Reading Notes

I've meant to get to a Stephen King novel for some time. It feels like a notable gap in my literary knowledge, particularly because I know he deals with a lot op topics I'm interested in: small towns, the supernatural, etc. etc. With The Shining probably being my favorite film of all time, this felt like a good one to start with.

I'm enjoying the additional detail on Jack, Wendy, and Danny, their thoughts as we approach the Overlook. Danny and Wendy already aware that this is not going to be good. I think it's interesting how we haven't really gotten into Jack's head yet. At least in terms of the Overlook job. Just the constant I need a drink and I hope I don't kill my whole family, that'd suck. But he doesn't seem to, at least as of yet, have too many thoughts on the Overlook itself.

Didn't like the mind blast Danny did at Halloran. Thought that got a bit silly. I prefer when the shining is a weirdo telepathy feeling the vibrations sort of thing. Don't want or need an explanation for it. Halloran saying yeah I've got it as well and there are one or two others I've known that do is nearly as much explanation as I really want. Don't like when the shining can be used to hurt someone else. Gets a bit too far into X-Men territory for my liking.

Review

I enjoyed the Shining. It was a fairly breezy read, King's stuff does not appear to be particularly dense seemingly. Most of my thoughts are in comparing the book to the film. Which is impossible for me not to do given the film is probably my favorite movie of all time.

I knew going in that King had scruples with the film. I could not recall his specific reasons, but I knew they sounded to my ears very flimsy. And now having read the book, I do think any complaints are pretty silly. The vast majority of changes from book to film aren't even something I would describe as a good change or a bad change. Rather, they're just very typical things that would happen whenever you're adapting a book into a film. Getting rid of extraneous details, dropping some tertiary characters, condensing events. The vast majority of differences really are in that vein. So there's little opportunity for meaningful complaint.

I will however, go through the more substantial changes, for good or ill. I'll start with things I liked in the book. I liked the extra detail we get in terms of Jack's mindset. He's a proper crazy bastard of course. But we do go into much more detail as to why he is the way he is. Getting to know how much his shitty abusive father shaped him. You get more of a sense in the book that he genuinely is struggling with the Overlook making him worse. The near constant "God I need a drink" was annoying to read, but does serve the purpose of seeing him slip down in to the darkness before we get to Redrum. In addition, I like his delving into the Overlook's history as gateway for the Overlook getting its hooks into him. It's a natural thing to cut in the film because it's directly in that area of extraneous details that you've gotta start cutting to get down to 90 minutes. So I would say between book and film, he fared the worst in terms of lost detail that did add to his character. Jack Nicholson of course gives him more than enough life that it's not a concern, I just enjoyed getting into his head.

Wendy and Denny, conversely, are nearly identical book to film. Each had more detail to them. We learn some of Wendy's family situation. And with Danny, he has a lot more agency given how much of the book is actually from his perspective. But I think their film adaptations pretty well cover all of the important parts of their characters. Shelly Duvall in particular did a great job of embodying Wendy. Wendy is interesting given the character spends months being compared to Jack's shitty mother who happily endured his father's abuse until he was beating her nearly to death. She is called every bad word in the book and I think Duvall acted that well. Appearing as the weak and ineffective wife, but having the strength to protect her son when push came to shove.

In terms of plot, the majority of the book pretty closely aligned with the film. Again, we get more detail of Jack delving into the Overlook's history in the book. But other than that and a trip or two to Sidewinder before the big winter, it's pretty one-to-one. Where we do properly begin to diverge is once we get to Redrum. After Jack gets eaten by the Overlook and is now the slobbering screaming goon we know and love, we have a confrontation with him and Wendy. And then him and Danny. Shit between Jack and Wendy gets violent as hell. Like I know Shining the film has violence. But it is a lot to go from the two ostensibly loving each other to Jack hitting her with a hammer until her ribs and vertebrae are breaking. I did find the whole mallet thing we were doing to be a bit silly, though we do subvert that silliness with the Oh factor of it being used so violently with Wendy and nearly braining Dick Hallorann.

In the book, after Jack leaves Wendy behind to go try and kill Hallorann (he lives in the book) who's just arrived, we have the confrontation with Danny. We get bits and pieces of the ghosts in the film, but in the book we camp out on the fact that in the Overlook, people from very different time periods have been trapped here. One of those time periods included a masked ball. So we periodically hear people saying "Unmask! Unmask!" at midnight. It gets compared to Poe's The Masque of the Red Death. Danny's big character moment after he realizes what Tony is, is he sees the ghosts of the Overlook for what they are. He calls them masks that the Manager/Overlook wears. I like this little bit of characterization the hotel gets. I like the idea of never really seeing the thing behind the mask and all the people that the hotel has eaten become these hollow masks that it wears for its own purposes. We of course gets some of that in the film with the picture at the end, showing how Jack has become a part of the hotel after freezing to death. But I just think it's an interesting idea.

Another bit that I liked is when Danny is having this confrontation with Jack, when he realizes that his father has already been eaten by the Overlook and is effectively dead and only a mask, the Manager/Overlook does this creepy thing where it uses that damn mallet to have Jack bash his own face in until it's unrecognizable. It then talks to Danny directly. The self-mutilation is pretty creepo and the idea of a father doing that in front of his own son is good.

That's where we do the big divergence in terms of plot. In the film, we go out to the hedge maze around this point. No hedge maze in the book (though I have more to say on hedges). Throughout the book one of the things Jack has to regularly do is fuck with the hotel's old boiler. Otherwise it'll blow up. In he book, he's been Redrumming it up for a while and Danny points that out. The Jack creature rushes down to the basement. Danny, Wendy, and Hallorann make their escape. Jack gets blasted with scalding steam (he proper gets put through the meat grinder in the book) and the boiler blows, burning down the hotel.

I much prefer the Kubrick set of events here. The hotel blowing up is too over the top for me. I like that Danny gets the chance to confront his father in the book. It's a nice character moment that he doesn't really get a chance to do in the film. But the hedge maze is much tidier. It visually represents Jack getting lost in the maze of his mind as he goes crazier and crazier. It allows Danny that little moment of intelligence, doubling back on his tracks and covering them up in the snow. And I think the hotel blowing up/burning down feels a little Saturday morning cartoon.

Another thing I quite disliked because I think it's just dumb, as some red meat if anyone feels I've been too nice to King, is the hedge animals. So Kubrick invented the hedge maze. In the book there were, however, hedge animals. And in the book they come to life. At first it seems its just going to be a hallucination. They work like Weeping Angels. Jack sees them first, and it's an early sign that things are not going well in his head. They move when he's not looking at them. And he's like oh jesus I'm losing my fucking mind. Later on, though, they physically attack Danny. So even if hallucination, they can kill. And once Hallorann gets to the Overlook, he gets nearly got by a lion one. I didn't like it at all. It felt super corny and ick and did not creep me out in the slightest. Additionally, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy is a Kubrick. We never see what he's written in the book. I can totally imagine that pissing King off. "Why the FUCK didn't I think of that?!"

Overall, it's a fine book. It didn't completely sweep me off my feet, but it was an easy read and I enjoy the general story. I'll probably read more from King at some point.