Stoner by John Williams

Hello. I'm Christina Young and welcome back to book lounge with Gloucester book club in tonight's podcast episode. I'll be joined on the sofa by James and Tony. And we're going to be talking about a book. We've recently, read with our book club called Stoner, by John Williams. We hope you enjoy. William Stoner, enters the University of Missouri at 19 to study agriculture, a seminar on English literature changes his life and he never returns to work on his father's Farm Stoner becomes a teacher, he marries the wrong woman, his life is quiet.

And after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely yet with truthfulness compassion. Compassion and intense power. This novel uncovers a story of universal value Stoner tells of the conflicts defeats and victories of the human race that passed unrecorded by history and reclaims the significance of an individual life.

Despite its heavily academic setting the life and experience described is properly Universal. And contains its own kind of unsolvable, but essential sadness, almost 50 years after its initial publication in the United States. Fresh European translations of John Williams campus novel, Stoner began to rekindle interest, in both book and writer. Evening James getting Tony. Thanks for joining me again, on the book Lounge sofa, and today we're going to talk about one of the books. We've recently read as a group in our book club and it's called Stoner, and it was written by and also called Don Williams.

So, James described for The Listener, what this book is about, well, when I saw the title Stoner, I thought it was going to be a book about the modern-day drug. Acre because obviously Stoner, you just immediately to go though and even I was even filling in the kind of plot that might actually develop their but much to my surprise. It's nothing to do with that at all. It's a character called John's Stoner set in the midwest in America. A suppose you could say in starting in about 1900 and finishing crappie, and about 1945 1950 or something like that.

It's about a rags-to-riches farm boy, who Somehow becomes a college professor and English literature which is a real Triumph for him because he's got to change change personality almost to start Eliquis thing about about English literature. And so he becomes a college professor and then for the rest of his life were only about a fifth of the way through the book at that point. Nothing much else really happens which in a kind of a modern day context. You can't help thinking. Wow, that's disappointing.

Why didn't he do anything else? Didn't he get some books published, why didn't he become somebody famous or whatever? But in many ways, that's our modern day thinking about, how somebody's life should develop. And as the disappointments Mount up, one begins to hide. Another one begins to learn something about oneself and one's own life, and one begins to accept that. Maybe why should a book be about someone being still early successful? It shouldn't be really. And I think that's where the, the main Thrust of the book is in these disappointments and how he deals with them published in 1965.

Originally it didn't do very well then, apparently and my take on, that would be that in those days. People just used to work in factories and do what they were told to do and they didn't really expect to do anything apart from work until they're 65 and then promptly died. Nowadays, people are much more self-determining and a book like this is quite consoling really to people. I think I should be doing better in life. I should really be doing something. He is somebody who doesn't and appears to be okay, interesting book.

Really, we will come to that will talk about. Why wasn't that? Well, we see you later on in the discussion. Actually, that's an interesting point. Tony, tell us what you thought about this book. What did you like or dislike about it? But the quick is ultimately, absolutely loved the book and sort of picking up on something James, just mention this. There's an element here of successes and failures in life and sometimes one person's, I don't know. You can view it from two different ways. You can look at aspects of your life as failures.

Although you could also look at some of them as triumphs, you know, Finding getting through it, getting to the other side. So now there's nothing spectacular is no huge. You know, plot complexity. It's the life of this individual and I think the author draws that life and You into that life, whether you wish to go on the journey, that's to each individual reader. But I do think ultimately, for me, I absolutely just went on, you know, Stoners life. And I absolutely enjoyed the ride and all along the way and praise to the author for that.

Yeah, I actually meant to reading this book about 20 years ago, and I'm really doing it a second time around. I still believe that it deserves To be considered a classic modern classic actually, it is a simple story of an unremarkable man's life, but it's profound and it's beautifully written in Parts, I think. And it's like a meditation and in lots of ways on on love from loss, or marriage, and friendship and just the passage of time through this man's life and I just thought it's his life story.

It's the same time as you said that Tony tragic but also Grimly triumphant as well. And so there's plenty to discuss in this book. It's not a particularly big book. I have to say is that it's about 280 Pages, something like that, snot snot huge and so let me James going back to you for a minute. Did you find it an enjoyable book to read? I seem to remember it book club. You are scoring at around about six. So I think you weren't, you know, initially that Grant by it. What would you say? Well, it's Written.

When you first start reading, it it's actually written in quite a boring manner. I would say because normally when there are several characters in a book, you'll get a chapter, which is the Viewpoint of the main character, I John Stoner and then maybe he gets married to somebody. And then we will get a chapter of Through The Eyes of his wife. And then you get an A, you get an idea of what she thinks of Stoner and you get an idea insights into her own personality as well. But this book know, this book is always taken from the one Viewpoint.

It's always in the third person. You'd find it hard to pick out scenes. There are a couple of scenes where he isn't involved, but most of the work is the him. Him him him him. And so, you feel a little bit, like, you're getting strangled at times when you're reading it, and I think for my own part, I was marking it low because I was in that kind of mood. I'd only just finished it two hours before, but now it's a couple of weeks later and I'm reflecting about it. It's a grower, really? You think about it?

And a lot of people say it's got a lot to do with the philosophy of stoicism, which I wasn't familiar with, and I think that I think it's great. I think it really does. Follow up on stoicism teaches you about stoicism. And as Tony just said, the book seems to be a chain of disappointments, but in fact, there are many triumphs as well. It's just that the book is decided, To highlight the disappointments because the author wants us to see this stoic Viewpoint. And you can't really talk about a stoic unless you're saying they put up with this disappointment, they put up with that disappointment.

And, and so, that's the way it's written. It's written in a kind of a very narrow way, but I think the benefits do Dawn on you sometime after finishing it. And I think it was good. I'm just going to read you the start of the book. A minion. I want you to reflect on what you think about this. So this is the very beginning of the book. And it says, Stoners colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely. Now, to the older ones, his name as a reminder of the end, that awaits them all and younger ones.

It's merely a sound which evokes no sense of the past and no identity with, which they can associate themselves or their careers. He did not rise above, the rank of assistant professor and few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his course, Has. So, I mean, having read the whole book. Do you think those two little paragraphs summary of his life as described on the first page of the novel is a fair assessment of him? Don't think that's her wholly, accurate description of the book and his journey in life, particularly about him being forgettable.

Because again, without going too much into spoilers, it goes through his life as a Assistant professor and before that and as with a lot of things in life and his career, it goes through and some flows. It has high points and as low points. So that image of it being a failure and being unmemorable. Yeah, they were phases in his life where that was true. But there were other phases in life, where the polar opposite was true but no, I don't think it's accurate, I think. Yeah. When you annoying to you both, Both, you know, to know that nothing earth-shattering is going to happen in this novel particular, you know, it let's not particularly plot-driven and it's not going to have any murders in it or, you know, it's psychological kind of draw Thriller type thing or, you know, did that did it kind of put a bit of a damper on the book for you James to begin with?

Well, we all have we all have ideas of how a books going to go and funnily enough. We all seem to have an idea of what the books about when we look at the front cover. And then we all have a Idea of what's going to happen in the book at the end of chapter one. And we're always navigating thinking, I think, I know how this book's gonna turn out and yeah, we always expect something earth-shattering to happen, you know. Maybe three-quarters of the way through the book, there's going to be some amazing climax which he's going to survive and or do well out of, but no, it doesn't happen.

It begins to Dawn on you about halfway through three quarters of the way through the book and yes I completely agree with you because Of our fairy tale mines. Then there was some disappointment but I said it's got, its got its moments. It really does and I think going back to the other point about him being forgotten by everybody, quite frankly, I think everybody is forgotten, you know, we don't like the idea that we might die and be forgotten but it's what happens. It's what happens to everybody.

We all need to embrace that and be happy with that. That's the important thing. So me, when I was reading it, I have this sense of unease and I was uncomfortable at times because I, there was this kind of lingering uncomfortableness for me throughout, you know, that it wasn't comforting and it neither, was it desperate? This book. They were, is somewhere in the middle. There's and I kept waiting for something to feel better about. And, and there wasn't really anything coming to feel better about.

And, and that's why I think, His life story was two things at once. You know, it was tragic. And it was also quite heroic at the same time. And I think that was a really clever thing to pull off actually went in the writing. And I think he also did very well with that. So let's think, you know, so in the introduction the author is quoted as saying that he considered Stoner to be a hero. We do you do describe in? Do you think of them as a hero toning? I think so, half, going back to the previous question and answering this one.

Because, again, when you go into the book, you can read it both ways. You can read them as this failure, you can read it as a dull life. But then depending on, you know, how you go along that Journey, you can see what are either failures or tryouts. So I think it is a mixture and for the reader, it's very much going to be what they, I don't know. He'll get out what you get in but if you just go with it and decide that yourself in the reading, you can view things as failures. You can view them as successes as you go through the book and that's for you as the reader to determine what you see a test from your own experiences.

So welcoming to welcome into stone as world and, you know, make of it what you will. But gives us details of the early life of Of several of these characters. So we have Stoner, who's the main protagonist, we have his wife Edith, and we have his daughter Grace and also the Baddie of the novel, whose Lomax. So we kind of know about a bit about their early lives. Do have it. So knowing that can their fate in life. The way things turn out for them. Be seen as a result was that early family life and perhaps their parents and how they were brought up, what would you say?

James. Yeah, I think that that's a really, really important point and it isn't really that the author Doesn't Remind us about it. I mean, we, when we talked about it at the book club and will probably go into it in this discussion about what an unhappy marriage, he had how he didn't really check the field, he didn't look at all the descriptions about his wife, he didn't get together with her and say what do you think about romantic comedies, or whatever? You know, and lo and behold they were married and Suddenly found that they didn't get on a tool, but as we'd already seen his father and mother lived on a farm and they never literally never spoke to each other.

In fact, they never spoke, you know, and that was what was up with. We're told that the father sat him down one day at the kitchen table and said, son, I think you were to go to college and then we're told that was the most talking that he'd ever done to his son in his whole life and the wife too. No one spoke to anybody. So, how would we? A affected John Stoner to talk to his wife, really? I mean, he this this is the template he'd been given and we also hear that Edith didn't exactly have a very gregarious childhood either.

And I don't know about the others. I think the one who was that guy? Lomax. I don't remember anything about his youth. Something about him writing a paper, but yes, I agree. If it were talking about Stoner, then his life turned out a lot like his parents, I think. He seems to be so stoic and put up with his lot in life, if you like, and didn't really expect anything more for himself than what you already achieved, which was getting to be an assistant professor, which you never thought you would do.

I think, you know, probably reflected the fact that he'd come from such a poor background and in fact, he'd made it in his eyes, you know, he's actually achieved a lot and it might all seem that much to other people. But to him, I think your Bubbly did team like he'd done it, okay? Yeah, yeah. There are various turning points in the novel where he could have taken a different path if he can, sort of think of a couple of examples of that. I mean, did he get those points? Did he take control of his life and think?

No, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do this or did he just, he was he? So inert? Did he just suffer from inertia and just simply allow things to happen to him. What do? You think on that only? Elements of allowing things to happen to in whilst overriding was his passion for literature and his passion for study and the pursuit of that passion came at a cost multiple costs. Yeah. And he never let you know, love hate and revenge. You know, lots of lots. Obstacles in these way but he's never blinked.

And he never went away from his number one overriding passion and he paid the price for that you know in many ways throughout his life throughout the book so that comes back to you in a Triumph and tragedy. Again ultimately he's the first passion in life about love above, many other things. He stuck with it, he stuck everything for that passion. You know, and again, without talking about the end of the book. Is elements at the end of the book, which, you know, nicely tie in with that stream of thoughts.

So yeah, I'm gonna do you think, do you think James that people were more like that back in, you know, you know, not our generation but previous generations may be on parents even our grandparents were more likely to stick with things than not, you know? Because you know, divorce was much lesser than wasn't it. You stuck in a marriage. That wasn't particularly great, maybe more so than you would now. Do you think that's a generational thing product of his time? It's yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

I think that people didn't have such high expectations of making their Mark in society. I know that my father didn't he was just happy to get some kind of a paycheck every week and that was a Triumph, you know, but I do think that You know, we get all these situations and we're told about all these situations, he found himself in there was one situation. Well, he was actually offered a promotion. The guy just said, well, you know, you could have this job, couldn't you? And it was the job. I mean, it came late in life, but he just know, you know.

And and the whole idea I believe is to promote this stoicism thing. And and so I think that, you know, I didn't really know what stoicism was. I thought that a Erick is simply someone who digs their heels in and doesn't do anything. When everyone saying come on come out to play, you know, as stoic just says. No. But when you read about it on Wikipedia for about 7 minutes, it's actually the pursuit of happiness. The idea that happiness can be achieved by not putting yourself forward, you've got to be a master of yourself.

You've got to control your emotions. Do not strive for your own pleasure. Only a fool tries to impose his own selfish desires upon reality and so you end up being happy in the kind of way that when you're old and you look back and you reflect on your life you don't feel any guilt at all because you didn't impose yourself on anybody else and there was a quote that I read which I wrote down here somebody called Epictetus said that a true stoic is sick. And yet happy in Peril and yet happy dying and yet happy in Exile and Abby.

Be in disgrace and happy. And those situations are almost the situations that William Stoner finds himself in in the book. You know, he, we certainly at the end if he does die in the end but he's sick, he's in Peril, he's in disgrace, all of these things and it's almost as if the, the author saw that quote and thought, right, I'll go through all those. And in every situation, I will show him Rising above it, not doing anything for himself and that is As you said, Christina, a heroic way to live, as far as a lot of people are concerned.

Hmm, let's look a little bit about Edith. She's Stoners wife and they marry quite young, and she is coming from quite a middle-class quite wealthy background. So, quite different from Stones background. She seems quite sociable and she's very attractive. So he's very taken with her when he meets her at this social Gathering is party and you know, sort of says, I can, I marry you. And she her father basically says, yes, take her marry her. Somebody needs to. So, so that's kind of what happens now.

Edith, turns out to be an extremely unhappy young woman and they're all sorts of implications as to why that might be and that's never explicit in the book, but it's possible implications of what her relationship with her father. What did you think about Edith toning? What will your impressions of Edith and what was going on for that? Poor unhappy woman? I've asked you touched on. I think there's enough Clues. If you like or hints without explicit details on her, I don't know. All these that I'm crying for AIDS, damaged, goods and unkind fries or mod more modern thing, definite mental illness, and there's hints on why from who bits and pieces on her journey.

So, again, I think I think when she comes into that marriage, there is an element of marriage of convenience if you like for. I think. More than one person infatuation from William Stoner, very quick marriage. You know? So again, without going into detail and too many spoilers, there are definite, hints and clues to past problems and challenges, even thing. The first time, he visits her at the parents home, You know, and even just trying to communicate openly with her is a challenge. But again the circumstances of the day, you know, the culture of the day him coming from a farmer background social etiquette, he saw this woman who is infatuated, you know, did The Walking, you know, taking out all the all the things you believe happened in those days and I wouldn't say they knew each other when they got married, and the decision was Has made and I think you know fair to say that they quickly actually discovered you know that they're not an ideal match

that's putting it mildly as of trying, not to do it spoilers and it's a lot of it is the circumstances and his relationship with his daughter is affected by those circumstances. And there's an element. Do you think this is there as well? But after she has Grace after she delivers Grace, you can't really look after her and and Stoner takes over at that point. Doesn't mean does everything. She spends a lot of her time in bed. Do you think she might have had postnatal depression at that point as well, not at all without?

No, without giving us boiler. You know, they do kind of answer the question. Imposing intentionally. Because you can cut this bit out, of course, because it could be a spoiler, they do. They do actually mention that her illnesses are positive for mental health issue and they're not real. Yeah and again events in her life she goes into these periods of illness and then she comes out of those periods of illness. And then, you know, again, it takes you on that little journey through them and their behavior changes, you know, I would like it if you'd like to become a mother or baby or changes that have a child over your changes and so on, and there's a bit of an ebb and flow.

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And you could put many labels on it as well. If you wanted to, you couldn't, you could say she's clinically depressed or bipolar or whatever, but we don't really know. We just, we just witnessing this changing up and down. Being in flowing of behavior and actually, there are times, I don't know what you feel about this James and she seems to be throughout their whole of their married life war with Stoner. You know, she's she's never any place where she's comfortable or happy with him.

Do you think that's true Jay? Yeah, yeah. Well, I I mean, I would find it difficult to actually say very much about her character at all. I mean, you've done extremely well Tony coming out with all of that because there isn't much In the book we don't we don't, I mean she is such a pantomime villain, very one-dimensional, she may as well, have a Cruella de Vil badge on her or something like that because she's just unremittingly evil. She and we never hear the reason for it. We like I say, it's always just the one Viewpoint.

The book you never go shopping with her or something and find out if she's got a nice gentle side and she's nice to delivery boys or something like that. You never find that at all. And so I don't know. I That she was almost a device by the novelist who was determined to show these disappointments in somebody's life and how they deal with them. And she was just set up as one of the main catalysts to a whole load of disappointments and she was she was she was a horrible character and used the phrase war.

And when I sort of scribbled a couple of notes to remind myself ahead of this conversation, I use that word. Yes. Almost three, Was almost at war with her husband and there were casualties and there were and coming to that. It was Grace, wasn't it, really? The daughter was definitely a casualty of that relationship, and I think that, you know, of all of the characters really, she turns out to have have the worst kind of deal out of there, and to be fairly messed up herself as an adult. He's to start.

So, I mean, Stone, the starts off being a Very good dad to Grace for the first few years and he seems to be doing a lot with her. It's a time when he does not particularly interested in her but he is and then suddenly that completely changes around as they Edith comes along. She decides she's going to be interested in, in, in Grace and she takes her off then, you know, really. He doesn't get a looking anymore. I mean, do you think he did strive to be a good dad? Do you think he should have? Being a bit more kind of assertive at that point with Edith and said to her hang on a minute you know you're taking her completely away from me.

I need to have some more input than I'm having. What do you think James should live? Should it be more assertive with Edith? Well, it was the 1920s, wasn't it by then? And I mean life, just wasn't like that. Really. I mean, as I understand it because of course, believe it or not, I wasn't alive then. I don't think that men were supposed to take it. Interest in their children in that way especially daughters. And again as a true stoic he only looked after his daughter because that was thrust upon him by his wife absenting herself.

And so when his wife absented herself, he stepped into the breach. And as it turns out told how incredibly happy he was. They were sitting in his little study. The daughter was sitting on the floor doing coloring while he was working and it was a wonderfully, happy seen one of the few Book, you know, but then as soon as the wife said, right, this is all going to change today, it all changed and as a truth stoic, he just floated along with everybody else who eat committed himself to and tried to keep the peace as best he could.

There are some little bits of happiness in the book for him weren't there and I'm thinking, particularly of his relationship with one of his students who was Catherine O'Driscoll or Katherine Driscoll, and can't remember He had an affair with her, a quite short-lived of her with her, I have to say, but that seemed to be a happier period for him and his life. What do you do? You think Tony do you think he was happy then? Did you get the sense that he was? It was she was the love of his life. The love that he thought, you know, the infatuation, you know with either which wasn't love and didn't become love.

And with Catherine he found love and you know he's People see the one true love of his life in a noting. You know, we were just talking about Grace their Grace, being a casualty of the war ended, the relationship between William Stone and his daughter was a casualty of the war waged by Edith and Catherine. I suppose, yeah, I suppose a result of that war in some ways indirectly led to the relationship with Catherine, but that was his one, true love. The relationship, but again, social etiquette you know the idea of divorcing you know, he was never going to do it because it was just not the done thing you know the way he's brought up the culture of the time, you know.

So yeah. She was his great love and he had that Affair and it's I personally think it's very beautifully written you know, the little journey and and yeah, I think that was his great love of life. The other one clearly being literature. So the two great loves of his life. And yeah, yeah, blazing an oasis of Blazing passion in the book. It was remarkable that I loved that period of the book and I don't think you spoiling it for anybody who hasn't read the book because when you actually read that section, it's so uplifting.

The, the build-up is so depressing and this wonderful last that they feel You and stone a himself who hasn't really been very demonstrative or had many discussions with people whose or ever said anything clever, his suddenly spouting. All these wonderful ideas and suggestions to this girl who's also totally in love with him. It's wonderful. The only problem is, I don't really know where it got anybody. But again, I suppose, if I would say again, it was just an advice to demonstrate stoicism. I don't know, because he couldn't Divorce his wife as Tony said, when this book was originally published in 1965, it was pretty overlooked.

Not many people water. I think only about 2,000 copies were sold in the states of this book and then you know as I said before, it certainly makes this Resurgence in 2000 and it's pretty popular in Europe and a lot of copies have been sold. What? Why do you both think that it wasn't? So popular in America, you know, is it that the content of the book that that perhaps Americans don't find very attractive? What do you think James? Well, I think what we discussed earlier on about it, you asked, if we were disappointed with the way, the book had gone and whether it was, you know, a wonderfully developing Story.

I mean, nowadays in 2023 were quite used to books with Unreliable heroes or books that don't have any place at all with some kind of point about equality of sexes, or something like that. And really this book is quite modern. I think in that way because it doesn't have a strong plot to carry it along so that you're excited by the plot and then at the end, you think, oh, I know what that book was about. It really didn't have an exciting plot, and so I would say for that reason people, Possibly didn't understand it in 1965 the Vietnam War to become a long.

Was it 65? Yes. Around. What not? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of things going on. And even that phrase, you know, the swinging 60s. It was a time of energy youth hippies carry on, down the list and everything else. And I don't think it was a book for life at that time and, you know, like the American listeners of the podcast form. Better than I am, you know, again the American dream if you like and the driving force except and ambition, you're reading a book about someone who accepts things. So again you know, within America as a whole, you know, I surmising but you know, I can understand why it's not successful there because, you know, him being stoic him accepting, you know.

Again, you can view that as success Ultimately itself. But does that fit in with American thinking American attitudes, American culture, you know, our American listeners will be able to comment on that much better than I can. And in combination with the 1960s, I just don't think it was a fit for the times and probably not as well, because we're in the book, of course, Stoner actually makes a conscious decision decision, not to go to war. Doesn't he to fight in World War 1? Because he was an academic.

He was allowed to kind of make a decision, a choice about whether he went or not. I need to chose not to go. And so maybe particularly at that time in 1965, when the Vietnam War was starting, you know, people didn't want to know about people who weren't brave enough to to go and fine, you know, for their country. So, you know, maybe he's not a very attractive character at that time as well, you know, like you were saying Tony, he's not, he's not pushing the boundaries, he's not be a driven. He's not, you know, he's just an ordinary guy just getting on with things, he's not very exciting for anyone.

What do you think James about him in the 60s, American audience about going to war or about? Yeah, just because why, it wasn't thinking popular, Well, it's kind of understated as well. I mean, you know, my parents always used to read adventure books by Daphne du maurier and Georgette heyer when the 1960s. And I just imagine that most people will like them. And this book, you know, you had to really think about you have to really think about it. It's much more a modern book as I've said and, you know, I mean, I've been talking, I've been continually saying about the stoicism for example, And saying that it's a book about stoicism and how that can make you truly happy.

Well, I didn't say that. In fact, William Stoner doesn't necessarily seem to be happy in the book. You know, you would have thought of it was a book about stoicism and how it can make you really happy that we continually get these payoffs where he's kicking his heels up and saying, oh, haven't I done the right thing by? Not going for a promote promotion, but he doesn't seem happy. The only way that you can really gauge whether he's happy or not is to take the other. Characters in the book. Like, for example, Edith and ask yourself is he happier than Edith or the other guy who's a professor at University?

The other villain, is he happier than him? Well, in every case he's definitely happier than that. And so, you know, it's what I'm trying to say is it's a difficult kind of cell in a way you really do have to. It's one of these books where you read it and then things start to occur to you afterwards and you think? Wow, that was a great Point, wasn't it? Didn't even notice at the time. And I don't know, I don't know if books like that. Do really well in the old days. I mean, Charles, Dickens wrote very plot-driven books, didn't he?

Yeah, I think so. So, would you guys recommend this book to hand? Have you recommended this book to anyone else to read? What about you, Tony? I was trying to think not yet, I definitely will no question. But again, there's who's it for and there's I think this book is particularly hard to, you know, like I said when you know, your friends are bits and pieces. This one I think it's hard to know with confidence whether people would like it or not. I actually read it a second time, the head of this podcast and, you know, tying in with what James was just saying.

You really sort of get a little bit better understanding. So second time, first time around, you read it. You absorb you take through, you think, as you go second time around, you see a little bit of details and a few hints and a bit Clues and you get, you get yeah, yes, definitely get something about it second time around so it's a book. That's good. You know I think you said yourself it's 20 years apart didn't you know you read it and brought it to book club and you discussed it several times.

It's a book that that, you know, yeah, has repeat value, which I think is one of the biggest compliments, you can say many books. Are read it, enjoy it or not, put it down again. This is one of those, it comes back. Read it again. You'll get something more out of it, so absolutely something I'd recommend. Yeah, I mean, I haven't recommended it to anybody but here we go. I recommend it to anyone listening to this podcast. I think it's a great, you know, I mean it's it's just different, you know? I mean, you can read so many books that seem to The same thing over and over again.

And this one is different. You'll read it and you'll find yourself telling somebody about some Moment In the book. Some some thrust that was there. Some, some point in the narrative where you suddenly learn something. And I lot of people who I've noticed reviewing the book have said that, it's a kind of a chilling book because you find yourself reflecting on your own disappointment. So that every disappointment that he hits and we all have a kind of Of sense of unity with him. Because when the moment comes, when something bad happens, or something doesn't happen or whatever we suddenly think, oh yeah, that happened to me.

Yeah. And that kind of realization that it, that this is a something that happened to you is quite rare and it really does open up a little part of your mind in a way that other books certainly wouldn't, how about that? Yeah, that's great on that note. I think we will finish our podcast discussion. Thank you guys for turning up tonight and talking about it. I think we could talk about this book for another hour. Probably there's quite a lot of in it even though it's not very big. And next month, we are going to be talking about Bonnie garments, his debut novel which is lessons in chemistry and I'm really looking forward to that discussion so I hope you will join us again.

Thanks guys. See you soon? Thank you. Bye.

Thank you for listening to Gloucester book clubs podcasts. You can find us on Spotify. Anchor, FM, Google and apple podcasts. And many more we look forward to. Having you join us again soon. Thank you for listening to Gloucester book clubs podcasts. You can find us on Spotify. Anchor, FM, Google and apple podcasts. And many more we look forward to. Having you join us again soon.

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