The Shining by Stephen King
The is only the third book of Stephen’s I have read. Stephen has written lots of books. Books pretty much leak out of Stephen’s ears at night and all he has to do is gather the drippings and paste them onto paper. It only takes ear drippings from several nights to make a completely new book. Every time he sneezes it’s like ten pages.
The Shining is one of Stephen’s most well-known books and within good reason. People love the movie based on this book and people love the book. There are actually two versions of the movie. There is the Jack Nicholson version and a made for TV version that was made, I want to say, in the 1990s. I actually like the TV version more than the Jack Nicholson version, kill me if you want, but I do.
We meet Jack. He’s lost his job teaching English at a preparatory school. That’s a fancy word phrase that means a school for rich kids. He lost his temper and beat the crap out of a student. He was an alcoholic, but has since cleared that up. Currently, he is interviewing for a winter caretaker position at a scenic hotel in Colorado. The hotel is called The Overlook. It takes about a million years to get to The Overlook over mountainous roads with steep drop-offs on either side. Jack makes it there in his beat-up Volkswagen.
The manager of the hotel does not like him. His name is Ullman. He thinks Jack is not responsible enough. He doesn’t like Jack’s checkered past, but since Al wants Jack hired, Ullman is going to hire him. Al is a friend of Jack’s from the prep school and is really pulling for Jack to make it through this job. Later, we will find out that Al is a bit more involved than anyone has been led to believe.
Meanwhile, at home, Jack’s wife and son are waiting for him. The wife’s name is Wendy and the boy’s name is Danny. Danny sees things. He hears things. He has strange dreams. He dreams of Tony. We don’t know who Tony is, but Tony tells Danny about things that happen and that will happen. Sometimes this gets Danny in trouble like when Jack thought Danny had been down in the cellar of the apartment building. Danny sees bad things. He sees his mother’s record player over turned. He sees the word “redrum.” He doesn’t know what any of this means. Jack takes the job. Wendy, Jack, and Danny go to the Overlook hotel starting in September.
The family is to be there from September to May. They will keep the Overlook heated. They will keep it clean. They will make sure the boiler does not explode. They meet a nice man named Hollaran. He works in the kitchen. Hollaran takes the family on something of a tour. He has stocked the kitchen for them. Before he leaves, he takes Danny aside. He tells Danny that he knows he has what is called “the shining.” Danny knows things, but so does Holloran. He doesn’t like leaving Danny up at the hotel. He offers to take Danny to Florida, Danny decides to stay. The man, Dick, tells Danny that there are things in the hotel. He doesn’t think they can hurt Danny, but he doesn’t know. He knows he’s seen terrible things there. He tells Danny to stay out of room 217. He also tells him, that if he needs help, he should shout for Dick with his shining. Dick will come if humanly possible.
The family has a few weeks of preparation. An incident with a wasp’s nest does jitter the family but not too badly. The family takes Danny to the doctor before the snows close in and the doctor thinks Danny’s strange happenings are fairly normal. The snow comes and the family is locked in. This is when the really strange stuff starts to happen.
Jack spends lots of time in the basement, where he finds a scrapbook of all the hotel’s terrible past. Danny creeps around the Overlook more. Jack knows there is something strange about the hedge animals, they seem to be able to move of their own accord. Danny finds the hedge animals are strange as well. Danny ultimately gives into temptation and goes to room 217, what he finds there scares him dreadfully and scares his family, almost bringing on a mutiny.
Things get more and more extreme as time goes by. Jack takes to sleep walking. He starts having terrible dreams. He starts having terrible thoughts. It’s as if all the evil in the Overlook has a personality and a life. It’s working hard on both Jack and Danny. The hotel wants Danny. They want his special ability.
Things finally get very bad and violent at the hotel. Danny calls for Jack who literally moves mountains to get there. He meets other people who shine along the way. They help him out. At one last moment, Jack realizes what the hotel has done to him and this gives Danny just enough time to make it away.
What I liked
I know I kind of rib Stephen a bit about some of his stories, but he is an excellent writer. He’s very good. Some of his stories are a bit strange, but Stephen has the imagination of imaginations. You definitely don’t want him telling your kids bedtime stories. Stephen has an amazing ability to create suspense. In that fact, he is akin to Edgar Alan Poe, who was the master of suspense. Hedge animals that move on their own is brilliant. They’re bushes, what’s there to be scared of?
I like the psychology of this book. It’s very mental. There is a lot of brain work. There is a lot of thought. Stephen might have been able to argue that this whole thing was a dream, but he didn’t. It’s interesting how the Overlook has no power over many people, it’s only a few people who are susceptible to the hotel’s grasp. When Danny gets there, the hotel is able to magnify and concentrate it’s energy. It works on everybody there psychologically. Then it is able to work on them psychically.
In the book, Stephen mentions the phenomenon of stigmata. Stigmata, in the traditional sense, are the wounds Christ received while being nailed to the cross. Stigmata as a psychological happening is the ability of a person to manifest physical symptoms purely out of brain power. If a person believes in something so acutely, they can make actual marks on their body. This is most associated with the Christ-like stigmata markings, thus giving the practice its name. This has also manifest as bruising and scratches even, all depending on who you talk to and their level of belief in the unexplained.
Stephen injects the idea, that this could all be purely psychological. Sure, maybe the hotel does have a somewhat overbearing presence and maybe terrible crimes were committed there, but that doesn’t mean it’s haunted. Now, if your mind knew these things, could it act upon physical surroundings or at least make it seem as if the physical surroundings are acting upon you?
That question can only be answered due to belief or disbelief. If you’re the more science-y person, you’re going to say that your mind is making physical things manifest or appear to manifest. If you’re the more open-minded person, you’re going to say that there is a possibility of ghosts and possession. It really appeals to two audiences. If you’re the more science-y person and you say that something like this was all due to the brain power of three people, then you have to admit, our brains are pretty freaking awesome, even if all of this was incredibly scary.
What I didn’t like
Stephen can be very forceful. He’s a wonderful writer, but very forceful. He likes to pepper his writing with a plethora of cuss words and impolite language. He likes to write about the most horrifying aspects that any human could ever possibly possess. Stephen is not into writing about generalized characters with generalized thoughts and actions. Stephen is into writing about the select few who are dark enough to blot out an entire city with their brooding thoughts. This is part of what makes Stephen so wonderful, but that doesn’t make reading it any less-unsettling.
It can be scary to read about the terrible things humanity is capable of. Let me be clear, Stephen’s books are works of fiction, but that does not change the fact that his characters do things real people are very capable of. You cannot tell me a man has never beat his wife with a croquet mallet or murdered his entire family in a fit of rage. It happens and it happens more than we like to admit. Stephen’s book can give you the willies. They make you second-guess the humanity you come into contact with.
You look at people in an entirely different light for a little while after reading a Stephen King book. Would grandpa murder us all in our sleep? Would your sister go crazy and kill everyone? Would that nice little old lady down the street lock you in her basement and keep your prisoner? Stephen speaks of the darkest recesses of the human mind. Humans are capable of great good, but are also capable of great evil. There can be a fine line we walk from one side to the other, but sometimes we cross that line and that’s what Stephen writes about. Forget the ghosts and aliens, look at the people Stephen creates in his stories.
Overall
This was quite the fascinating story. I might delve into more of Stephen’s writing from time to time.
danny, hedge animals, hollaran, Jack, room 217, stephen king, the overlook, the shining, The shining by stephen king, tony, wendy
Family dynamics, Fantasy, Fiction, King-Stephen, Mystery, Science Fiction, what if
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