Nick was so keen to discuss "Stoner" that he arrived at The Poets Corner pub one week early. On discovering that there was no one else there, Nick had to cool his heels for another seven days, and until 14th November 2013.
Needless to say his smooth patter was well rehearsed and he launched into a persuasive and beguiling eulogy about this celebrated example of "Lazarus literature". Nick extolled John Williams' masterly portrait of a truly virtuous and dedicated man. More than its perfect prose, tone, characterisation, and narrative momentum, what impressed Nick most about Stoner was the subtlety of its self-awareness. Ultimately, for Nick, this was a story of hope. 9/10
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| Tristan "Tender" |
Tristan's initial irritation, in response to what he perceived as a bleak novel, soon gave way to more tender and sympathetic emotions. The opening lines set the book's tone...
William Stoner entered the University of Missouri as a freshman in the year 1910. … Eight years later, during the height of World War I, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree and accepted an instructorship at the same University, where he taught until his death in 1956. He did not rise above the rank of assistant professor, and few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his courses. When he died his colleagues made a memorial contribution of a medieval manuscript to the University library. This manuscript may still be found in the Rare Books Collection, bearing the inscription: “Presented to the Library of the University of Missouri, in memory of William Stoner, Department of English. By his colleagues.”
An occasional student who comes upon the name may wonder idly who William Stoner was, but he seldom pursues his curiosity beyond a casual question. Stoner’s colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones, his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, and to the younger ones it is merely a sound which evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves or their careers.
An occasional student who comes upon the name may wonder idly who William Stoner was, but he seldom pursues his curiosity beyond a casual question. Stoner’s colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones, his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, and to the younger ones it is merely a sound which evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves or their careers.
How could a book about a man held "in no particular esteem" make Tristan feel so tenderly towards him? Perhaps Don held the answer. 7.5/10
Don was unable to attend in person, however he had sent through a review. Don could feel the passion flow through him when he thought of William Stoner. Don praised the way the tale was told before noting that he too had known an Edith or two. As we paused to digest this bombshell, Don also mentioned he had known a Lomax (who he compared with his favourite politician Chris Mullins). Don revelled in the detailed description of Stoner’s final days. Whilst only finding the Literature angle of personal interest, Don was joyous at the "pure descriptive prose": every subtle gesture and nuance was "captured to perfection". 9/10
Keith agreed with much of what had already been discussed. Keith queried the assertion in the introduction that William Stoner was a "hero". Keith also lauded the romance: Stoner is well into his 40s, and mired in an unhappy marriage, when he meets Katherine, another shy professor of literature. Keith stated that the affair was described with a beauty so fierce that it took his breath away each time he read it. 9/10
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| Robin "Riveting" |
Nigel feels that good books are absorbing, and the best books allow the reader to completely inhabit that book's world. "Stoner" shares this quality with JL Carr's "A Month In The Country". A beautiful, compelling, sometimes horrific, haunting, powerful, quietly profound novel that has something to teach us all. The simple, elegant prose takes us to the heart William Stoner's life. A very ordinary life: a dirt-poor farm boy from Missouri, born at the end of the nineteenth century, goes to college to study agriculture, and, instead of returning home stays to teach. How can such a simple premise result in such perfect literature? Stoner is an everyman, quietly doing his best whilst enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: a wife at war with him, a boss who despises him, a daughter driven from him, a lover forced to move away. Very little goes right for Stoner and yet, and yet... Stoner's story is in turns depressing, uplifting, appalling, tragic, insightful, wise and funny. A remarkable book. 9/10
FILM: "The Conversation" (1974) dir by Francis Ford Coppola
"He'd kill us if he got the chance"
Nick once managed to watch half of the film, before his recording stopped. He knew he had to see the whole thing. Nick, whilst acknowledging the film's indebtedness to Michelangelo Antonioni’s brilliant Blowup (1966), passionately argued that "The Conversation" does not merely ape that film’s existential dilemma. No. Coppola's film probes far more deeply into the mind of Harry Caul. The Conversation opens with Caul and his entourage listening in to the conversation of two lovers as they stroll in downtown San Francisco’s Union Square. The opening sniper's view is augmented by the fragmented bits of conversation Caul eventually pieces together.
Nigel first watched this film as a teenager in the 1970s. He loved it then. He loves it now. If anything, he thinks it is even better now than he did when he first saw it. From the opening shot of the initial surveillance with the shadows and the mime artist, it just gets better and better, as Harry Caul (played superbly by the always great Gene Hackman) starts to come to terms with the consequences of his surveillance work. The palpable sense of paranoia is a wonderful reflection of the time, and the film is one of the earliest to address the post-Watergate mood, as well as the surveillance culture that is ingrained in the modern world.
The supporting cast is also amazing, the late, great John Cazale in particular. That said, it's Gene Hackman's film, he's in every scene and he conveys so much through nuanced facial expressions. The direction is amazing, Francis Ford Coppola being allowed to make the film, between the two Godfather films (in much the same way that Christopher Nolan got to make Inception off the back of his success with the Dark Knight films).
The final scene is cinematic perfection - the hunter becomes the hunted as Harry Caul frantically dismantles his apartment to find the bug he knows to be there.
The supporting cast is also amazing, the late, great John Cazale in particular. That said, it's Gene Hackman's film, he's in every scene and he conveys so much through nuanced facial expressions. The direction is amazing, Francis Ford Coppola being allowed to make the film, between the two Godfather films (in much the same way that Christopher Nolan got to make Inception off the back of his success with the Dark Knight films).
The final scene is cinematic perfection - the hunter becomes the hunted as Harry Caul frantically dismantles his apartment to find the bug he knows to be there.
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| Robin "Categorical" |
Robin also highlighted the "Blow Up" comparison: there are some works of art that are both obviously derivative and just as obviously inferior to the originals. These simply ape the earlier work, tweak a few minor things, and try to pass off their theft as an "homage." The Conversation (1974) categorically does not fall into category. Eh? Like some members of the Hove Book Group, Caul is a lonely man who plays saxophone and jazz records in his apartment. Caul’s professional expertise and paranoia about his own privacy, make him a perfect cipher for the film's themes.
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| Tristan - loved the pac-a-mac |
Tristan was in thrall to Harry Caul's "pac-a-mac". More pac-a-macs in movies please. For Tristan, this is a film about seeing and listening without being detected whilst exploring deeper issues such as guilt, paranoia, responsibility, absolution and redemption, themes that were common to American cinema in the 1970's following the Watergate scandal.
MUSIC: "Murmur" (1983) by R.E.M.
Nick is smitten by Murmur's strangely subdued sound that heighten the band's enigmatic tendencies. Is this R.E.M.'s finest moment? Murmur sound as if it's existed forever. The unpredictable twists and turns enchant Nick every time: from the mysterious photograph of a kudzu-covered train station on the jacket to the intriguingly off-kilter music.
Nigel was given this album when it was released by a friend who was then working for the IRS record label who original released Murmur in the UK. As a consequence he went to see one of the band's first UK gigs at the Carioca Club, Worthing on 29th April 1984. This album soundtracked Nigel's student years and still sounds wonderful. The album has a very distinctive, and timeless sound, unlike a lot of music produced in the mid-1980s. This timeless sound is used to great effect on a wonderful collection of songs: Pilgrimage, Radio Free Europe, Talk About The Passion, West Of The Fields and so on. The next album "Reckoning" continued the excellence, but that's another story for another day. R.E.M. might have stuck around for far too long but for during the eighties and early 1990s they were untouchable.
Robin felt that Murmur quietly broke with the status quo and mapped out an enigmatic but rewarding new musical agenda. There is nothing obvious or superficial about R.E.M.'s songs or the way the band chose to play them. Meanings are hidden in a thicket of nonlinear imagery, with mumbled or distant vocals from Michael Stipe.
Keith continued with the theme, praising Murmur's "elliptical language", and celebrated the way the album inspired "a state of altered awareness" not unlike the rapid-eye-movement stage of dreaming from which the band took its name.
Tristan praised the band's "melodic, evocative territory", highlighting the measured riffs of "Pilgrimage," the melancholic thrust of "Talk About the Passion," or the winding guitars and pianos of "Perfect Circle".
An otherwise absent Hamish, managed to convey how Murmur is "one of the finest albums ever made". Probably the finest debut. If he had a top ten of albums, it would be in there. Cryptic lyrics, amazingly confident guitars and backing vocals of a kind he doesn't think any other band has ever touched.
And on that bombshell we adjourned the meeting. A wonderful discussion with a lovely bunch of people.
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