After reading the whole book, I found that Stoner may really be a stone man.
Stoner, whose Chinese name is Stoner, was a hardworking farm boy since he was a child, and his parents were out-and-out farmers. At the age of nineteen, the first light of fate appeared-his parents decided to send him to the Agricultural College of the University of Missouri. He didn't want to go, but his father insisted and his mother agreed. In this way, he came to Colombia from the countryside and began his university life of work-study program. In this way, he will learn agricultural technology and go back to his farm to help after graduation.
However, in his sophomore year, the second light of his fate appeared-Professor Si Long's Introduction to English Literature.
Like other students who are going to take this course, he not only finished his homework, but also wasted time. However, Shakespeare's sonnets came to the world and talked with the drug addict for 300 years. I don't know whether it was lucky or unlucky, but he heard them.
In late autumn, a thin chill pierced his clothes. He looked around and looked at the bare, uneven branches. They were all curled up and twisted towards the pale sky. The students hurried across the campus to the classroom, touching him from time to time; Stoner listened to their grunts and the tapping of their heels on the stone road, and looked at their faces, all of which were red by the cold air and bent down in the breeze. He looked at them curiously, as if he had never seen these classmates before, and seemed to be far away from them. When he hurried to catch up with the next class, he kept this feeling until his soil chemistry professor finished the class, but the background sound was the hum he made when he recited what he wrote in his notebook. He tried to remember these things, and now he feels very strange.
If a similar scene pops up in your mind at this time, I don't know whether it is lucky or unlucky, and you have found something you really love.
This silly-looking country boy took control of his life for the first time and embarked on the road of literature and scholarship. He didn't know how to explain it when his parents came all the way to attend his graduation ceremony. He just said he wouldn't leave and continued to get his master's degree. It is difficult for his parents to understand what happened, except that he will not go back to the farm, and even vaguely feel that he will never go back to the farm again. My father knows that he must have his reasons for continuing his studies. My mother is affectionate and silent. They left slowly and came back covered in dust.
At the end of the First World War, when stoner was ready to replace Professor Si Long in the Introduction to English Literature, the third light of his fate appeared-his lifelong companion, the slender Edith.
When I first saw Edith, she flashed across Stoner's ordinary life like a bolt of lightning. They soon fell in love and got married.
However, less than a week after the honeymoon, Edith has become the last sunset glow on the horizon, leading Stoner to endless darkness. Edith hated stoner's touch, and for a long time after that, she tried to avoid it. When they returned to their apartment in stoner from their honeymoon, Edith's hysteria and nervousness began to show. Stoner tried to save the marriage, but within a year, he knew that the marriage was over, and he knew that Edith didn't love him at all. This marriage only existed in name only until Stoner's death, and in these decades, they have been engaged in a spiritual war-Edith tried to take something from Stoner's spirit on a whim, while Stoner opposed it with silence and extramarital affairs.
Edith doesn't love him any more than Edith just loves him. She is just an old lady who doesn't understand or love. Conservative and backward family education and turbulent times have created Edith, a person who can't find spiritual sustenance, a person who must get married and have children, and a "meaningless" person.
And her husband, Stoner, has been fighting "meaningless" all his life.
He worked tirelessly in front of the literary palace, published the first and only academic book, and was promoted to assistant professor for life; He tried to love his daughter Grace, although Grace's mother was indifferent. He arranged a study, which belongs to his spiritual space, where he thought, wrote, invited students to discuss and accompanied Grace. He prepared his lessons carefully and was welcomed by the students. No matter what the opinion of Laumanx, who is about to be promoted to the head of the department, he insists that the doctoral students brought by Laumanx will not pass the doctoral qualification defense, because he can't allow people like this doctoral student-who are not familiar with the most basic literary knowledge, or even lie to cover up their lack of seriousness in study-to get a doctoral degree and enter the university as a refuge for people like him. ......
Of course, one of his fiercest confrontations was his affair with Catherine, the teaching assistant. Just from the content of the book, Catherine is Stoner's perfect companion of spirit and body. He learned love from Catherine, and he also had love. Love let him find himself, and also let him find a weapon against "meaningless". This relationship is over after all, but this love will stay in his heart forever.
Since then, there have been no waves in his life, and even his daughter who is studying in college is pregnant before marriage, and he can treat it calmly. Grace married a man she didn't love, and then left the family that tortured her, almost never looking back. After her new husband died in the Pacific War, her life became more and more comfortable and peaceful. Before stoner died, Grace came to visit and left in a hurry. Edith kept nagging about how their daughter became like this.
A sense of pleasure arises spontaneously, as if from a summer breeze.
Stoner leafed through his books and fell into the eternal silence of the room.
At the beginning of the novel, he summed up his life like this:
William stoner entered the University of Missouri in 19 10, when he was nineteen years old. After studying for eight spring and autumn years, just as the First World War was still raging, he got a doctorate in philosophy and a teaching assistant position at his alma mater, and then taught in this university until 1956 died. His title has never risen to the level of assistant professor or above. Few students still have fresh memories after his class. After his death, several colleagues donated a medieval manuscript to the school library as a souvenir. Perhaps this manuscript can also be found in the collection of rare ancient books. There is an inscription on the book: "Dedicated to the Library of the University of Missouri, in memory of William stoner of the English Department. Dear colleagues, remember. "
Si Tong, a stone man, lived a mediocre and even failed life, but lived a serious and noble life.
He is a strong man when there are hollow people everywhere. In the age of cynicism, he found himself and was firm; In the era of "God is dead", he never gave up asking about life.
Stoner's morality is not noble, even flawed; His experience is not inspiring and can even be used as a negative teaching material. Everything, all originated from the voice of Shakespeare 300 years ago. Stoner caught a glimpse of the literary palace through a crack, found himself, and kept some innocence in his heart forever.
The twentieth century is a century of highly developed capitalist industrial civilization, a century of brutal war, a century of modernism and post-modernism, and a century of dispelling loftiness, confusion and nothingness. It is in many literary images like Kafka's Mr. K that stoner, a stone man, is annihilated. A realistic biographical novel is destined to be unknown in this century, but it also highlights its uniqueness.
In this era, on the one hand, there are richer material and spiritual resources that can support us to pursue "self" and "meaning"; On the other hand, the capital wave swept the world with consumerism and cultural industries. The sound of TV movies and online videos fills our ears, and huge advertisements and exquisite goods cover our eyes. How many people could hear Shakespeare's voice 400 years ago?
You can see in me that at this time of year,
Either all the yellow leaves are removed or only twos and threes are left.
Hanging from a cold branch,
A deserted music scene, where sweet birds used to sing.
You can see the dawn of today in me,
Gradually disappeared in the west after sunset;
Night, the incarnation of death, slowly drive it away,
Keep everything in a cage.
In me, you can see the light,
Die in the ashes of youth,
Sooner or later, you will lose your soul in a bleak mental bed.
Destroyed by the flame that nourished it.
Seeing this, your love will be stronger,
Because he will leave you soon, but never to return.
You, did you hear that?