“Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters.” - Stephen King, The Shining
Stephen King's The Shining has become one of my all time favorite novels. It is one of those books I read without putting down and my mind gobbles it up as ravenously as the Overlook Hotel devours Jack Torrance.
Though the film has become quite well known among many people, I hope they take the time to read the novel as well because there is just so much more the book gives us than the movie does. We actually get to know the characters as well-rounded people with back stories, goals, fears, and wants. Danny is intelligent, curious, and full of love toward his parents. Wendy (who annoys the hell out of me in the movie), is resourceful in the book and became one of my favorite characters. She protects her son, gets back up when she's literally been beaten down, and does not let her fear stop her from doing what needs to be done.
And then there's Jack, a man who actually loves him family fiercely, but is weak under the pressures of "the Bad Thing" and succumbs to the Overlook getting under his skin. The hotel takes him in the end, but not before we see his small moment of almost-redemption (when he tells Danny to run), and we realize there are many complexities beneath that drunken, angry exterior.
King characterizes the Overlook brilliantly. The hotel comes alive slowly, but fully. The ghosts end up being the kind that can hurt you, and the constant repetition of Poe's "and the red death held sway over all" reminds us that death lurks here, waiting to be unmasked, and to quote Robert Bloch, "Horror is the removal of masks." King removes the masks not just from the monsters, but from the humans as well and perhaps that is what terrifies and gets under our skin the most. Jack Torrance could have been a good man, but that was his mask. Take away the person-suit and a monster lurks underneath, blood-hungry and mean.
Overall, I love everything about this books because every character, setting, and idea feels alive. The hedge animals move, Danny brings forth a whole other personality when he's scared (Tony), Jack does something for the hotel and the hotel does something back for him, the Overlook is full of a masquerade party, and the list goes on. The place may have blown sky-high at the end, but even when Dick goes into the storage shed the hotel almost gets him to finish the job Jack couldn't. The terror lingers, its atoms scatter in the snowdrifts outside of it, and perhaps a few of those atoms follow our remaining characters back home and wait to terrorize them once more.
I guess I'll find out when I read Doctor Sleep.
Happy Hauntings,
Sara
Whispers, "Do it. Read Doctor Sleep."
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you on Wendy. Everyone else seems to be down on Wendy. I think she is awesome. And I couldn't agree with you more.
Have you watched the mini-series version with Rebecca De Mornay? I think the strength of her character shines through so much more strongly than it did in the Kubrick version. I thought Wendy was a woman beaten down by the issues with her mother and her husband's disease who was doing the best she could to protect her family. She fights, and fights hard, when the hotel takes over Jack, and she tries her best to keep herself and Danny safe with the weapons she has at her disposal. She wasn't equipped to deal with a malevolent, living hotel, but she survives and she helps Dick and Danny survive as well.
ReplyDeleteStop what you're doing and read Doctor Sleep right NOW!!! The entire experience follows Danny (Dan Torrance) into adulthood as he struggles not to become his father, a man he both loves and is terrified of. It's a brilliant sequel that really bridges the general gap of addiction as it's passed from father to son. Like you said, the atoms do stick around...
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness. I forgot how much I hate Wendy in that movie (mostly because that movie scares the shit out of me and I will not watch it alone under any circumstance). I was totally rooting for her in the novel though. I agree with needing to experience both. I'm a huge Kubrick fan, and I know this is blasphemy, but I'm not much of a King fan ( I mean I like his ideas A LOT I just don't like his writing style much, I suppose), but I am crazy about this book. Just about everything in this book is perfect. I'm almost scared to read Dr. Sleep, but I'm sure I will!
ReplyDeleteI spoke about the characterization of the characters, and how I feel King did a better job than Kubrick, on another blog, but I didn't speak about The Overlook itself. I do think the characterization does a great deal with the story, because, really, the hotel is the central force holding everything in. Without the hotel, there is no haunting. The Overlook keeps the characters confined in the space through the use of the guards outside, that is the animals. Without those, while escape would still have been dangerous, it's even more so with supernatural creatures threatening the characters' lives.
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