The Shining (1977) - Review

The Shining is another big one.  Ask any Stephen King fan, be it casual or a hard core constant reader for a top 5 list of King novels and this one is likely up there.

Plus there's the legendary Kubrick film, which is one of my favorites.

I was afraid the novel might not live up to the hype.

I'm happy to say it was wrong.  This book was incredible in its realistic portrayal of a small (very) struggling family's attempt to survive, both metaphorically and literally.

In many ways, it is a very intimate book, focusing mainly on the three members of the Torrance family: Jack, his wife Wendy, and their five year old son, Danny.

The Torrances have their share of family secrets.  Jack is a recovering alcoholic with an enormous temper.  Wendy has serious self esteem issues (whether she's aware of it or not) stemming from her very judgmental (and generally awful) mother.  And Danny just "knows things."  And can read thoughts.  Kind of.

Danny shines.

I won't bore you with a blow by blow of this book, since it's so well known.  Basically, Jack's drinking and self destructive behavior (he got himself fired from a promising teaching job) and abusive behavior (he "accidentally" broke Danny's arm two years earlier) has strained their marriage to the breaking point.

He's given one last shot at redemption: become the winter caretaker for the Overlook hotel, a destination so secluded in the mountains that it's unreachable about 4 months of the year.  The isolation would give him plenty of time to finally finish his play as well as patch things up with Wendy.  All their eggs were in this one final basket.

But the Overlook has plans of it's own.

As I was reading, I found myself trying to "figure out" the Overlook. One thing that really sets this book apart from other haunted house type stories is the Overlook itself has an agenda.  It isn't just a screaming phantasm, or an old spirit that has lost its way.

It seems to be a living entity.  And it's hungry.  Best I can figure, is it feeds off of psychic energy.  Off of those that Shine.  So when Danny, who is described as shining like a spotlight rather than a mere flashlight or candle, is confined to the Overlook for the winter, the hotel begins to awaken...into something terrible.

The hotel works your mind.  Really gets into you and preys on your greatest fears.

The novel was deliberately paced and once the set pieces are established and things begin clicking in the final act...I could barely put the book down.

A couple nitpicks.  First...King's portrayal of the hotel is very scary and menacing...but at time's just bizarre.  There seems to be a gigantic party from the early 20s that keeps replaying within the hotel.  It's never really explained what's so special about this particular party.  Or maybe it's not the party that keeps "replaying" so much as the hotel is permanently "stuck" in a certain time.  Those things aren't fully explored.

And...while it's not fair, I'm going to mention it anyway.  I was disappointed that the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" isn't in the novel.  Not even once.  It was wholly a creation of the movie.  Oh well.  Enough nitpicking.

I know that Stephen King to this day hates the Kubrick film adaptation, but there's plenty enough room in my heart for love of both.  I can see why King, something of a perfectionist, would have issues with the film version: for one thing, the final act is very different.

But also, the character of Jack, despite the legendary Nicholson performance, is a one note caricature performance in the movie. He show's up, kind of eccentric (hey, it is Nicholson only a few years removed from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and then boom, he's crazy and tries to kill everybody.

There's a lot more going on with him in the book.  And there's something of a redemption for Jack, in the novel, in that he doesn't go crazy so much as he's possessed by the spirit of the hotel.  This leads to a very cool, tender moment at the end when Jack regains control of himself for just a moment...long enough to tell Danny he loves him and to RUN!...before his consciousness is gone forever.

This was a great one.  Well worth the hype, even nearly 40 years later.

A question on the Meta side of things...

Finished the Shining.  Review in the next day or so.

I have a couple of questions that I've been mulling over the last couple days.

While I have not yet read any of the Dark Tower books (and hardly know anything about them), I do know (or think I know) that "everything is connected".  I recently asked a friend at what point the interconnected nature of everything starts happening.  He answered that it was pretty much "from the very beginning.  You won't realize until later, but everything he's written is game."  I'm paraphrasing, but that was the jist.

With that said, I have a few questions.

Three books in, I've met scary telekenetics, scary vampires, and not-as-scary precog/mind readers (Shiners). Dick Hallorann would occasionally meet others with the Shine.  So at least in The Shining, people are aware of other special people.

So...
1) Are Carrie White's powers considered "The Shine", just a different flavor, than Danny?  Or is she an entirely different animal?
2) Are other people aware of people with these powers?  Shining appears to be somewhat common.  Carrie was suggested to be unique (although at the very end of the book it's suggested a small girl named Annie --in the year 1988--had the same powers as Carrie).
3) The Overlook seems to be a very scary, but supernaturally significant place.  Is it a "one-off" or are there other significant places and does it "mean anything more?"

I'm sure I'll think of more as I progress.  And I'll be sure to post my thoughts.  Will be fun to re-read these thoughts later and see how many of these things are answered.

Obviously, these questions are more rhetorical than anything else, so I don't require any answers.  Unless you *really* want to, go ahead and leave a comment.  I would prefer no overt spoilers though, if it can be avoided.

-B

The Depth of the horror...

So our three main characters are in the thick of it now.  The snows have really started and Danny, Jack and Wendy are confined to the Overlook.

But enough about that.  I wanted to point out how struck I am with the depth and the layers to the horrifying things that King is setting up.

So much of what passes for "horror" these days amounts to little more than cheap scares and shallow terror.  Hell, "jump scares" are part of any good horror movie, but it seems like these days, most horror movies have little more to offer than a combination of jump scares and gore.

What King is doing here is presenting us with an onion of horror...and slowly peeling back the layers for us.  Okay, horrible analogy, but I'm sticking with it.

The horror isn't just physical.  It's also spiritual and psychological.  And it's multi-dimensional:  each character has their own personal terrors they're bringing with them to the Overlook.  And the Overlook is hungry.

Danny is afraid his parents will get DIVORCE.  And that his daddy is contemplating SUICIDE.  And that if he talks too much about the Shining and the things "he just knows" he'll be declared to have "LOSTHISMARBLES" and sent to the SANNYTARIUM.

He's got this incredible gift of reading thoughts and sometimes seeing the future (or is it the past?  Or nothing?) but it is proving to be a double edged sword.  Because of the Shining, he's seeing things in the hotel most people wouldn't see.  But also, because of the same Shining, he's afraid to tell his parents what he's seeing.

Jack is afraid of being a failure, afraid of losing his wife and his son.  And he is afraid of becoming his father.

Likewise, Wendy.  Her mother was a daunting figure in her childhood and they hardly speak now.  And it bothers her how much of her mother she sees in herself.

And the Overlook is feeding off of all these fears, amplifying them, and adding a few of its own.

It's really fun to watch King work in this one.  It's a psychological horror story as much as anything else.

And I'm loving it.

Feels Good Man

Getting back into the flow.

I've restarted reading the Shining.  Currently on chapter 4.  Still trying to determine how I'll handle blog posts.  I'm thinking two or three per week on set days, but maybe I'll just let the spirit move me.

I'm hoping to be able to dedicate enough time to this project once again that I can finish a book every two weeks or so, on average.  That may be way off base, but I need to set some sort of goal/pace for myself.

Don't want to have another extended absence...(of two years)

Anyway, wish me luck, as I continue my journey.

--B

Alternate theory of who's really the "Bad Parent"

So Stephen King sets up this very troubled family.  They have been through some rough times, but now that Jack has stopped drinking, and as such, much of his violent and abusive behavior has stopped too.

We are really given no other conclusion to draw that Wendy is the Good Parent and that Jack, when he drank, was the Bad Parent.  Now that he's sober, he's on his way to proving he can also be the Good Parent, but boy, if he ever drinks again, it's Bad Parent City.

The main evidence presented is a horrible event when Danny spilled some of his daddy's beer on the play Jack had been writing.  Jack, in a drunken rage, grabs Danny by the arm with the intention of spanking him.  However, he ends up grabbing too hard and breaks Danny's arm.

This happens two years before the narrative begins, but its a fresh wound in everyone's memory.  Wendy, during her internal monologues goes so far as to call it an "accident".  In other words, she believes Jack actually intended to break Danny's arm.

Jack's internal monologue adds no hope either as he can't really remember what he intended or why it happened.

But something doesn't sit right with me.  Jack is described as grabbing his arm with one hand and spinning Danny around.  That action snaps his arm.  Has anybody ever tried to break an arm?  It's not easy to do.  Bodies are remarkably resilient, even three year old ones.  I submit that it would be nearly impossible to break Danny's arm with one hand in the manner described.

I'm no doctor, but a break requires considerable force or torsion (twisting).  To break an arm with one hand not intending to...I have a very hard time buying it.

Unless...
Crackpot Theory 1:  Danny has Osteogenesis Imperfecta, or Brittle Bone disease.  Not likely, since bone breakage seems to have been a one time occurrence.
Crackpot Theory 2: Jack is superhumanly strong.  Like Superman strong.  Not likely.
Crackpot Theory 3: Danny had a severe calcium deficiency due to poor diet/malnutrition.  Plausible.

Lets examine Theory #3 in more detail.  We know at the time Danny broke his arm that Jack was still working at the prep school making decent money, presumably.  It's never stated that they were doing well, only how badly they had been doing financially since he was fired.  I'm going to assume they were doing well enough to be able to afford proper nutrition for a three year old boy.

We also know that Wendy seems to be the primary caretaker for Danny.  She is shown several times buying groceries, preparing Danny's meals, feeding him, leaving him snacks.  Jack is never seen doing this.  (At least not as far as I've gotten--I'm about half way through).  It's also never expressly stated but strongly implied that Wendy is a full time stay at home mom, meaning that nobody else other than her or Jack would be in a position to be feeding Danny.

Many of the snacks Wendy is shown to feed Danny are of poor nutritional value (oreos, crackers, etc).

Given the assumption that the Torrances could have afforded to feed Danny well, and if his broken arm was due to a calcium deficiency, not excessive force on Jack's part, then it would appear that Wendy is indeed the Bad Parent here, not Jack.  Or at least neither of them are the Good Parent.

But she's so sanctimonious in her judgement of Jack in her head that I think that doubly qualifies her as the Bad Parent.



PS- Relax.  I'm joking.  I don't for a second think that Wendy is culpable here.  However, this injury, and the way it was described bothered me quite a bit because it would be very difficult to break an otherwise healthy child's arm in the manner described.

I think this is actually a product of King's writing that I have already noticed a few times: people that populate his books seem to be much more brittle than real people.  I noticed it a couple of times in 'salem's Lot.  Matt's sudden development of a heart condition due to confronting a vampire was something that seemed a bit forced but not enough to draw attention at the time.  I didn't notice it in Carrie, but I wasn't really looking for it.

If these sorts of things happen in further books, I'll have to give this phenomenon a name.  :)

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.

Character observation

I've noticed how good King is in these first three novels at making characters seem so normal, so real.  They are worried about things you and I are worried about. These characters could be us, or at the very least, our neighbor.

Which is interesting since the books I've read thus far, Carrie, 'salem's Lot, and now The Shining, were all written about forty years ago.  I've read quite a few books from that time period and slightly earlier, and, while many were enjoyable, its much more common that the main characters were not like actual people you may know.

Sometimes, this is intentional, such as in works of fantasy or science fiction, but other times its because the characters seem distant, stuffy or just a product of their time.  An anachronistic vestige of modern history that just seems out of place today.  And that's all fine.

But I just continue to be amazed at how human, normal and real these characters feel, despite the passage of years since they were committed to paper.

The Torrances have issues...

Just finished Part One: Prefatory Matters. We are introduced to the Torrances: Jack, Wendy, and little Danny, and was immediately struck by several things.

• Jack is a mess.  Personally.  Professionally.  Maritally.  He has a dangerous, out of control temper and an addictive personality that has already let him abuse alcohol to near ruination.  His fondness for the drink ruined his reputation at the school he taught at, caused him to "accidentally" break little Danny's arm in a fit of anger, and is seriously threatening to end his marriage.
• Wendy is a wreck.  She's worried about Jack, worried about Danny, worried about her mother's opinion of her.  She seems like she's a panic attack away from a nervous breakdown.
• This family is in serious serious trouble.
• Oh, and Danny can read thoughts (to some degree) and "sees things".
• Did I mention Jack's a mess?  Cuz Jack's a mess.  He knows...just knows...that if Wendy leaves him, he'll have no alternative but suicide.  He hasn't had a drop to drink in some time due to one heck of a scare.  He and a friend were out driving while drunk when they hit a bicycle in the middle of the road.  They were both convinced that they MUST have murdered a kid riding it, but never found a body.  That scared the crap out of them.  Scared them both sober.
• But Jack's alcoholism has been replaced with a deep seated rage that is going to be a serious problem.

King is still world building at this point, introducing the characters to us, but I'm really struck by how real this family seems.  I feel for Wendy, not because she's a victim (she doesn't seem like a victim at all here), but because she loves Jack and has decided to stick around...for now...because of Danny.  

I feel for Danny because he blindly loves his dad, but his ability to read thoughts (it's very rudimental at this point.  He can only grasp single words or concepts, it seems) has allowed him to pick up on words that, while he doesn't know what they mean, scare him.  His mom's thought of DIVORCE, whatever that is, but far more terrifying is the thought of SUICIDE, from his dad, which Danny knows will happen if DIVORCE happens.  Danny knows all of these things, but either keeps them to himself, or, as a five year old, simply doesn't know how to communicate his knowledge.

And, yes, I feel for Jack.  He doesn't seem like a bad guy.  At all.  He is a mess and dangerous right now, but he truly loves Danny and Wendy.  And, while he projects confidence and self-assuredness, it really feels like he has a deep self loathing and probably self-esteem issues.

Despite Jack doing some things that should make him really unlikeable, and having really unlikeable personality traits, I still can't help but hope he succeeds.  He has been trying to write his great play and truly believes that several months of isolation while working as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel will be just what he needs to finish his play.

I really does seem to be his last chance.  With everything else falling apart, he needs something to go his way.

Book #3: The Shining (1977)

Next up on my list, The Shining.

I've actually had this book for ages, but never got around to reading it.  I'm very familiar with the Kubrick adaptation, which is still spellbinding and terrifying to me, and I saw the *yawn* 1997 TV miniseries staring that one guy and that girl and...zzz...

Oh.  Sorry.  Nodded off there.

So, while I've never read the book, I know what the adaptations are about.  But one of my stated purposes during this little journey is to read these novels with a fresh perspective.  So I'll do my best to forget what I think I know.

One thing that I thought, while reading Carrie and 'salem's Lot, might be helpful for me is some historical context.  I've noticed, just from the first two books, that King's writing seems to be very much a reflection of the times.  And while at least  these two books have aged very well, I choose to read them as if they were period pieces, especially since King uses times and dates in his narrative.

So, feel free to ignore this info, as this is mainly for my benefit.  I'm including some reference points for me as well as things that King himself might have been interested in, judging from what I've read so far.  Most of my information will be from the previous year, since that's presumably when King was writing.

Publication Date: January 28, 1977
A few months earlier, Stevie Wonder released his album Songs in the Key of Life
Jimmy Carter had just been sworn in as 39th President of the United States
First day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977
The original Star Wars film would be released in a couple months.
Super Bowl Winner in 1976 season:  Oakland Raiders 32, Minnesota Vikings 14
World Series Winner in 1976: Cincinnati Reds over New York Yankees 4-0
Boston Red Sox record in 1976: 83-79, finishing 3rd in AL East
Red Sox Roster 1976
New England Patriots record in 1976: 11-3, second in AFC East, Lost in first round of Playoffs to Oakland Raiders
Patriots Roster 1976
Cost of a new home in 1976: $48,000.00
Median Household Income in 1976:  $12,686
Cost of a first-class stamp in 1976: $0.13
Cost of a gallon of regular gas in 1976: $0.59
Cost of a dozen eggs in 1976: $0.84
Cost of a gallon of Milk in 1976: $1.65  Source
Cost of a car in 1976: $5,418
Cost of bread in 1976: $0.30

$1 in 1976 dollars = $3.84 now Source