‘Stoner’ is an acclaimed novel by John Williams, which documents the life of William Stoner, a generally unremarkable man who is an English Professor. Readers admire Stoner for his stoic resilience against life’s trials and tribulations. I, however, despised him for it.

John William has written the book in a quiet and mundane style with prose that is as stoic as Stoner himself. It doesn’t strike you like flashy prose; it slowly reels you in just as slowly Stoner’s life slips from his hands.

For me, Stoner was the opposite of someone we should aspire to be: someone passive, someone who lets life pass by him without doing anything, someone who lacks the courage to do what he thinks is right. He knows he should divorce his wife, with whom he shares no love. He knows he shouldn’t let his wife pull their daughter away from him. And he knows he should fight for the love he finds with a fellow academic. Yet, he does none of these things.

The result is him dying all alone, with his daughter becoming a raging alcoholic, trapped in an abusive marriage. Having given up on his only love, he remains stuck with a wife who could only be called a platonic acquaintance at best. He dies with his unpublished book in his hand, which he had given up on after rejection from a publisher. He dies just as he came into the world, having changed nothing and no one. Not even himself.

Stoner is neither a man to idealize nor sympathize with. He is a reminder of a man who doesn’t struggle against his destiny, instead slumping his head in defeat without even putting up a good fight.

When I finished the book, I remember thinking that’s not the kind of life I would want to live. So, I thought I hated Stoner because he was different than me. Soon, I realized it was the exact opposite.

I started reading ‘Stoner’ in the library of the school I’d transferred to at the beginning of my junior year. I had read it while feeling lost in the midst of total strangers. Just as Stoner had let life pass by him, I let people pass by me. I expected them to approach me first, for them to put in the awkward first word while I remained firmly in my comfort zone. Of course, that didn’t happen. So, I remained there isolated and alone just as Stoner had been.

I realized I didn’t despise Stoner; I related to him. His failures were a manifestation of my own, and my disgust towards him was a mere reflection of my feelings toward myself.

Without even knowing, I had been firmly tethered to the pole of stagnation, relishing in the comfortable position and dreading having to venture into the unknown. Deep within, I knew so much awaited me, but I had deluded myself by putting on a stoic façade.

Stoner’s bleak end convinced me otherwise.

After reading ‘Stoner’, I knew I had to develop agency, to take life by the horns and steer it the way I liked. So, I started approaching people first, no matter how awkward or scared I felt. Soon, I began making friends because I realized the world was full of people afraid to make the first move. I even started attending debate sessions and participated in multiple parliamentary debates.

Another uncanny similarity between Stoner and me was our book. While Stoner had actually written it, I hadn’t even started it. I saw myself in Stoner, dying all alone, dozens of things that I’d planned to do but had been too scared to actually start running through my mind.

After this wake-up call, which was as potent as seeing my own future, I started writing my book. I am still in the very early stages of it, but it is steadily growing, and hopefully I’ll publish it in the future.

Starting the book taught me what Stoner never learned: that living with regret is never better than facing the momentary discomfort. My novel is still a work in progress, but the act of writing it is my way of refusing to let life simply happen to me. I like to think that if William Stoner could see someone learning from his silence, those things he left undone might have weighed just a little bit lighter on his shoulders.