The Shining

Whenever I read a Stephen King book I am almost already enthralled by it, and I try to look at what makes it so compelling. Is it the prose? It's usually solid enough, but there aren't any specific passages or turns of phrase that jump to mind. Is it the characters? Again, solid. Serviceable. They are sympathetic or despicable or whatever else they need to be and often pretty archetypical, they serve the story well. Is it the plot/ideas? This is probably a bit stronger than the other areas as his books generally have pretty interesting premises, but I'd argue that is mostly his later books that have the more clear elevator pitch high concept plots.

So then I think what really works for me is the pacing and execution. The tension builds and the story unfolds with nary a wasted scene. Information is doled out to the reader and held back in equal measure to keep the pages turning. It's just really fun to read (or in my case, listen to, as I think his style is perfect for audiobooks).

It's hard not to think about this book outside the context of the movie. Reading it, I pictured the hotel from the movie, but I didn't really picture the characters the same way. I remember reading that King was upset with Kubrick's take on The Shining, and one of the reasons is that from frame one Jack Nicholson looks mentally unhinged. I thought that was fine in the movie, but having read the book I totally understand. Jack Torrance in the book is sympathetic, he's had some struggles and is trying to piece his life back together and be a better person. As we spend more time with him we realize that maybe he is an unreliable narrator and maybe his motives aren't as clear as he would like us to think they are, but perhaps he's still a redeemable hero? Anyways, the character is much more complex in the book than in the movie certainly, so the book feels familiar but fresh at the same time. I'm glad I read it!

A final note: King's weird adolescent obsession with sex so strangely stands out to me in this book and others of his. He'll just describe things in a suggestive way or have explicit sexual references as kind of window dressing that feels so out of place. I'll give him a little bit of credit and say it does add to the unsettling feeling of a lot of his stories, but I think that's a bit of a stretch in a lot of cases.