Hey. This is my first review on this blog. And for a while, I wondered what book I should write about. I wanted to write about a book that I recently read, that I found interesting, and that I’d like to share my thought on with other people.
So I chose ‘The Shining.’ It’s one of my favourite horror novels. And I know it’s WAY past Halloween, but I’m trying to deny that it’s over, okay?
So when you hear ‘The Shining,’ what do you think? Probably this
Or this.
Or maybe…this.
Yeah. The Kubrick adaptation is famously inaccurate to the book, actually. I’d check both of them out though, if I were you.
‘The Shining’ follows the tale of a family of three who move into the Overlook Hotel during the off-season as the father, Jack Torrance, works as the hotel’s caretaker. He is an aspiring writer who struggles with alcoholism and his abusive past, which manifests in the relationships he has with his wife, Wendy, and his son, Danny.
Danny has psychic abilities. He can read peoples thoughts, and he experiences visions no child should ever see while in the Overlook. Dick Halloran, the hotel chef who meets Danny fairly early in the book, refers to this as ‘a shine’ or ‘shining’.
As time goes on, the Overlook threatens to take over Jack Torrance, and destroy this little family living in the wintery mountains.
First of all, lets talk about the goddamn plot. I was on the edge of my seat throughout this book; there were so many twists and turns. It’s the kind of book where you know roughly what the overarching plot will be, but it’s more the small plots of that keep you interested, the characters internal struggles. You know that A will lead to B, but it’s the actual journey between that is the true interesting part of this book’s plot.
The writing was compelling-a page-turner AND fairly smart. Cool! I actually believe that Stephen King is a really good writer…except when he OVERUSES ADVERBS ANNOYINGLY! God this happens so many times in this book- as I flipped through the pages hurriedly trying to get to the end, I raised my eyebrows surprisedly as I laughed sarcastically at all the adverbs I found angrily. But the writing is still great, I’m sorry I still love you Spooky Uncle Stephen King.
Most of the characters are fairly interesting and complex too. Jack Torrance seems to be a stereotypical Drunk Abusive Father, and in some ways he is, but I can’t help feeling that King’s rampant exploration of these traits, of the cycle of abuse, somehow makes him a very interesting character. This may have been (was) because Stephen King was actually struggling with alcoholism, and the fears and anxieties surrounding it around the time he wrote this book. I believe King’s own father was a failed horror writer, who left Stephen when he was only two years old. So this personal input into it really helps King here.
Wendy was okay. I mean, again, she was Nice Mom With Lots Of Problems Mostly To Do With Marriage And Weird Men In Her Family, but I liked how she was quite ‘get up and go’-she was gutsy and got shit done. She was definitely a likeable character in the novel, as you got to know her, and she really just seems like a woman trying to be a good mother while keeping her marriage afloat. Again, its Stephen King, so she was a little boring…But definitely not the worst.
Danny was also little boring in terms of character. He’s the standard kid with Supernatural Problem circa ‘The Sixth Sense.’ However, the actual nature of the problems he has is SO GOOD AND ORIGINAL. I don’t know, I just found the whole concept of the shining, and the visions he sees pretty cool. Again, I don’t have much of a problem with Danny though: he’s only a little kid, and due to what he’s going through, I doubt he’d have much more of a character other than the fact that he’s talking to a voice in his head. I liked him though, and did feel sorry for him, as well as Wendy.
The only other point of view character is Dick Halloran, the hotel’s cook. When you are first introduced to him, he seems awkward and robot-like, a typical Stephen King stereotype (and he’s black, so here it’s RACIST), but in his point of view chapters, he seems a lot more real, and actually a lot more interesting. I want there to be a ‘The Shining: Dick Halloran’s Story’, or ‘Dick Halloran: Ghosts, Ghouls, and Getting the Frackles out of the Overlook Hotel Vol. II.’ He was…a Compelling Guy.
The other characters are generic Stephen King but-wait-there’s-one-thing-that-you-wouldn’t-usually-expect-from-this-stereotype! But They Are Fine-they aren’t present for too long anyway.
The Overlook as a Thing is awesome. Both the backstory and atmosphere of this place are so great. You really do get the sense that the Overlook is a being of its own, swallowing up Jack and driving him to insanity. It’s actually very interesting to learn about its history-and in this way you become absorbed in it in the same way Jack does. It’s not just the ghosts that make the Overlook scary (ALTHOUGH THE DEAD KID IN THE TUNNEL THOUGH), but it’s the silence, the hedge animals, the corridor, the elevator. Through imagery and stylized writing, King somehow manages to embed tension and fear into nearly everything about this place.
This book is great. Even if you have read other King books that you didn’t like, PLEASE give this one a try. It took me through such a range of emotions, and had some really clever segments that were actually very thought provoking. Ah, littered with Stephen King tropes it may be, but doesn’t that make it more lovable anyway?
Weirdly, this book isn’t my favorite because it scared me the most (although there were DEFINITELY some creepy parts). It’s my favourite because it’s interesting and explores what lies between the psychological and supernatural-and it doesn’t seem to have a clear answer as to what this is. A novel that creeps up on you, that stays with you, and burrows into your surroundings. 9/10.
“Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win.”
Lena and Literature 