Book Review of the Shining by Stephen King

While many are more familiar with the Stanley Kubrick film of 1980, it is really the King novel that should be placed first in the minds of the literary and film-going public.

While there is little debate that Kubrick's adaptation starring Jack Nicholson is a marvelous example of horror filmmaking, it has much to thank Stephen King for the original themes of isolation, alcoholism, and mental illness.

Written only three years prior to the films release, King tells the story of Jack Torrance, a temperamental and sometime alcoholic writer who is attempting to rebuild his family after being expelled from the prestigious New England prep school. He decides to take a job as the winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel in an isolated area of Colorado.

There, he and his wife Wendy and small son, Danny will spend 5 months alone in the sprawling hotel. His son's telepathy and visions spell trouble for the family, as he is bombarded with negative and disturbing imagery of the hotel and its grounds. Said to be built on an Indian burial ground and possessing strange powers, the Overlook took the lives of the last caretaker that worked the winter, a Delbert Grady.

The man, filled with rage and slowly going insane, kills his wife and children with an axe, and then proceeds to shoot himself.

Jack dismisses this as an isolated incident, and knows that the secluded winter at the Overlook with be the perfect time to get his writing career back on track.

Before they leave, Danny is introduced to the hotel's cook, Dick Halloran, who tells him that others (including himself) have the ability to see things before they happen. He calls this "shining". Before he leaves the family, he tells Danny to shine to him if anything goes wrong (which Dick knew would inevitably happen).

With lack of alcohol and the crushing sense of isolation, paired with the monotony of his writing, Jack begins getting wrapped up in the ghost world of the hotel. He makes friends with the Overlook's bartender (who is long dead) and Delbert Grady (who does not remember killing his family).

Wendy and Danny notice his decline, and after one particularly violent episode, they lock him in the walk-in pantry. Unbeknownst to them, he is let out by the ghost of Delbert Grady, but on the condition that he will kill Wendy and Danny. He complies, and goes on a mission to hunt them down in the hotel.

Danny shines to Dick Halloran, who races up from Florida (where he is staying for the winter). Jack ends up in the boiler room of the hotel and the Overlook explodes, burning everything inside. Luckily, Danny and Wendy are rescued by a fast-thinking Halloran who drives them away from the burning wreckage.

Many believe that King has failed in later years, but as his third novel (after Carrie and Salem's Lot) The Shining remains a mainstay of horror fiction.