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Stoner by John Edward Williams is a quiet, beautifully written story of a man born on a small midwestern farm who is awakened by education into literature and becomes a teacher. His small family-it's just him and his parents-are virtually mute and so literature, reading, is an astonishment to William Stoner. He turns his back on his farm-with sadness for his parents and their painful disappointment-but no regrets and goes on to study a subject that could not have been more exotic than if ... well, I guess a subject that could not have been more exotic.

Unfortunately for me many of the more painful aspects of this book touched too close to my own life for personal comfort. I could not stop reading and finished in a couple of hours, disconcerting my cats by sobbing out loud during some sections. I can't say more without spoilers but it is hardly spoiling anything to say the record of any life has pain and there were some moments in this story where I felt that perhaps pain-or bleak stoical acceptance of it-outweighs the good, maybe in life itself. Which says how depressed this book left me.

I think this book is best read by young people who are not teachers. Or married. Or me.