BLERD WITH A BOOK
Hello everybody! I hope you are all keeping safe and healthy. Like most of you, I am at home (leaving only to do essential shopping and/or go for safe walks) and trying to think of ways to bide the time until it is officially safer to go outside again. So, I figured that since I have a growing stack of books in my bedroom (some have been read, but most of them have not), I'll just get to reading. With that in mind, I'll start posting about my stay-at-home reads as a way to motivate myself to keep writing and reading-- and, most importantly, to share with you the books and genres I've been digging into at home. TITLE: The Shining AUTHOR: Stephen King PUBLISHER & DATE: Anchor Books 2013 (Originally Published in 1977 by Doubleday) PAGES: 659 GENRE: Horror Brief Summary: Jack Torrance's new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he'll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote-- and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old. The world is quite scary right now. At the time of writing this, America has been rocked by yet another Black man, 29-year-old Kenosha, Wisconsin resident Jacob Blake, getting shot by police at close range seven times as he attempted to enter his vehicle. Blake's shooting comes amid months of protest against police brutality around the world since the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and countless other Black people who lost their lives at the hands of police officers, sharpening the calls of protesters continuing to take to the streets to stop the harmful cycle of police brutality towards Black folks and put pressure on lawmakers to defund or abolish the police. Additionally, the U.S. is still in the throes of a pandemic that has taken far too many lives, all while affecting every aspect of life as we know it, reminding us that whatever "normal" we had prior to all this we can never go back to it--and the idea of having to craft a new normal is profoundly unsettling. On top of all that, the U.S. is 63 days away from the presidential election-- and just typing that sentence has stirred (more) anxiety, fear, and exhaustion within me. And yet I still wanted to read Stephen King's The Shining. As a horror and sci-fi fan, not only am I familiar with the strange desire to explore feelings of discomfort, uncertainty, anxiety, and fear through films, comics, and literature from those genres, but I'm also familiar with the strange comforts exploring said feelings can provide. Sometimes, I read to feel like the world I'm living in is a little less scary than the one I'm reading about. Sometimes I read to work through my thoughts and feelings on the current state of things. Perhaps, it's a combination of all these things-- and then some. It's hard to tell which one motivates me most of the time, and this time was no exception. I can't tell you why, of all the books I own, I chose to read one of King's most beloved horror tales during such a fraught and uncertain time; what I can tell you was that it was a far more thrilling-- and far heavier-- tale than I remember, and I truly enjoyed reading it. (You know a book is good when you're sad when it's over, but you know a horror book is good when it keeps you up at night, whether it's because of the risk of having nightmares or because you can't stop thinking about it even after you finish reading-- or both.) I was first introduced to King and the frightening tale of the Torrence family in middle school--it was either in sixth grade or seventh grade; I can't remember which year-- and, after finishing the first 135 pages, found it too scary to finish. Believe me, I wanted to finish it, but I couldn't find the courage to pick up the book again. By the time high school came around, I had classmates hyping up the 1980 film adaptation from Stanley Kubrick, starring Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrence and Shelley Duvall as Wendy, Jack's wife, to me. Because I didn't want to be the odd girl out, I watched it-- and did not care for it. (But that's a blog post for another time, friends.) I'm surprised it has taken so many years to return to the book; I've read a few King books-- 'Salem's Lot, The Tommyknockers, 11/22/63, Pet Semetary, and The Outsider, to name a few-- in the interim, but The Shining (along with It, The Dead Zone, Misery, and The Stand) remained one of the most intimidating works in King's bibliography to me. Since I'm spending more time at home lately, I figured now's a great time to dig into the book-- and, this time, I finished it. Though I've been trying to train myself to break out of "The Book Was Better" mentality and not judge adaptations too harshly, I couldn't help but feel that Kubrick missed the opportunity to truly translate the nuanced and complex dynamic of the Torrence family to the big screen. Part of what makes The Shining so scary is how fractured the family has become and how hard each of them, including five-year-old Danny, work to convince themselves that they can mend the fences to become the happy family they once were. The main force that has splintered the family is Jack's alcoholism and the frightening instability that accompanies his addiction, which manifests more sinisterly once the Torrences head to the Overlook Hotel for the winter. In raw, curt detail, King's novel explores both the horror of being an addict struggling with sobriety and how an unstable addict can prove to be devastating to their family. Once Jack's alcoholism and his struggles to stay sober come into focus, an impending sense of dread develops and follows Jack and his family. Its explosive climax takes on an added layer of terror-- and unexpected sadness-- when you realize that it was only a matter of time before Jack would've fallen back on his old vices and then lash out at his family once again. The one thing that The Shining (the film) lacks is the book's thorough and, at times, realistic exploration of the ways dysfunction-- whether it be insanity, abuse, addiction, and even jealousy-- can rip families apart. At times, it feels like the Overlook really gains its power not from scaring the Torrence family, but from preying upon their individual vulnerabilities-- Jack's alcoholism and history of abuse; Wendy's silent resentment and jealousy over Jack and Danny's close relationship; and Danny's acute self-awareness and struggle to comprehend the human and paranormal terrors around him-- eventually splintering the family long before the novel's climax. Another aspect of the book worth highlighting is King's choice to show each character's stream of consciousness throughout the novel. Part of Danny's precognitive abilities hinge upon his power to read people's thoughts and emotions, so to include each character's thoughts throughout the narrative was a clever choice on King's part, especially when those thoughts pop up in the middle of the narrative. Reading a character's thought in the middle of a scene would usually be very clunky on the technical level-- and distracting on the storytelling level-- but the inclusion of each character's thoughts, from the Torrence family to Dick Hallorann, the Overlook's cook who also shares Danny's psychic gifts, is what makes the horror work. It gives the reader a better glimpse into their interior and exterior lives. Seeing Jack's stream of consciousness, for instance, play out against the spooky backdrop of the Overlook's paranormal activity makes his eventual descent into madness all the more gruesome; the reader not only experiences the dangers of isolation as the characters view it but also its damaging effects on each character, specifically Jack and Danny who spend a majority of the novel grappling with the psychological effects of isolation, which threatens to drive them insane. By showing the characters' stream of consciousness and how the Overlook disrupts their lines of thinking, King draws a clear line between isolation and insanity while also exploring how isolation profoundly transforms every character-- before and after they arrive to the Overlook. In a way, isolation acts as the Overlook's strongest evil ability, but because the Torrences were already distant from one another before heading to the hotel for the winter, it's almost as if King suggests that it was only a matter of time before some outside force completely ripped the family apart by starting with their minds. The stream of consciousness narrative style makes the terror more palpable. With that said, as is the case with any novel, The Shining is not without issues. Though he (rightfully) criticized Kubrick's characterization of Wendy Torrrence in the film adaptation (and, in turn, the treatment Duvall endured while filming), Wendy on the page is not perfect either. Despite the book devoting passages and even a few chapters to her feeling like an outsider in Jack and Danny's incredibly close relationship-- and the feelings of resentment and jealousy that accompany it-- and how her tumultuous relationship with her mother has affected her experiences of motherhood and marriage, Wendy's story is given lesser focus, even though her portion of the story touches upon some of the novel's major themes. Moreover, the abusive dynamic between Jack and Wendy isn't given as much focus compared to Jack's past abuse of Danny. Considering that the novel zeroes in on Danny and Jack's connection to explore both the unbreakable bond of family and how alcoholism and abuse inform one another, it makes sense that they get the bulk of the focus, but the reader can infer that, to an extent, Wendy herself has endured some form of abuse at Jack's hands long before the novel's violent climax. However, King glosses over this-- as well as the constant pain Wendy struggles with as a result of her choice to remain with Jack for Danny's sake-- choosing to only devote one passage to the complex nature of Wendy's personal conflicts. While Wendy never feels like inconsequential to the narrative, it is almost as if the pain and stress she has dealt with -- and continues to deal with-- throughout her life isn't considered worthy of focus compared to Jack and Danny's relationship. The handling of Wendy's story can be likely chalked up to the fact that, when this novel was written back in the '70s, devoting attention and time to thoroughly exploring the experiences of abused women and domestic abuse in general, as well as how these experiences can profoundly change them over time. Something similar can be said for King's casual use of racial slurs when the narrative shifts to Hallorann (For instance, the N-word makes the occasional appearance in the early pages of the novel before King bombards readers with it towards the last thirty-to-forty pages), as well as the one-off cameo from casual homophobia. Now we know that trafficking in such stuff and sprinkling it throughout the pages of a novel is problematic, to say the least. (Then again, it can be argued that it was bad to do that even back in the day...) Overall, The Shining has earned its reputation as a terrifying novel. Is it King's best work? In my opinion, no (because 'Salem's Lot exists...), but it is definitely up there as one of his best. It's filled with both paranormal and human terrors, and its pages do not skimp on either one. While the supernaturally evil nature of the Overlook and its ghosts are chilling, it's ultimately the realistically human terrors that stuck with me long after finishing the novel. To me, the more human the horror, the more effective the horror, and The Shining is a-- no pun intended-- shining example of this. Skip, Wait, or Recommend?: Recommend
Other Books to Read by This Author: Doctor Sleep (the 2013 sequel to The Shining, focusing on an adult Danny and his quest to help a young girl who possesses a far-more powerful version of the shine) and The Dead Zone
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