providence. Who had he become? 

The Count of Monte Cristo

The books tell the stories of two wildly different men. The first, William Stoner, is a humble and ordinary professor who carries out a humble and ordinary life. He lives and dies in the same state. The Count, by contrast, is an eccentric, swashbuckling millionaire whose travels take him all over Europe. Regardless of these differences, the men are essentially similar. Stoner experiences the highs and lows of a typical life, and the lows magnify the rapturous highs. Dantes has a more extreme existence; he suffers greatly in jail, but his life is transformed by an enormous fortune.

Stoner and Dantes show us that life is the combination of ups and downs, both big and small, and that happiness cannot exist without pain. Dantes' life is exaggerated, while Stoner's life is typical. There is beauty to be found in both, as there is beauty to be found in every life. These are, I think, important lessons. 

I won't soon forget these books. Thanks for reading. 

-TWTD