Stephen
King’s The Shining
When I was in Jr. High my mother
and I used to go grocery shopping and sometimes she’d buy me a paperback before
we left. On one such occasion I picked
out the Shining by Stephen King because it was one of my favorite movies and I
wanted to see if the book was any different.
I don’t know what happened between then and now but somewhere down the
line I read about half of it and then lost it or it got thrown away or
destroyed or something. Whatever the
case may be being unable to finish that book haunted me, especially every time
I watched the movie. It gets even worse
considering that the Shining is probably Stephen King’s most popular single
series book aside for maybe The Stand and certainly his most recognizable.
I’m a huge Stephen King fan(not
counting collections or anthologies I’d say I’ve read a dozen of his books) and
its always bothered me that I wasn’t able to finish this one. So earlier this year, before I even started
this blog, I got a sudden compulsion to finish the two King books I gave up
on. The first one being The Shining, and
the second being Salem’s Lot. Once again
I got halfway through it and loaned it to a friend. He was kind enough to return it to me after
he’d finished it but somewhere down the line I lost it.
I might as well stop writing my
biography and get down to the review. So
what is The Shining? Well if you ask
most people I’m sure they’ll tell you it’s about a haunted hotel. I totally disagree. The Shining, to me at least, is about the
relationship a father has with child.
That’s what the book focuses on the most, the ghost barely make an
appearance. The Shining is less of a
horror novel(despite King’s reputation both then and now) and more Stephen
King’s answer to the great American novel.
Back in the late 19th and early 20th century a lot
of self-important authors wrote really dry books that focused more on
characters than plot. I’m sure they
thought they were geniuses but all they accomplished was annoying English
students for the next hundred years.
In the beginning of the book King
focuses on character development rather than events. After Jack Torrance’s interview for the
caretaker job is over we’re “treated” to a three person perspective of his
drinking and anger issues. Jack flashes
back to the height of his drinking problem and how it affected his family
culminating in him breaking his son’s arm.
Then Wendy does the same thing, we get the same facts but a different
perspective. And finally Danny
reminisces on the rough patch his parents had during this time and how it
affected him. At this point I didn’t really
care what happened so long as all this internal monologue was over.
My wishes are granted when I read
one of the most dated things I’ve read in a long time. This next part I just found interesting and
I’ll admit I got a little nostalgic for.
This chapter is just downright strange and even after reading the entire
book I still don’t know what to make of it.
Jack drives to a drugstore with Danny.
Wendy is not with them so they’re not making a pit stop before going to
the hotel and Jack doesn’t buy anything they’d need for the trip there. What he does buy is a magazine, a newspaper,
and a candy bar for Danny. He pays with
a five dollar bill and has enough change left to make a long distance call at a
PHONE BOOTH. (sigh) Before he makes the
call he reflects on his drinking problem again!
I’ve read books with less character development and enjoyed them just
fine. The vast amounts of character
development in this book are just distracting and sometimes they happen without
warning. I didn’t know when this
flashback started but by the end of it I totally forgot he was at a phone booth
calling a friend to thank him for getting him the caretaker job.
Next the Torrances are traveling
to the hotel. They are given a tour and
we meet Dick Hollorann, the kindly middle aged black head chef of The
Overlook. The book, the movie, the miniseries,
out of all these incarnations Dick Hallorann continues to be my favorite
character even though he only serves as exposition and cannon fodder in the
movie. Before he leaves for Florida Hallorann
takes Danny aside and explains what the shining is and how he can use it to
contact him if anything at the hotel goes wrong. Assuming you’ve never read the book or seen
the movies I’ll explain what the shining is.
Dick Hallorann tells Danny to shine is to see future, past, and present
events as well as reading minds and communicating telepathically to others who
shine. Danny does this through the use
of his imaginary friend Tony(who is not represented by his index finger. He sees Tony as a person of indeterminate age
who’s always too far to get a good look at.).
I don’t want to make too many
comparisons with the movie but here is where the two differ greatly and it came
as a shock to me. Jack Torrance is hired
as winter caretaker and when I was younger all I thought that meant was that he
was supposed to watch the place till spring.
Turns out Jack has a lot of responsibilities(which makes that All work
and no play makes Jack a dull boy thing kinda ironic) including trimming hedge
animals, dumping the pressure in the boiler 3 times a day, setting mouse traps,
shoveling snow, and reshingling the hotel roof.
Towards the beginning of the book you never see him not doing anything
and he starts with reshingling the roof.
While doing this he uncovers a wasp’s nest and bug bombs it and gives
the empty nest to his son who places it in his room. If you guessed this spells trouble later on
for the family you’re right. After
everyone has gone to sleep the wasps suddenly awaken and start stinging Danny. Jack captures the nest using a glass bowl and
puts it outside in the cold to kill the remaining wasps. I really don’t know what all this is supposed
to symbolize. Are the wasps ghosts, or
the evil forces of the hotel, or just wasps that weren’t killed by the poison?
The next day they take Danny to
the doctor. Prior to the wasp stings
Tony appeared to Danny again and he went into another one of his trances. They run some epilepsy tests and find nothing
which we already knew however when talking to the parents the doctor gives a
very plausible explanation for his telepathy.
The doctor explains that Danny created Tony as a coping mechanism when
they were having trouble and now that the trouble is over Tony is being phased
out and this is what has been causing the trances. The doctor goes on to tell them the reason he
knows things he shouldn’t is simply because he’s a very observant child. This was my favorite part of the book. If you’ve read as much King as I have you
find there isn’t usually a middle ground.
Something either is supernatural or isn’t. Not only did this give a reasonable
scientific argument against Danny’s supernatural powers it leaves us with a
shred of doubt. When the doctor is
questioning him about Tony he asks Danny to summon him which he does and the
doctor asks what Tony told him and he tells him that his mother was thinking
about her deceased sister whom Danny never met.
It’s one of the few parts of this book that had an honestly eerie moment
and leaves the reader with a sense of ambiguity and doubt.
While Jack is down in the basement
pump the pressure out of the boiler he finds a scrapbook featuring news
articles on The Overlooks colorful past.
He learns about the former owners, the scandals, and the murders that
took place there. After this he becomes
obsessed with the history of The Overlook.
On a trip into town Jack visits the library to research old news
articles about the hotel. To satisfy his
self-destructive nature Jack calls Ullman to tell him about all the things he’s
uncovered about The Overlook, chastise him for not telling him about the more
nasty things, and let him know he’s thinking about writing a book about the
hotel. Ullman obviously upset tells him
as caretaker he doesn’t need to divulge any information regarding the hotel’s
past and threatens him letting him know he’s going to go to the board with
this.
During this time Jack starts
habitually wiping his mouth(a habit he picked up when he was drinking) having migraines
and starts chewing Excedrin. It reminds
me a lot of the way the father in The Amityville Horror reacts to the forces in
his house. Later that night back at the
hotel Jack gets a call from his friend on the board and he relates what Ullman
told him. Jack kisses his friend’s ass
and promises he won’t write the book. The next day Jack continues his caretaking
job by trimming the hedge animals. He
takes a break to goof off at the playground.
Every now and then he hears a noise and looks back to see either the
snow gathered on the tops of the animals has fallen off or they’ve changed
position. Every time he looks back the
animals have moved and he starts to think he’s hallucinating. I believe this is the first time anything
spooky has happened.
Danny’s curiosity gets the better
of him and he enters room 217. Meanwhile
both Jack and Wendy are taking a nap.
Jack is having a nightmare about his abusive alcoholic father. He hears his father’s voice coming through
the CB radio ordering him to kill his wife and child, goes into hysterics, and
starts smashing it. With the snowstorm interfering
with the phone lines and the destroyed CB they don’t have any way of contacting
the outside world. Wendy hearing Jack’s
screams rushes over and snaps him out of his reverie. Once she gets Jack calmed down they start to
wonder where their son is. They start
calling out his name, when he doesn’t answer they start looking for him. When they find him he doesn’t respond to them
just merely stares vacantly at them sucking his thumb. Wendy sees the scratches on his neck and
immediately blames Jack
Wendy locks herself and Danny away
in their room and Jack wanders around ending up in the hotel bar. Lately Jack has been suffering a great deal
of stress and anger not to mention seeing what he believes to be hallucinations
so when an apparition appears at the bar and starts serving him drinks he just
accepts it. After a while Wendy comes to
her senses and realizes the only way she can get help for Danny is seek out
Jack. She reasons that he must have
attacked Danny the same way he destroyed the radio. She goes down to the bar with Danny to ask
for help getting down the mountain.
While his parents are arguing about what happened to Danny he snaps out
of it and runs to Jack screaming, “Oh daddy it was her!” After hearing this Wendy exclaims she didn’t
do anything while Jack enjoys having the shoe on the other foot for once. The three of them go down to the kitchen
where Wendy continues to defend herself and Jack tells her he believes. After he calms down Danny explains what
happened after he went into room 217. Afraid
they might not be alone Jack goes to investigate room 217. Other than the smell of soap and a damp
bathmat he finds nothing. Looking back
he thinks he sees a shadow behind the curtain of the claw foot tub and runs
out.
I’ll admit romantic relationships
confuse the hell out of me. I’ll never
understand the psychological roles and power struggles between couples even
after I’ve witnessed them time and time again.
I’ve seen couples fight over the most trivial matters just for the
promise of makeup sex. After they put
Danny to bed they start discussing getting him help. Wendy wants to get out of the hotel as soon
as possible, Jack feeling comfortable there gives reasons why they should stay. Most of Jack’s arguments I tend to agree
with. Because of the snowstorms if they
walk out they could be caught in a storm and die and insists that the best
thing to do is stay put until help arrives or the weather clears up. She reminds him they have a snowmobile and he
explains he’s never driven one before but if he can figure it out he’ll drive
them out of there as soon as the weather gets better. During this debate Jack is sensually
caressing her and I just don’t get it.
Did they just forget everything that happened that night, her accusing
him of abusing their son, him denying it, her calling him names, and her being
accused herself. It reminds me of all
those bullshit clichés you see in movies and tv shows. Where a man and a woman get pissed and start
yelling at each other and the next thing you know they’re making out for no
reason. Shit like that never happens in
real life, there’s really no link between anger and passion. Usually when I get in a fight with
girlfriends they either storm out of the room or start throwing shit or we just
break up. This love scene just seems
unrealistic and forced.
The next day Jack checks out the
snowmobile to see if it works. He finds
all the necessary parts to make it work but some part of him(possibly the part
that’s being controlled and driven mad by the hotel) forces him to throw the
battery in the snow outside.
The next chapter opens with Danny
playing in the snow and then gets chased by the hedge animals. His parents hear his screams and come rushing
to find him at the steps of the front entrance.
Danny tells them what happened and despite the fact that the same thing
happened to his father he doesn’t believe him.
When Danny pleads with his father that the same thing happened to him
Jack flips out and slaps him. Wendy
enraged at the abuse tries to tear Danny away from Jack and they have a tug of
war with the child before he yells at them both and they come to their senses.
The next day all three members
awake to loud banging and clacking noises coming from the distance. After several protests from Wendy Jack gets
up to check out the source of the noise.
In the hallway the antique elevator has gone haywire and is going up and
down on its own. Using an emergency
shutdown Jack stops the elevator between floors. Jack has an argument with his wife about the
cause of the short circuit, he claims it’s just a run of the mill electrical
problem, she claims it’s ghosts. Jack
looks in and exclaims there’s nothing in there then Wendy jumps in and throws
out wads of confetti and a mask. This is
another one of my favorite parts in this book.
It’s creepy, effective, and catches the reader totally by surprise. The only problem is it takes place on page
300 rather than sometime earlier on in the book.
After that Danny starts to
realizes how desperate his situation is and telepathically calls Dick Hallorann
in Florida. Meanwhile Hallorann runs
around picking up produce for his job as chef at a resort in Florida. While driving he receives Danny’s message and
nearly runs his cadillac off the road.
To calm his nerves and think he turns into a drive-in and orders a root
beer float. Before his order comes he
grows anxious and speeds off. Hallorann
returns to the resort he works at and convinces his boss to give him the
weekend off by lying about a fictional son and a gunshot wound.
While Hallorann rushes to get to a
flight to Colorado Jack goes further and further insane and Danny starts to
accept the hopelessness of his predicament.
Jack’s obsession with the hotel has completely isolated him from his
family and he spends most of his time in the basement and ballroom. Wendy concerned about Jack goes down there to
check on him and he goes into a rage and strangles her. She breaks an empty wine bottle over his head
and he’s knocked unconscious. With Danny’s
help she drags him to pantry. His
protests can be heard all the way to the caretaker quarters.
Meanwhile Dick Hallorann has
finally made his flight is on his way to the Overlook. His car is nearly ran off the road by a snow
plow. The plow’s driver is nice enough
to lend him his gloves and tells him a friend of his who owns a filling station
will loan him a snow mobile if he mentions his name. As he is approaching the hotel he is attacked
by the one of the hedge animals and he is very nearly killed until he lights it
on fire.
Back at the hotel Grady visits
Jack in the pantry. He tells Jack he
doubts his commitment to fixing his family while Jack insists it was a
temporary setback. He promises to fix
the problem by killing Wendy and Danny and Grady lets him out.
Wendy debates internally with
herself whether she should go to the kitchen and check on Jack. When she finally does go downstairs she finds
Jack waiting for her with a roque mallet.
While trying to run away from Jack she gets hit by the mallet a few
times, breaking some ribs and injuring her kneecap. Jack has her on the ground about to finish
her off when rolls towards him tripping him and he falls down the stairs. Jack quickly recovers retrieving the mallet
and Wendy jumps on him stabbing him in the back with the kitchen knife she
started carrying with her everywhere after Jack started going crazy. After Jack goes down she drags herself back
to the caretaker’s quarters where she finds Danny is missing and barricades
herself in the bathroom. Jack follows
her and bashes through a few doors to get to her when the hotel warns him that
Hallorann is coming.
After surviving a hedge animal
mauling and being inadvertently set on fire Hallorann struggles ever forward
toward the Overlook. When he finally
makes it through the doors he is met by Jack who promptly knocks him upside the
head with the roque mallet. Yeah looks
like no matter how you slice it Hallorann’s destiny is to enter in the final
act and be quickly dispatched.
There’s an issue of time
displacement in the next chapter(this is common in King novels, especially towards
the end). It begins with Danny dreaming
in his room before Wendy goes down and has a fight with Jack. In his dream Tony warns Danny about what’s
happening and tells him he needs to run and hide.
After knocking out Hallorann Jack pursues
Danny. When he finds Danny the two have
a confrontation. Danny tries to tell his
father how the hotel is manipulating him and for a moment Jack comes back to
his senses. Jack tells Danny to run and
remember how much he loves him before he becomes possessed by the hotel again. Danny also reveals that he forgot to dump the
boiler today and the hotel is about to explode.
As Hallorann, Danny, and Wendy race
to safety Jack runs down to the basement to release the pressure in the
boiler. Unfortunately for Jack he doesn’t
make it in time and the hotel explodes.
The book ends with an epilogue the following summer. Wendy and Danny are visiting Hallorann at the
new hotel he’s working at in Maine.
Wendy and Hallorann talk about Danny’s occasional nightmares about the
Overlook, she mentions a job offer by Jack’s friend Al Shockley, and they
discuss her moving to Maryland.
In all good conscience I can’t
give this a good score simply because I’m a fan of Stephen King. The Shining can be incredibly boring at times
and has way too much character development.
This book wouldn’t suffer at all if it were cut down 100 pages. For a ghost story it lacks anything spooky
and is not very atmospheric. It tends to
center on the family and forgets it’s a ghost story. The family while interesting cannot carry
this story entirely on their own. 78
D. It’s not the worst book I’ve ever
read but it is boring and unimaginative.
There was enough in this book to keep my attention to finish it but it
still wasn’t too fascinating of a read and it’s really not one of my favorite
Stephen King books. If you’re looking
for a good Stephen King book I’d say go no further than The Bachman Books or
Four Past Midnight or Different Seasons.
His short story collections are pretty damn good too. A great place to start would be with Skeleton
Crew.
