...These events play out not on the grand stage of history but the small rooms of his workplace and home. The deepest lesson of “Stoner” is this: What makes a life heroic is the quality of attention paid to it.
...there is something distinct and thrillingly subversive in the resurgence of “Stoner.” I am no doubt overstating the case, as fanatics do, but I find it tremendously hopeful that “Stoner” is thriving in a world in which capitalist energies are so hellbent on distracting us from the necessary anguish of our inner lives. “Stoner” argues that we are measured ultimately by our capacity to face the truth of who we are in private moments, not by the burnishing of our public selves. It is, in other words, a searing condemnation of our current cultural moment — one that happens to have been written nearly 50 years ago.
New York Times Magazine ---you should read this book
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