The Shining

The Shining by Stephen King

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I've never been a fan of horror as a genre, but I found this one while cleaning my house and thought I should give it a try. It really didn't do anything for me. Even though it had some interesting ideas, I didn't find any of the imagery particularly frightening or disturbing.

It has been many years since I've seen the movie adaptation, so my memory of it isn't very strong. However, the differences between the two are significant and apparent. I can see how fans of the book would be disappointed.

The book tells the story of a family of three: Jack Torrence, a struggling writer and recovering alcoholic, his wife Wendy, and their son Danny who has a strong, ESP-like intuition referred to as a "Shine" (hence the title). They'll be spending months as caretakers of the Overlook hotel, which gets snowbound every winter. Unfortunately, the Overlook has a history, or will, or demonic possession of its own, and does whatever it takes to claim the family for itself.

I liked how the narrative shifted perspective among the major characters throughout the story, and I liked how not everything was explained completely. But the story never really engaged me. There seemed to be a missed opportunity to explore whether Jack was going insane, suffering DTs from alcohol withdrawal, or being possessed. The book instead made it clear that the hotel was in fact to blame and all the terrifying things were really happening. This made it less interesting to me.

I still enjoy the early Stephen King books I've read (The Dead Zone is quite good), but I'm in no hurry to look into others.

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