maybe everyone is a book that most often defies writing. maybe the self is a jungle as john williams said, from which a book must be extracted. i read nothing but the night in a few hours and felt it was not the book, his book was stoner, and this book wasn't even a prelude, it was a reaction to the war, his extraction from the war. it may have been necessary to get to stoner, but it seems that his life was before and after stoner. stoner was the book of his life, and he got it right. but then he had a long while yet to drink and teach and live.