Friday, February 23, 2024

Stoner - John Williams



- I just finished Stoner, whatsapped a friend of mine straight after closing the book. Do all the classics have to be dark AF? Anyway, go for it if you haven't done so already, you will love it. 
- Yeah, I have read it, he swiftly responded, it's sublime.
- I guessed so, you are a 2666 fan.
- Also go for Augustus from the same guy, he added.

Shortly afterwards, I rated it four stars in Goodreads, maybe even five would had been fair: The book does a perfect job to describe the life of a passionate university professor with a failed personal life. Of course, the author makes sure that the depression tone is properly set on the very first page whereby the aftermath of the professor's death is depicted (which is clearly none, the guy was completely forgotten after a few years) 

So just got me wondering, when was the last time that I read anything non morbid? Voltaire's Candide came in mind which I read more than five years ago. On a second thought, even Eco's novels weren't dark: they would just bombard you with information and push you into Eco's complicated thought process - "I am writing for masochists", Eco had said, people love getting a headache trying to figure out my texts, thus, apparently, masochism is all over the place with literature readers (depression, headaches, nothing good can come out of it) 

- Anyway, what's next?, I asked myself.
- Maybe finish 2666?
- No way.
- Start an Ian Rankin one?
- "A tribute to failed love", I read in the back page.
- Then the Kazantzakis one which is the only unpublished Kazantzakis' novel as they said in this YouTube interview? (such a marketing scam btw, I randomly went through a page and I am 100% sure that I have read that somewhere)
- "Sweetly melancholic" the into read...

So I gave up on novels and just picked up the book of a famous Greek psychologist which was bound to make you feel better (it's their job ffs): "Feeling depressed is a blatant expression of your ego seeking attention", she said. 

OK, clear, it's finally all my fault, that's what I needed to hear...