The Shining (1977) - Book Review

Plot

Jack Torrance has become the new off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, an isolated resort in the Colorado mountains. After years of fighting his alcoholism and anger issues, which made him lose his teaching job and break his sons arm years prior, he's hoping that this job can be the fresh start that his family and him so desperately need. Maybe he'll even have some time to work on his play.

His wife, Wendy, and their 5 year old son, Danny, aren't as excited about moving into the hotel. Danny's visions have grown stronger leading up to their arrivel and he's sure that terrible things will happen once they've been snowed in. Will the three of them be able to stay sane while isolated? Or will the hotel get the better of them?

My thoughts

When I watched the 1980 movie by Stanley Kubrick for the first time, back when I was sixteen, I was immediately intriqued by it's stunning visual and strange story. I've watched it countless times since then, trying to put bits and pieces of it together, hoping to find the full story, but a lot of it seemed to be missing. Thus it was time to read the book!

It was finally time to dust off that Dutch translation that I bought seven or eight years ago. You may ask yourself "Why didn't you read it before?", well let me explain. I don't like the way Stephen King writes. It makes me uncomfortable, but not in a fun, scary way, more like a "let's mention penises and nipples when not relevant" way. No Stephen, I don't want your monster to yell at a 5 year old that it's going to bite off his "tiny, fat weiner". That's weird, even for the seventies.

All of King's creepyness aside, I was pleasently surprised by the book. It's a scary story for both it's supernatural and realistic events. On one hand we have a hotel that feels like a madhouse, driving it's temporary inhabitants to insanity, while on the other we have a couple on the brink of divorce, trying to make it work, but their son is able to hear both of their thoughts. The story builds on Jack and Wendy's generational trauma and relationship problems and uses the hotel as a battleground to see what would happen if you bring absolute madness into the mix. I really felt for Danny while reading, poor kid was trying so hard to protect their parents from their own bad thoughts and the scary things that were happening at the resort.

I do recommend reading the book, if you haven't already. It's such a delightfully schizophrenic story about peoples true nature revealing itself inside the four walls of an haunted luxury hotel. Don't worry if you saw the movie first, Kubrick changed a lot while writing the script, so it's almost like reading a whole new story.

Until next time,

Margo