I broke one of my rules. I’m a strict reader-before-film guy. Friends will ask me to go to the cinema for a movie and I’ll ask first ‘is it a book?’ I don’t like watching things before I’ve read them. Sometimes, I learn that a film was derived from a book after watching it and I have to swallow this. Other times I’ve let it fly because I’m reading other things. I do my best.
The Shining was a film I watched ages ago and vowed to read the book ASAP. I have only just done so…
The Shining is about the Torrance family of three, Jack, Wendy and their son Danny. Jack takes a job as over-winter caretaker at The Overlook hotel, which is millions of miles and aeons from anywhere. The hotel has a dark history, as does Jack Torrance. Danny has powers that are unexplainable. They are briefed by some of the hotel employees, who then leave the Torrances for six months. Cue King’s supernatural happenings and boom, you’ve got a killer story.
I was amazed by the pacing of The Shining. King can drive me crazy sometimes with his lack of movement in plot; I characterise him as having incredible beginnings that lead to a lull for 200 pages to then pick up and then drop you in an ending that leaves you unanswered and maybe a little shakey. Not here. The Shining is a definitive novel of how you show the breakdown of a character or rather, how you can exploit a character’s past traumas and resurrect them into present actions and shape a narrative that both progresses, yet dialogues with the past. King brings in the past conflicts of Jack, Wendy, Danny and all the inhabitants of The Overlook into a melting pot of wandering voices and stir crazy dialogue… And metaphysical wasps/marine life… Jack Torrance alone is worth tracking this entire novel; his emotions are an absolute rollercoaster of love-abusive-understanding with the potential to flip at any moment and damage his most loved ones.
The setting is golden. The Overlook is the perfect liminal space for King to goad the reader into and trap them with the family. The rules of the building shift with the characters and I found myself threatened by the supernatural horror occurring as King treads the fine line of what happens in the physical and what happens in the mind. He works symbolism tightly to every function of character and emotion, executing tension build and climax to perfection.
The defining part of the book for me is when Mr Hallorann, the Overlook janitor, tells Danny about his shining. It’s a tender moment of strangers connecting over a magic they both possess and Hallorann’s revelations are heart breaking and honest. It’s incredible story telling throughout.
Criticisms could be King’s lack of balancing force in Wendy; she is often just silenced or put down by Jack in situations where he threatens her child and she is never given an opportunity to properly overcome Jack’s abuse. I’d have liked it more if she had been written to not give up so soon in situations and I think King missed a trick by not bringing her supernatural energies into The Overlook. That could have brought even more dimensions to this book.
Overall, classic King, definitely one of his tightest writings, definitely worth reading, even if it’s to find all of the inspirations of intertextual references…
Read When: You want supernatural happenings, threat, creepiness, thriller, liminal, gothic, Stephen King…
Don’t Read When: You want to chill out, light reading or if you’ve seen the film recently, it’s WAY different in some aspects…
Stephen King, The Shining, 1977, New English Library.
Syllable Syndrome 
I actually think Wendy comes into her own pretty well toward the end—I mean, she really does save herself from Jack and the Overlook (with Danny’s help, but still). At least book-Wendy is better than movie-Wendy, who really does nothing but snivel and hide from her monstrous husband.