/lit/ - Literature

This book made me realize the humanities are only viable as a hobby and really disillusioned me with college. In undergrad, it appears that the only kind of student that exists is either mind-numbing morons who have never taken a single thing seriously in their life and Charles Walker types that are also complete morons, but act like they know what they are talking about. I've completely abandoned any idea of pursuing the humanities institutionally and am instead going to medical school. Why did they have to let them in /lit/?

What makes this book so good?

obv

Why did I love this so much?

WE'RE REACHING LEVELS OF KINO THAT SHOULDN'T EVEN BE POSSIBLE

I finished the Grapes of Wrath last week and now I’m reading Stoner. I’m enjoying the latter far more than the former.
The thing is I don’t think it’s actually about a difference in subject matter or prose. I think the problem lies in how Steinbeck wrote his chapters in such a way that the pacing is constantly broken due to how uneven the sections about the main plot are compared to the ones dedicated to social commentary.
By contrast, Williams achieves a much smoother flow by writing his chapters in a much more balanced way.
Opinions?

Can anyone recommend novels similar to Stoner by John Williams? It was one of the most enjoyable and legitimately enticing reading experiences and I still don't understand why. The writing felt... deceptively simple. I had never been so gripped by a narrative; I actually threw down the book and yelled "You fucking bitch!" at some point... I'm yet to read something that was so consistently gripping from beginning to end. I tried Williams' other novels but couldn't get into them. Perhaps there isn't anything close... if so, what books have you read that made you feel strongly, whether laughter or tears, from cover to cover?

>>16415191
Probably read stoner when he was 22 and is still occasionally haunted by the book

>it's not a meme
What the fuck? I staved off the urge to read this from hype for FAR too long.The whole thing is naturalistic, tersely so, but still beautiful. I teared up during the part where Stoner and Edith are trying to conceive

>>15921247

>>15743167
any story about marriage
>Stoner by John Williams

....it’s just an American version of The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Well, I have finished reading this and now I have an ache in my chest. Pretty depressing stuff, is there something else to read that will lift my spirits? Kinda regret reading to the end of it.

INFP-A here. Was I supposed to cry at the end?

This book is haunting me.

I already posted about it before but things are just getting far, far too creepy now.

My sophomore year English teacher in High School was unlike all the other teachers in my school. Almost all of them were middle-aged women. He was a gaunt, lean, middle-aged man with sandy hair and a deep baritone voice. He was a quiet man who hardly rose his voice above monotone, who sometimes let us watch Hitchcock films instead of do homework, and every Tuesday and Thursday we would read all class period long.

After Christmas break our project was to pick a book from his list of certified literature, and nobody else could have the same book. It was all extremely high brow for our year, before we read 1984 and Brave New World next year, his list were things like Death of a Salesman, or Demons, or Voltaire's Candide.

And then there was this book.

Its drab cover and its simple premise was interesting, so I read it. To be honest, at that age, I could not completely absorb the book's material, naturally, but passages of it stuck with me and grew as I grew older, like the acorns of oaks.

As life went on, I often retreated back into this book, and it's become somewhat of a ritual for me to re-read it shortly after the new year. Every time I read it, I find passages that echo my own life, and the life of those around me. Its statements on love still grip me and freeze me into a state of wonder and intrigue. Similar to how the slightest tilt of a ship's sails can send it to far different waters, it's no small exaggeration to say that over the course of the years that Stoner has changed my life.

A few years ago, I tried touching base with my English teacher, but he passed away of a stroke.

What shook me to the core happened just recently. Just a couple of days ago, a girl at work slipped me a sheet of paper with her number on it, and I'm going on a date tonight with her. Her name is Katherine.

I am so overwhelmed. All I can I think about is back to the day I picked up Stoner, and I realize now just how different my entire life would be if I wasn't there that day, at the right time, at the right place, with the right teacher, with the right book.

It is the perfect novel.

Obviously pic related. It's pretty much the perfect novel.

>>9805744
I don't care if it's a meme now. It's still a beautiful book.

>tfw edith was raped by her father
of course, i was unaware until my wife pointed it out

>STEM fag turns into pseud: the novel
I'm really enjoying this so far desu, I now see what lit/ means when they say you should only read "proper" literature. I haven't been able to put it down.

Loved this. What are some books similar to this?

Does love actually real?

I just reflected over it because I just finished Stoner, and the relationship he had with Edith was so fucking lame but seemed realistic, that I'm wondering how much of it is analogous to modern relationships.

If it is, than love literally doesn't exist.