Did you read “Stoner”, by John Williams last year? It’s been quite a phenomenon in the UK, having sold precious few copies in the author’s lifetime, then suddenly becoming a bestseller with rave reviews here this year.
I liked it. A lot. But let me just share with you a couple of wee passages which describe how the main character, Stoner, comes to think of love as he gets older. Firstly,
…he began to know 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
and, also
….that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.
Well, I’m sure if you’re a regular reader here, you’ll know why that first passage grabbed me – “a human act of becoming….” and I especially like the thought that love changes all the time, and that the will, the intelligence and the heart are all involved in creating that change.
Then, well, how wonderful….to describe love as a “process through which one person attempts to know another”. I do think that is so often forgotten….that love isn’t just a feeling or a state, but it is an ongoing act of trying to know another. Funnily enough, that makes me think of my verb of the week – attend, particularly, with regard to the latin origin of ‘attend’ being about a reaching or stretching out towards….
Heroes Not Zombies 
I haven’t heard of it. Is it fiction? A novel?
Yep, it’s a novel. There’s a view that it never became popular in the US because it isn’t in tune with the American dream of poor boy becoming huge success. Some people find it a bit depressing but John Williams said he didn’t think it was an unhappy story, just a real one.
It feels authentic to me and I do think it is very very well written. Thought provoking and sadly moving.
It’s great. Also, Butcher’s Crossing is wonderful.