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The Shining |
...the Overlook was at home with the dead...
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The Shining |
King's scariest novel was released in 1977 as a result of a night the adult Kings spent at The Stanley Hotel in Colorado. It was snowy, the hotel was to close for the season in a few days, and Stephen and Tabitha King were among the very few in the large hotel. The seclusion of the setting help refine a story Stephen had been working in his head about a child with psychic powers trapped at an amusement park called Darkshine. What evolved was to become a triumph, an epic as only King could write it. As the hyperbole of the paperback cover suggests, The Shining truly is a "masterpeice of modern horror."
It concerns the Torrance family, people who have had a rocky past but are desperately trying to mend their peices together again. Jack, the father, is a recovering alcoholic. Once, when his son danny spilled beer on some important papers, he yanked his child away, breaking his arm. His wife, Wendy, threatened to leave him and take Danny if anything remotely similar ever happened again. He promised, but continued drinking. He only stops when, while driving, crashes into a child's bicycle in the road late at night. He swears off liquor forever, but still has trouble controlling his temper. A student of his, George Hatfield, holds a grudge against Jack for throwing him off the debate team because of a particularly nasty stutter. Hatfield slashes Jack's car tires and Jack beats him up. Soon after, Jack is dismissed from his teaching position.
His friend and former drinking buddy Al gives him a chance and a job: as a caretaker for the Overlook Hotel during the winter season. He and his family would stay there and keep the hotel in shape until spring. Jack accepts.
Then, there is Danny. A boy of five, he is posessed of a power too great for him, a clairvoyant gift which allows him to see the past, present, and future with aid from a psychic guide named Tony. He can hear echoes of his parents' thoughts, and he knows when Jack gets the caretaking job. He also knows he is afraid of the hotel, but doesn't know why; his concern for his father overwhelms his resistance and fear.
At the Overlook, the Torrances meet a black man named Dick Halloran, whom Danny discovers shares his powers. Dick calls it "the shining," and warns Danny about the hotel. Like the Torrance family, the Overlook Hotel has had a checkered past, awash in blood and bad feelings. Dick tells Danny if he sees anything, any dark echoes of the hotels past, to close his eyes and remember that what he sees are like pictures in a book. He also says to call him psychically if there is any real trouble. Then, he takes off for Florida, leaving the Torrances alone.
At first, things seem fine. Then, Jack discovers the wasps' nest while removing old shingles from the roof. He kills the wasps and gives Danny the nest as a decoration. Later that night, the wasps come back.
This begins a series of events that domino darkly until the end. Danny gradually comes to discover that the hotel is really haunted. The images that should have stayed just that -- images -- are becoming flesh and bone, using Danny's extraordinary abilities against him. The spirits of the hotel use Jack even more overtly; first, by interesting him in the Overlook's past by leaving him a scrapbook detailing the hotel's bloody past, then by posessing him with its very darkness. The psychic guide Tony, who once showed Danny good things, now reveals the layers of the hotel's blackness, recurrently revealing the word "redrum". And there are also the hotel's unique horrors: the thing in the playground rings, the suddenly carniverous topiary animals, the living firehose, and the suicide victim in room 217, who teaches Danny his first lesson in the difference between spirits and reality in the novel's most terrifying sequence.
The hotel grows stronger, taking Jack into its fold. Eventually, as it is secure in its belief that Jack's sanity is pliable, it reveals itself to him fully. All times at the Overlook become one, and Jack is finally a part of it. They give him alcohol, and women, and tell him that he has always been the caretaker. But he will have to forfeit his position if he doesn't "correct" his family -- by killing them.
The final scenes are among King's most intense. Jack becomes the very face of evil as he chases down his son. Wendy is rendered helpless by Jack. The hotel flexes all its energies in trying to kill Danny in order to fully utilize his powers. The surprise and climax leaves the reader stunned and feverish. King has truly worked his magic here.
Many of King's later novels -- It, Misery, Pet Sematary, Dolores Claiborne, and The Dark Tower series as a whole in particular -- have been significant achievements in both King's oevre and in the modern literary world collectively, but The Shining is where King reached his pinnacle of terror. Not even the dark Pet Sematary could match the sheer force of the horrors, both real and spiritual, of King's masterpeice The Shining. If you've never tried King before, and want to know if all the hype is true, start here. You won't be disappointed.
I have a list of my Top Ten favorite King books. Many of the lower portions of the chart have changed over the years, as King has put out more and more quality literature. However, the top three have always remained the same: #1, It; #2, Misery; and #3, The Shining. I pick this one up usually once a year, and get scared out of my mind. The first two may be higher on the list, but this one's given me the most nightmares. I love this book, and highly reccomend it. You'll be scared out of your wits.
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