"stoner" by john williams

this book was highly recommended by a co-worker. in his review, he told me "it's a little slow going, but by around page 50, i realized i cared for the main character more than i care for most real people".

while john williams certainly has a strong ability to create sympathy for a character, i wasn't as overcome as my colleague. "stoner" is the story of william stoner, who grows up as a single child on a farm. he goes to the city to get a degree in agriculture, but soon discovers a latent passion for literature and changes his course of study. the novel follows stoner as he starts a long teaching career at the university, marries, has a child, has an affair, upsets his colleagues, falls ill, eventually retires and dies.

a strongly written and minimalist book with flowing prose and beautiful descriptions, "stoner" is a portrait of a man who faces his many disappointments in life with a stoic-ness that is heartbreaking.

"then we came to the end" by joshua ferris

this novel centers on an ad agency in chicago that is quickly going down the drain. as work dries up and layoffs become more and more frequent, the remaining employees keep up a facade of busyness, gossip and pull pranks. the character's are quirky, yet believable. they steal each other's chairs, have affairs, black out their windows with construction paper and wear multiple shirts.

i have never encountered a novel quite like this. it is written in the first person plural so the people in the office become a unit, referred to as we. "we went to this meeting", "we had a 40 minute coffee break", "we worried about so-and-so". you are never sure which one of the characters is actually the narrator, and while frustrating intially, it's an interesting device that keeps any one character from becoming the single protagonist or antagonist. that said, the first person plural also muddles the narrative slightly. character's often relay past conversations to other characters and this creates confusion.

this book was just alright.

"middlesex" by jeffrey eugenides

my rating would be
eight and a half out of ten
excellent and rich

it doesn't matter
that it was on oprah's list
she chooses good books

a hermaphrodite
a family history
a beautiful tale

three generations
from greece to america
tragic and lovely