STONER
This article was published in the June 28, 2025 edition.
“But you’re bright enough, just bright enough, to realize what would happen to you in the world. You’re cut out for failure and you know it. Though you’re capable of being a son-of-a-bitch, you’re not quite ruthless enough to be so consistently. Though you’re not precisely the most honest man I’ve ever known, neither are you heroically dishonest. On the one hand, you’re capable of work, but you’re just lazy enough so that you can’t work as hard as the world would want you to. On the other hand, you’re not quite so lazy that you can impress upon the world a sense of your importance. And you’re not lucky, not really. No aura rises from you, and you wear a puzzled expression. In the world you would always be on the fringe of success, and you would be destroyed by your failure. So you are chosen, elected; providence, whose sense of humor has always amused me, has snatched you from the jaws of the world and placed you safely here, among your brothers.”
If you had to guess where this passage came from, or who it was talking about, you’d likely guess it was about some sort of government bureaucrat, and you’d be close.
The passage is from a now largely forgotten novel called “Stoner” by John Williams. And it is drawn from one minor character (Masters) explaining to a colleague why he is damn lucky to have found relief from the world within the bosom of a university.
Alas, the university of 1925 may as well be the local government of 2025.
Stoner is merely the name of the protagonist, William Stoner, and is not a description of any proclivities towards marijuana.
The novel is so well written. A heart-wrenching, character-driven tale about a classics professor at a small university who teaches for four decades in the early-to-mid 20th century.
In his introduction, John McGahern quotes the opening page, where Williams opens by stating, “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, a sound that evokes no sense of the past and no identity.”
I know. You read that in this age of puffery, where the world is obsessed with “legacy” and with being remembered at all cost, and you say, why bother reading about a nobody, particularly a fictional nobody?
Until Williams patiently unpacks the tale. For there is heroism in all of us – heroism in just getting through it.
As McGahern writes, “Stoner is also a novel about work, the hard unyielding work of the farms [Stoner grows up as the only son of poor farmers]; the work of living within a destructive marriage and bringing up a daughter with patient mutability in a poisoned household; the work of teaching literature to mostly unresponsive students. How Williams manages to dramatize this almost impossible material is itself a small miracle.”
The completion of the initial passage:
“It’s for us that the University exists, for the dispossessed of the world; not for the students, not for the selfless pursuit of knowledge, not for any of the reasons you hear … Like the church in the Middle Ages, which didn’t give a damn about the laity or even about God, we have our pretenses in order to survive. And we shall survive – because we have to.”
How’s that for a preview to an ESCOG (Eastern Sierra Council of Governments) meeting? That’s where you have one government official from each local entity get together to … well shit, trade long-winded speeches?
And decide how to blow $2 million in grants studying stuff.
“The proposed budget [for 2025-2026] includes revenues of $1,988,500 and projected expenditures of $1,988,500. Revenues include the $25,000 contribution from each member agency remaining unchanged. Grant revenues estimated at $1,988,500 include the California Fish and Wildlife Proposition 1 Grant ($930,000), the Inyo National Forest Liaison Grant ($100,000), and four Sierra Jobs First Grants: 1) ESCOG Capacity Grant ($200,000), ESCOG Recreation Capacity Incubator ($253,000), Chipmunk Canyon Existing Conditions Analysis ($188,650) and Business Catalyst Grant ($201,850).”
“The budget includes funding for a Wildfire Coordinator, a Recreation Coordinator, collaboration with the Inyo County Project Management Office, and a part-time administrative assistant. The positions are funded through a blend of grant revenues.”
Last year’s budget featured a $2 million CDFW grant and $1.9 million of that was essentially funneled to the Whitebark Institute for its work in wildland fuels reduction.
Josie Paruolo made public comment in regard to the Chipmunk project (Chipmunk Canyon at the end of Barlow), which she thinks is not a great idea. “In this case, do nothing,” she said. “Don’t develop this area [as part of a larger trails system]. There’s no user conflict [as it is] that I see.”
She’s convinced it’ll all simply lead to more traffic in an otherwise quiet residential neighborhood – a neighborhood that isn’t even aware recreational development is under consideration since there’s been zero public outreach.
ESCOG board member Jeff Griffiths said the cat’s somewhat out of the bag regarding Chipmunk, as ad hoc (and illegal) mountain bike trails are proliferating in the area – and some have been built on Native burial grounds.
He’s hopeful a more formal study can more positively direct and limit the trail building.
As to Ms. Lijek’s letter on page four – I’ve included a photo I took in Logan Airport on my way to New Hampshire to visit family.
The shirt reminds me of the “Freedom, Not Fear” signs sprinkled around Bishop.
Pretty fair guess that if you see one of those signs on a guy’s lawn, odds are a fearful person lives there.
As to the charge that I’ve got a problem with conservative females, well, perhaps we should step back and wonder what conservative even means these days.
Is it defined as a political affiliation? Individual affiliation? Praise be to The Donald!
In my youth, conservative ideals included fiscal prudence, preservation of individual liberty, compassion for the less fortunate (Bush I and his 1,000 points of light).
By these standards, Inyo County Supervisors Roeser and Orrill are as far from conservative as can possibly be.
Fiscal prudence? They lavish raises upon themselves and staff.
Individual liberty? Forget bootstrapping, entrepreneurialism or creating community with a few home-cooked meals for one’s neighbors. We’re more concerned with the sewer system and a potential for more grease in the pipes.
The rules for microkitchens are supposed to limit meal prep to 90 per week. Are Roeser and Orrill really against families of five or more?
Family of five times three meals a day = 105 meals per week (if you’re simply cooking for your own family – which I hope is still allowed).
Compassion? Roeser famously killed a safe parking proposal to be located on a church lot in Bishop because she thinks homeless people sleeping in their cars are a blight and a menace.
Finally, as I read Fisher’s story on page one about the Big Beautiful Mess, I couldn’t help thinking about Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth which chronicles the rise of a Chinese peasant. On his death bed, the now wealthy scion implores his spoiled children to, under no circumstances, sell or forfeit the land.
I guess our conservative president hasn’t read it.
