The Shining is probably the most well known of Stephen Kings works, much thanks to the movie based on the book. But how many have actually read the novel? Now I have and I can recommend it.
The story revolves around Jack Torrance, an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic; his wife Wendy and their son Danny who has a supernatural gift called The Shining. The Shining allows Danny to read minds and experience premonitions.
After losing his position as a teacher Jack accepts a position as the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, an isolated hotel in the Colorado Rockies. The hotel has a horrific past, involving mob-murders, suicides and other tragedies which has left it haunted.
Jack hopes the hotel’s seclusion will help him reconnect with his family and give him the opportunity to finish writing the play he’s been working on. As winter moves in the family becomes more isolated and the demons of the hotel start influence Jack’s sanity and turbo-charge his anger issues. Danny starts seeing ghosts and frightening visions. The hotel wants to posess Danny, to use his powers to increase it’s powers. When that fails it instead turns to using Jack as it’s tool.
The setting and characters are said to be influenced by King’s personal experiences, including both his visit to The Stanley Hotel and his recovery from alcoholism. The novel was followed by a sequel, Doctor Sleep, published in 2013.
Looking for inspiration for his new novel King and his wife Tabitha checked into The Stanley Hotel in Colorado. They were the only two guests in the hotel that night, and checked into room 217 which was said to be haunted. A room with the number 217 plays a significant role in the novel.
King and his wife had dinner in the grand dining room, totally alone. Taped orchestral music played in the room and theirs was the only table set for dining. After dinner, his wife decided to turn in, but King took a walk around the empty hotel. He ended up in the bar and was served drinks by a bartender named Grady, who’s name also appears in the story.
“That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind.”
The novel was adapted into a feature film in1980 directed by Stanley Kubrick. I guess it was considered a scary movie back then, but now? Nah, not so much. It also misses much of the backstory of the novel, the character development. Jack seems unhinged from the beginning, Danny who has very good contact with his father in the novel seems to be afraid of him, Wendy is reduced from a resourceful, self-reliant person to a week, whining woman. And Mr. Ullman is far to nice.
King has stated the he was disappointed with the adaptation and criticised its handling of the book’s themes such as the disintegration of family and the dangers of alcoholism, and of Wendy’s character; “(S)he’s basically just there to scream and be stupid, and that’s not the woman that I wrote about.”
A television mini-series later premiered in 1997, with the making closely monitored by King to ensure it had followed the novel’s narrative. Filmed at the Stanley Hotel. It follows the line of the novel closer, but still.. the book is better.
P.S. One of the best (funniest) reviews of the Novel: A hotel owner reviews Stephen King’s The Shining
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