When I talk about “The Shining” with most people they often bring up references to the movie by Stanley Kubrick. It was a spectacular role for Jack Nicholson and helped cement his career as an actor to be reckoned with but by all accounts Stephen King was never happy with the film. He disliked the casting of Nicholson and was unhappy with the changes made to the movie. Although now he is much more diplomatic in his discussions about it, for instance in the forward to my copy of the book he states politely that the book and movie are two different stories, back in 1980 when the film came out he was much more vocal in his displeasure. Having read one and seen the other I have to say that the book is significantly better but that’s usually the case when comparing books to the movies they spawn.
For King the book was very personal. It dealt with issues like alcoholism, which he had also dealt with, and was his first hardback best seller, which stabilized his finances and established his reputation as a horror writer. In the forward King mentions that after doing well with his first two novels Carrie and Salem’s Lot he felt he had a bit of breathing room to stretch himself as a writer and he writes that his goal was to make the characters “real people”, flaws and all and he succeeds. I would argue that this is his second best horror novel surpassed only by “It”.
For Jack Torrance the custodian position deep in the Colorado mountains at the Overlook Hotel is his last chance. Hired on as a teacher at a prestigious school due to his writing ability he soon squanders that opportunity due to ever increasing bouts of drinking and problems managing his anger. Together those two issues start to destroy his life. First there is an “accidental” broken arm for his son Danny but the final straw is the brutal beating he administers to a student he caught slashing his tires. His old drinking buddy gets him the job at the hotel and Jack quits alcohol and hopes that a quiet winter at the hotel will allow him to get back to writing, fix his marriage and get his life back on track.
The Overlook Hotel is a bustling place a few days before the end of the season. High up in the mountains it commands spectacular views but the heavy snows will soon cut it off from civilization. Jack, his wife Wendy and son Danny are shown around the hotel in order to acquaint him with his duties over the winter. In the kitchen they meet the cook, Hallorann, who takes an instant liking to Danny. Danny has always been a special little boy. He seems to know what people are thinking, sometimes it seems that he knows what’s going to happen or what had happened in the distant past. Pretty impressive for a 5 year old. His parents are amazed and puzzled by it but not Hallorann. He knows exactly what it is. As he explained to Danny without physically talking, his grandmother called it “the shine” and it can be helpful and powerful but it wasn’t always right. Danny seems to have the strongest shine Hallorann has ever encountered and he gives Danny a warning. The hotel isn’t always a pleasant place, especially in winter. Things have happened here. Stay away from the hedge animals near the playground and don’t go into room 217. But you should be okay Hallorann thinks to Danny. It’s like seeing scary pictures, they’re upsetting but they shouldn’t be able to hurt you. Only weeks later, deep into the quiet winter when the Torrance family are the only people there, does Danny realize that his gift is powering up the supernatural activity at the hotel and that Hallorann is mistaken about things not being able to hurt you.
The relationship between a father and his son are one of the main themes that flow through this novel. As winter progresses at the Overlook, more and more memories of Jack’s own father filter into his mind. He remembers his father’s heavy drinking and brutal “corrections” for small transgressions and how the family lived in terror of causing any sort of problem. That’s not me, Jack muses, ignoring how his own drinking has nearly resulted in the dissolution of his family and injury to his child. It was an accident he keeps telling himself. Jack, as his father’s favorite, received special treatment and lionized the man just like Danny lionizes Jack. It seems that the cycle really is hard to break. It’s these illusions that Jack has about himself, his relationships with his child and wife, his sense of importance, the unfairness of life that the hotel takes advantage of. Why shouldn’t he be able to drink and have fun the ghosts whisper. He’s important and should be in upper management instead of a caretaker they say. His wife and child are being disobedient and disrespecting him they point out. They need to be corrected. As the hotel gains its leverage over Jack the manifestation become more and more real.
Interspersed are encounters with the supernatural denizens of the hotel. These encounters often start off in the most benign of circumstances. They come on slow but the tension during those episodes is high. Especially unnerving are the interactions with Grady, the previous caretaker of the hotel who murdered his wife and daughters before killing himself. Speaking for the hotel he slowly works on Jack’s insecurities to get him to agree that’s its appropriate to kill his own wife and son.
The novel basically has four characters, the Torrance family and Hallorann. Danny may be the boy with the special gift but the novel is really about the demons that haunt Jack, his alcoholic and abusive father, his own history of alcoholism, his anger and his failures. The Overlook at first begins a subtle game with Jack, working on breaching what it realizes are his thin defenses. Until the very end it never really possesses him. It doesn’t need to. Jack’s had a monster inside him all along, the hotel just gives him a excuse to let it out. This is one of the aspects of the book that makes it so superior to the movie. The reader has a chance to understand the circumstances that made Jack the man he is and how that same history will be used to unravel him.
For myself the psychological destruction of Jack by the Hotel is really the meat of the novel. In this aspect King’s writing is among the best he’s done. I’ve read some reviews discussing that the novel is too long but I don’t think so. Part of the power of the ending is because the novel has given us time to really know these people. You feel for Danny, scared about the Hotel but even more so about what is happening to the dad he loves and even as Jack descends into madness you feel for him too. Recommended.
© 2017 George Anadiotis
