Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Bias problem alert! *insert Klaxon here*

One of my stated goals during this read through was to attempt to carry no baggage into this experiment with me.  I wanted to examine King's work with "fresh eyes", hence the name of the blog.

I have to be honest.  I'm having a problem divorcing The Shining novel from the The Shining movie in my mind.  I've tried really hard but I can't.  When I read Jack's dialogue, I can't not hear Jack Nicholson drolling on.  I can't not see Shelly Duvall's face when I picture Wendy grasping with the situation.  Danny Lloyd is the only face I see as little Danny Torrance.

I feel disappointed, really.  I feel like it's hard enough to give this particular novel a fair shake on its own, due to the fact that the Kubrick film is one of my favorite horror movies of all time, but also because it's pretty clear from almost the first few pages that this Torrance family, particularly this Jack Torrance is a very different animal than what is presented in the film.

And this Torrance family deserves to be judged on their own merits.

I don't feel like I'm using the movie to judge what I'm reading.  So far, I don't feel my bias has clouded my judgement that much, but boy, it's hard to not picture those actors as those characters.

I'm hoping the posts will come a bit more frequently in the next few days.  I was feeling quite under the weather the last few days and didn't feel well enough to do much reading.

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