December's SK Flavor of the Month - The Shining

So The Shining will be our December read. I think that is a very good time to read about a spooky old snowed in hotel myself.

With Carrie and 'Salem's Lot we had threads for different sections of the book. 'Salem's Lot didn't draw a huge amount of discussion though, so I figure for this one we can probably just keep this one thread. Thoughts?

I think that's fine. If we see we need another thread, we can always start one. I hope to actually finish Salem's Lot today or tomorrow. Then I can post about it.

Within the next couple of days I'll hope to find the time to finish Desperation, which I'm currently reading. After that I'll start reading The Shining...

Not to derail the conversation from The Shining, but, oh, I loved Desperation! Tak!

I'll be starting The Shining once I finish (casts eyes downward in shame) the Doom movie novelization...

Started The Shining last night. Am up to the part where Halloran and Danny are in his car having a convo about shining, etc. He just about knocked Halloran's fillings out.

I'm up to the night of the wasps. I was so young when I read this book, and there's so much going on that I didn't get the first time around. What really happened with George Hatfield?!? Clearly Jack doesn't remember it accurately. Did the boy even stutter or was that something Jack did that he just projected?

I think he stuttered. Otherwise it seems Jack would have kept him because he was capable.

Just got through the moving topiary scene. Nicely done. Creepy frigging bushes.

I never looked at topiary the same after reading The Shining. I just KNOW I can see them moving.

The Shining is one of King's creepier books to me. I think it has to do with the family being cut off from everyone; they seem utterly helpless.

Wendy is especially helpless. She's the only one the hotel doesn't affect and she knows it, but is powerless against it.

I'm at the point where Danny is in Room 217. He keeps repeating what Halloran said that he thought the things MIGHT not be able to hurt him. It tortures Danny as much as the hotel manifestation itself.

Oh, and the bit with the firehose in the hall was extra creepy.

I'm just about to go start The Shining. I can't wait till I've caught up to you guys so I can get in on the discussion.

Okay, I'm about 85 pages in (Danny and Wendy have just met Dick Hallorann) and man, on his third (published) novel Stephen King is at the top of his game, isn't he?

I'm with you, jseger. Exact same page. Spooky, huh.

I've always thought The Shining is King's best book from a literary standpoint. It's not my personal favorite, and I think he has others that are faster-paced, more readable, more imaginative, and so on, but if you want to talk about issues depth and metaphor and character development, he's never better.

All by itself, the portrait of a dry drunk is absolutely remarkable.

I am to the point where Hallorann has just taken off in the plane. While I am enjoying the story it's repetitive now and we're just filling in time until the resolution. Yeah, Danny's scared. Yeah, Jack's hallucinating and going crazy. Yeah, there's some dead chick in room 217. Yeah, the topiaries move. Yeah, Wendy is helpless. We get it now get on with it.

Man, I feel so behind. Danny was at the doctors. The doc wants to talk to Jack and Wendy.

One bit I'd forgotten that has really struck me this time is Jack setting the timer ahead. Think he was jealous/envious of the kid? Or just plain mean?

Jack keeps talking about how he's just a nice guy when he isn't drunk. I wonder if he was just too messed up by his upbringing to ever really be a nice guy, no matter how hard he tries. How nice can he be when that violent, raging temper is always just beneath the surface?

He probably is a nice guy. I don't feel as strongly that he set the timer ahead. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Is Wendy that much of a sap that she would love Jack like she does if he were all asshole all the time?

Oh...and does anyone else only hear and see the movie people while reading? Nicholson & whats-her-face?

Actually, my new Jack interpretation makes me like the Jack Nicholson performance better. I think Jack is just delusional about himself. I believe he did set the timer back. I also kind of believe that the kid didn't really stutter--at least not as badly as Jack believes.

That whole relationship between Jack and George Hatfield is pretty well explained when he starts having trouble with the play, I think. That's the way he really felt about George Hatfield, but he couldn't admit it to himself because in his head he's always the nice guy and always the victim.

And I don't think he's always "an asshole." I just think there's a very thin veneer between Jack's behavior and a seething layer of rage. Alcohol strips that away. The Overlook strips it away so totally that he can't control himself anymore.

As for the movie characters, I so totally hated the casting that I can get away from it pretty well. I especially can't stand the movie Danny. As I said, though, I'm warming up a little to the Jack Nicholson performance.

Hm. maybe I didn't read as closely as I should have, sounds plausible. agreed that the overlook is stripping Jack's sanity and barriers. it's also stripping them for Danny who I agree was a bit of a twit in the movie.

#16 - Oh...and does anyone else only hear and see the movie people while reading? Nicholson & whats-her-face?

Shelly Duvall.

It's funny actually. Reading through The Shining now I'm realizing that the 'SK approved' miniseries from a few years back is much better than I thought.

Though the Stanley Kubrick movie clearly blows it out of the water as pure cinematic art, as I read I'm picturing Steven Weber, Rebecca De Mornay and Mario Van Peebles and the Stanley Hotel. Even the kid who played Danny is Danny in my mind. For the story King is telling in his book, they fit better.

I have not watched the mini-series and probably never will, but I do like the Kubrick version for what it is. Nicholson is unhinged and what's not to love about that?

for some reason I thought Duvall's portrayal was drippier than it needed to be, but upon re-re-reading, Wendy is just as soppy and dishraggy in the book. spot on, I say.

Give me the bat, Wendy.

I envision Nickelson as Jack and the guy that played Halloren as Halloren but my mind has given me its own people for Wendy and Danny. I couldn't stand Duval and the terrible actor that played Danny.

Hallorann = Scatman Crothers. Brilliant casting IMO.

That's funny. For me, the movie had pitch perfect casting for what it was doing. All the actors were iconic in ther roles (even the kid, who I think did a very good job).

It's just that those characters are so far removed from the ones King has in the book that it is difficult for me to see Jack Nicholson crying and calling Danny 'honey'.

I guess the miniseries actors worked so well for me because King wrote both the book and the mini-series, using it as an opportunity to tell 'his side of the story' if you see what I mean. The actors are closer to what he envisioned when he created the character and the Stanely is the real Overlook.

Having said that, the movie is incredible. I don't even see the mini-series as a remake. Kubrik's Shining is so far removed from King's that I think of them as two separate things.

Anybody ever hear about the hell Kubrick put Shelly Duvall through during filming? It made for a brillant performance, but she hated his guts as they were filmng.

I've heard that Kubrick was a dick to work for, but not this story in particular. Do tell.

I never heard of this story. Tell us.

#24 - I've heard that Kubrick was a dick to work for, but not this story in particular. Do tell.

Oh! I don't remember all the details, but there's a short documentary on the DVD that he allowed his daughter to shoot. Shots of Kubrick screaming at Shelly, just being cruel.

There's also a documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures done just a few years ago where Shelly Duvall talks about what it was like to work with him. You could tell that even though she's proud of her work in the movie that she still hates him, dead or no. The funny thing is Jack Nicholson said Stanley Kubrick was great to work with, but that he became a totally different person when he was directing her. One of her scenes with the baseball bat was filmed 127 different times. (I just remembered, it was the scene with her standing outside the locker after she locked Jack in.)

I'm pretty sure he was trying to browbeat her and totally break her down which is how he got that excellent performance from her at the end. She must have lived through some of the crap Wendy did.

I agree that Scatman Crothers was absolutely perfect. I also agree that the film is so completely different from the book that it's an entity in itself. It should almost have had a different title.

My biggest problem with the film, even considering it completely separately from the book, is that Nicholson and Duvall have absolutely zero chemistry, which I think raises motivation issues early in the film. When they're in the car at the beginning, it's hard to believe she would choose to isolate herself with this crazy man. She doesn't seem to care about him at all. But then, I have that problem with Kubrick as a director. He's a very cold director--human emotion doesn't seem to figure into his universe much.

One thing that is really great about the Kubrick film, though, is the scale of the Overlook. Everything is so huge. There's a very real sense of how a place can be both claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time. But then, Kubrick always does that exceptionally well--2001, which conveys the emptiness of space so well, is a very agoraphobic film.

Okay, I've just read from 'The Front Porch' (right after Danny was chased by the hedge animals) through the end of part four (Danny just called Dick).

I think the part where Jack smacks Danny was the turning point. Where 'I'm trying to be a nice guy' Jack is finally tilted into the 'defend the hotel at all costs' Jack. He was slipping before hand. Doing things he shouldn't, but then he seemd to be able to come back from the edge. Now that he's smacked Danny though, he's changed. There was that moment when he was talking to Wendy right after, but it slipped away and he's the Overlook's now.

Any opinions?

Yah, that's about right, but I think he still has some moments of clarity in the pantry, doesn't he? Then when "Grady" lets him out, he goes over the cliffs of insanity.

Oh, I haven't gotten that far yet! (Not that I haven't read th book before or anything.)

Finished.

I found the ending to be sort of rushed as compared to the drawn-out buildup. Jack is menacing though and those parts are effective. when he whacks Hallorann a good one I cringed. The brutality is more effective in some ways than the movie and I completely forgot that the book ends differently.

Has anyone else finished?

Oh! Just about!
Hallorann is driving the Arctic Cat and Jack and Wendy just duked it out on the stairs. Fortry pages left!

Finished The Shining. I'm whipping up (and winnowing down) a review now. It isn't my favorite King book, but I can admit that it is probably his best book as far as how well the characters, themes and story all meshed together and supported each other.

I agree with Bookmarque that the ending felt rushed.

I am intrigued with the whole 'decent into madness' thing. It's unnerving to see the changes in the characters, whether they are expected or not.

The ending wasn't quite right for me either. I actually preferred the movie's ending.

I wonder if the ending feels rushed because the pace falters so much right before that. I know he's trying to create suspense, but for over a hundred pages there near the end, I think the pace goes fairly dead. Where you should be reading at break-neck speed, everything slows to a crawl. I too think the ultimate climax feels very rushed, but I wonder if it's not just more on pace with the excellent first half of the book. Is that just me?

Seems like King got much better as he got older at stretching out the climax without killing the pace--think of The Dead Zone, for instance.

I don't think the book slowed to a crawl, but thinking about it, it took me a lot longer to read than usual. Maybe you have something there.

One thing (I think) King got much better at is keeping a key bit of info from the reader to build the suspense. I can't think of any examples right now, but he does it quite a bit. I wonder if that is what he was aiming for with 'You will remember what was forgotten...'

He did handle that pretty well with 'redrum' (though Stanley Kubrick's movie has since burned that into all our brains) and the secret of Tony.

Something I just thought of: Why would Tony show Danny 'redrum'? In the movie it made sense, because we were shown the same vision and he was looking at a mirror. In the book, it isn't so clear.

It's funny, but even on my first reading as a teenager, I knew what the thing that was forgotten was.

Yeah, that's what I meant. I knew what 'what was forgotten...' was all along. But in his later books he got much better about hiding that kind of stuff in plain sight.

Finished the book last night and I have to say, it's not one of my favorites. I agree that the ending sort of dragged, even though there was so much build-up going into it. I also was not into the violence, Jack vs. Wendy, Jack vs. Hallorann, etc. There was nothing scary about that to me, those scenes mainly managed to gross me out.

But not that I hated the book or anything, it's just not one of my personal favorites of his, or something I would rush to read again anytime soon!

I am watching the Kubrick version of The Shining again after many, many years. I just watched the part where Danny sees the twins in the hallway. I didn't remember it as well as I thought and I also confused it with the remake. I forgot how well the boy who played Danny was. It was the Danny in the remake that I didn't like. An older, wiser (I hope) me really appreciates Duvalls performance, too. The under tones are so dark and smothering. I can't wait to finish it.

"Come play with us."

I think those little girls are by far Kubrick's best contribution to The Shining legacy. I also think the hedge maze--especially the scene where Jack is looking into the model maze and it morphs into the living maze with Danny and Wendy inside it--was an inspired addition.

You are so right, Bentley. I usually don't care for movies that change from the book but Kubrick's additions and changes are indeed good. One change that I did like was that the violence was implied, where in the book it was obvious. I think it is more disturbing because your mind has free rein.

Hate to admit it, but I liked Kubrick's vision of the Overlook more than the Stanley Hotel that was the real inspiration. Kubrick's Overlook was both beutiful and deeply unsettling.

Kubrick's Overlook kind of blended in to it's surroundings like it was hiding. The Stanley is huge and in your face.

Never read the book but have seen the film plenty of times. The two don't compare. Kubrick made so many changes and created such an iconic film, a rare classic of the genre, that it as good as ruined the reading experience for me. I think Kubrick's film is so iconic that it almost ruins the reading experience. The book doesn't stand up to the film at all, it's so different but it's also lacking in terms of quality. I know some people don't think so but take a look at this discussion - just as much about the film. Can't think of too many instances where that would happen.

Trying my best to evaluate the book on its own terms - it's not great. It has some very creepy scenes but the pacing is all wrong (not just the ending; Jack's leap from stressed-and-wanting-a-drink to hotel-talking-to-him was too sudden, too forced). Jack is too horrible to be the book's flawed hero, it doesn't work, he's too abusive (Kubrick got it right, he more or less made Jack the baddie). The boiler ticking away, the hotel blowing up, was too much - the ghosts and tricks of the hotel were more than enough to send a man mad/as a metaphor for madness (Kubrick pared it right down). King threw it all in there, it seemed a bit desperate and hysterical to me (Kubrick didn't). See? That bloody film again!

That said, it was SO different from the film that I don't quite trust my judgement on this one, so I'm going to re-read it in a year or two and see what I make of it then. I knew it differed from the film; it took me aback to see how much.

#45 - People talk nostalgically about 'early Stephen King' when what they really mean 'not so wordy Stephen King'. Makes you wonder though if The Shining might have benefited from being longer and less forced, doesn't it?

And I agree with you about the film. So different from the book, but such a masterpiece. I guess Kubrick adapting your work must have been an honor and a curse. He was known from straying from the source material, yet he was such a genius that whatever he's done will likely overshadow his source.

>46 jseger9000::
Being longer and less forced, maybe, especially where Jack was concerned. That's where this book was weakest, for me.