Stoner by John Willams—Is it a Book?
no it's a soup pot
A book you can talk about. A book has events and motifs and things to hold up and say that was this and this could have been that.
When I try to reach into John Williams’ Stoner, my hands grasp nothing. And it’s not just me—I’ve passed it around, and people always fail to describe it. There’s no window shopping. Insight into its contents only comes through the slow turning of its pages. That’s why I won’t even try to talk about it as a book and instead will explain it as a big iron soup pot.
Can you spoil soup?
When I climbed into Mr. William’s story, I found myself in a slow-burbling comfort. Nothing confronted me. I watched his seasoned world of words pass by without ever having to question its sum. So I kicked my feet up. And slowly, Williams stirred me into his brothy, innocuous words, and slowly, he baked the story’s meanings into me through a creeping braise. And I remained, throughout the book, oblivious to my cooking skin. When I realized what had happened, it was too late—the book was finished, and I was molecularly altered.
This, my being here, is a symptom of that molecular alteration. Other symptoms include how I drink coffee and how long I look out of windows and how often I throw myself down a hill.
Before first reading Stoner (a decade ago), I sought the richness in life only through sensations: speed, adrenaline, drugs, sex, etc. And I still have a sweet tooth, but now, when I bite into those things, I taste bandaids.
(here, take a hit of this. it’s a dram(a)idifier. don’t worry. it’s just CBD. it won’t actually make you superfluous or dramatize anything. what’s coming is scientific fact—costco certified. but, yeah, the ritual of it just helps disarm it just in case, ya know? that way if it’s too much, I can rub elbows and say hey I think they might have snuck something into that CBD dram(a)idifier, amierite? hahaha please don’t tell my wife)
The braising of Stoner opened me up to the vastness, the capacity of art, of creation. It boiled my marrow away. It filled the hallways of my bones with the nectar of the creative world, with rolling ladders on bookshelves, with weird names like Hermann and Heronymous. It showed me something intoxicatingly true, substantially human. And leaning into anything else seems like saying no thanks to my opposable thumbs.
I now have less of an urge to howl at the moon and more of a desire to stare at it until it howls back. I dream less of speed and spend my days blindly swinging my butterfly net (pen) through the air, hoping to catch some morsel of genius that is Stoner.
So, sink into Stoner at your own risk. If it leaves you undercooked, feel free to return here for other recommendations (our marrow comes in different viscosities). And if you really must know something about its contents before trying it, I’ll give you this gag: Stoner is more about nothing than it is about something, which somehow makes it about everything.
(please remember to support your local independent bookstore! if you’re in the U.S., you can use this site to find one near you)
***in trying to cook a Jo: please start by giving the pot gentle kisses. then, lather the inside AND outside with extra virgin olive oil. place Jo in the pot and play peek-a-boo until you hear Jo start to sizzle. add Christmas-flavored memories. add hot sauce. add compliments. good job. serve as desired. buen provecho.