Classics aren’t always recognized as classics when they first appear. Literary legend has it that Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was not well-received when it was first published, and the novel was the beginning of the great American writer’s descent into obscurity. It was only after Melville died that the novel was rescued from the dustbin of history and recognized as the masterpiece it is now widely held to be.
There’s something similar happening right now with John Williams’ Stoner, the 1965 novel about a Missouri farm boy who goes to college and becomes an academic. The novel didn’t sell much when it was first published, and went quickly out of print, but in 2007 it was rescued by the great New York Review Books Classics imprint, quickly becoming one of their best-selling titles. Now, somewhat unexpectedly, the book has become a monster bestseller in Europe, where it sits at #1 in, of all places, the Netherlands, and was named Book of the Year by UK bookseller Waterstones.
I’ve read Stoner. It’s a wonderful novel, absolutely deserving of its newfound success, and, I think, of being remembered as a legitimate American classic. But the news of its catching on nearly 50 years after its publication is still odd. How did a quiet novel about a Midwestern man’s sad path through life rise from obscurity to become an international bestseller?
One can never be sure about such things, but allow me to speculate anyway. Here are some factors that may have helped Stoner in its rise from obscurity to literary fame:
1. It’s just fucking great. Some things are no mystery: if Stoner is finding an audience, that’s because it deserves to. John Williams’ writing is, above all, assured, telling its story with a quiet confidence. The prose has few frills, but it’s still spellbinding. Its story—of a man, William Stoner, rising from poverty to become a professor of English, but beset late in life by disappointments in his family and his career—is compelling, and a quick read besides.
2. An air of obscurity. New York Review Books Classics is well-known and beloved in the literary community for finding titles that aren’t well-known and confidently publishing them as “classics.” As a brand, the imprint makes its readers a tantalizing promise: buy this book and you will join a rarefied club, the club of people with discriminating taste who can appreciate this underappreciated book. As Stoner has climbed from obscurity to fame, with such celebrities as Ian McEwen and even Tom Hanks recommending it, the air of obscurity has still clung to the novel—it is, in The Daily Beast’s phrase, a book “famous for not being famous.” Reading Stoner, you get the feeling that you are discovering something, that the greatness you commune with on the page is something for you and you alone—even as the novel continues to be among the NYRB’s best-selling titles, and hits the bestseller charts in the UK and Netherlands.
3. The Internet. Moby Dick made the leap from obscurity to fame without the benefit of the web; but make no mistake, Stoner’s success wouldn’t have happened without the internet. Perhaps adding to its air of obscurity, it’s the kind of book that is best discovered via personal recommendation—and that’s the kind of virality that the web is best at. I first discovered the title via the literary site The Millions, where it was listed for many months (years, even?) as one of the top books readers were buying. Over and over again, it appeared in The Millions Year in Reading series, recommended by writers whose opinions I trusted. Soon, I began seeing it mentioned on Twitter—I can’t find the tweet, but I swear I saw John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, of all people, recommend it. On Goodreads, it sits atop the crowdsourced list of Best NYRB Books. Online, the title is passed from person to person like a shibboleth, a watchword signifying your membership in a distinguished circle: I just read the most amazing book, called Stoner. Have you read Stoner? You really must read Stoner.
4. The economy. Stoner seems to me to be a book tailor-made for a bad economy. Perhaps in 1965 mainstream audiences weren’t ready to read about the dark side of the American dream, about a man rising from poverty only to be beset by disillusionment and sadness. But in 2007, near the end of the Bush years and the beginning of the Great Recession, we were ready to hear about the ways that American promise often sours into disappointment and alienation. (It bears a passing resemblance to Mad Men.) And Europeans, I suspect, themselves touched by a bad economy, resonate on the same level with William Stoner, while also enjoying the book’s cynical take on the American myth of self-determination and rugged individualism.
And thus a classic is made: the right novel, the right cultural conditions for it to resonate most strongly, and the right medium of communication.
