The Shining by Stephen King

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

After the fun a pair of friends and I had reading That Hideous Strength together, we decided to have a go at another book. Since I had never read any Stephen King, and neither had another of our group, that ended up being the pick. Since the third member had extensive knowledge of King’s books, she decided The Shining would be a good gateway book for us. 

 

We haven’t actually done that much discussion yet, because one of the group is buried in college stuff at the moment, but I went ahead and finished the book and wrote this post because my book is due back at the library next week. 

 

The Shining is one of King’s earlier books, published in 1977. I’m pretty sure I am the only one of our group who had been born by 1977, so I guess I am the old guy here. 

 

Because of when the book was written, there are some decidedly dated elements. For example, back then, doctors were not mandated reporters, so when the dad breaks his kid’s arm, there isn’t a CPS investigation. The way that Native Americans are referred to as “Indians” and made part of play sets is definitely of the era. We already had the discussion as to whether Dick Hallorann qualifies as a “Magical Negro” or not - King seems to have used the type more than once, although at least Dick gets a real back story and emotional life of his own.  

 

There are other elements that are dated for other reasons, perhaps. In general, the book feels set in a different era from our own. No cell phones. Airport security was really lax. And there was a casual acceptance of the expectation that women supported male careers and let men make the major decisions that is at least being challenged now. 

 

Whatever the setting, though, King shows an amazing ability to tap into existing human fears. For the first half of the book, nothing supernatural happens at all. Instead, the characters are left alone in an old hotel for the winter, with what seems like their own paranoia for the most part. (Which is why Wendy seems the most immune to experiencing anything unexplained.) 

 

This changes, of course, in the second half. The last 100 pages escalate the violence and the action really fast, leading to a pretty intense and crazy conclusion. All that follows would fail to be effective as horror, however, without the careful buildup of the psychological element. 

 

It was also interesting reading this somewhat simultaneously with listening to The Maid on audiobook. Where the latter went off the rails at the end, with a conclusion out of character with the setup, King maintains a taut and consistent arc throughout the book. 

 

From start to finish, King includes everything necessary for the story - every detail has a purpose - and nothing that is unnecessary. Jack’s psychological break (or possession by the hotel if you prefer) is completely believable even absent the supernatural element. Combined with the personification of the hotel, and its concentrated evil, it makes for a compelling and fascinating storyline that feels consistent throughout. Likewise for all of the other characters. 

It probably isn’t possible to truly spoil a plot that is nearly 50 years old and had a popular movie made of it. Jack is a guy with a drinking problem and an anger management problem. He has finally gotten sober, after breaking his small child Danny’s arm in a violent rage. However, he still has issues with anger, and loses his job at the university when a bad-egg student who happens to be the son of a wealthy donor, is caught slashing Jack’s tires and Jack assaults him. 

 

So, Jack, who needs to support his wife Wendy and his child, takes a job offered him by a powerful friend: be the winter caretaker for a Rocky Mountain resort hotel, let the scandal die down, and then work to get the job back. 

 

The catch? Well, stranded for months alone in an old hotel, of course. And also, the last guy to take the job ended up murdering his family before committing suicide. 

 

Meanwhile, Danny is….special. He has what Dick (a cook at the hotel) refers to as “The Shining” - a kind of clairvoyance and ability to telecommunicate. He sees the future, or at least possible futures, and can communicate with others with the Shining - like Dick. 

 

Danny sees all kinds of horrible things ahead regarding the hotel, and his father. But he tries to keep them to himself, because he also senses just how crucial the job is to his father’s future. 

 

It starts off with Danny seeing the scenes of old murders at the hotel - it was run by gangsters once, and has the sort of lurid history you expect from an old hotel. But it escalates to things moving in the building and the grounds. The topiary follows the characters around, the elevator goes up and down during the night. Eventually, after dark, the borderline between the present and the past blurs and guests and parties can be intermittently seen. 

 

Where things go really wrong, though, is when the spirit of the hotel itself decides to try to get Danny’s powers for itself, and sees Jack as the weakest person to possess. 

 

I won’t go any further than that on the plot. It’s plenty exciting, and certainly checks all of the horror boxes. 

 

King was inspired by a number of different things for the book. First, and most obviously, The Haunting of Hill House. One could almost see The Shining as a tribute to that horror classic. Second, King and his family stayed at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, which served as inspiration for the setting and other details (the name of the bartender, the room number, the idea of the murder - but most of all a gas explosion that damaged the building.) 

 

Finally, though, King was himself struggling with alcoholism, and in part saw Jack as who he was frightened he would become. I think it is particularly fascinating that the way the hotel finally possesses Jack is by manufacturing some sort of supernatural booze (the hotel has none left during the winter). 

 

Overall, I think King’s writing is above average. It’s not literary fiction - it is genre horror - and that comes with certain expectations, of course. But within the limitations, King writes quite well. I never found myself irritated with, for example, lazy descriptions (ahem, J. K. Rowling), awkward phrases, or cookie-cutter passages. Like other genre masters such as Agatha Christie, King elevates his books well above the average. It’s not literary fiction, but it is good prose. 

 

One of the interesting features of this narrative is the multiple perspectives. While Jack gets the most page time, we also see things from Danny’s perspective, Wendy’s viewpoint, and even from Dick’s point of view near the end. Each perspective is nuanced and sympathetic, no character is perfect, and no one knows all of the facts. 

 

Perhaps the most interesting viewpoint is that of Danny, who is precocious, but still a little kid who is still barely learning to read. This is why “REDRUM” becomes this recurring theme in his clairvoyant dreams. Since he cannot read, he cannot understand the meaning of the letters other than to hear the sounds in his head. That they are essentially in a mirror eventually occurs to him, and the implications become part of his own terror. 

 

The conversations that occur both in Jack’s head and between him and the physical manifestations of the hotel are truly terrifying. The recurring themes are a desire to control Wendy and Danny - to make them subservient and subordinate to his desires, an obsessive longing for intoxication, and a general contempt for women. It is sometimes difficult to tell how much King is simply describing Jack and how much of this might be part of King himself. There is both a degree of self awareness and a lurid enjoyment of the darkness. It’s uncomfortable. 

 

One great example is the scene where the hotel feeds his alcohol craving for the first time. Prior to that, Wendy notes that Jack is showing all the signs of drinking…except for the drinking. Jack starts to go down this dark mental path of hating being on the wagon, and associates sobriety with women, and the addiction combines with misogyny. Some excerpts:

 

“Like how all the people sitting in the pews on the Wagon are these flat-chested el birdos in long dresses with a little lace around the collar and their hair pulled back into buns until it’s so tight you can almost hear it screaming.”

“And that’s when you realize what the Wagon really is…It’s a church with bars on the windows, a church for women and a prison for you.”

 

It is this sort of stuff that leads inevitably into Jack believing the propaganda of the Hotel which tells him that it is Wendy and Danny who are holding him back from greatness, who must be destroyed in order for Jack to prosper. It is all too believable. And it’s never a good thing when you sound like Doug Wilson.

 

I wasn’t particularly comfortable with, how in the final terror scene, a lot of graphic violence is inflicted on Wendy, who, for all her faults, is about the only grownup in the family. Again, totally plausible for Jack, at least after he gives into his demons rather than fighting them. But also felt like the violence against a woman was meant to be almost titillating. At least Danny is largely spared. 

 

I did want to mention a couple of other interesting lines, both of which are connected with Dick. While back in Florida for the winter, Dick works as a chef again, including sourcing his own ingredients. I like that he also gets a Hubbard squash “strictly for personal consumption.” I rarely find them where I live, but when one does show up at a farmer’s market, I definitely snap it up. So tasty. 

 

The final one is when Dick is racing to Colorado to save the day (or at least try to), and has a typical road rage encounter result in his wake. 

 

He invited the driver of the limo to perform an illegal sex act on himself.

 

I can’t help but think of a colleague of mine who, in a story in our local bar magazine about a past case, described how he got yelled at by either a client or witness. 

 

“He suggested I perform a variety of acts, some of which were against the law, some of which were against nature, and some of which were physically impossible.” 

 

So, those are my thoughts on my first Stephen King novel. I could see reading another one, although horror will likely never be a favorite genre for me. The Shining is an above average example of the genre, and a good read.