Book Reviews

     The Shining is a classic horror novel written by Stephen King.  King is known for many books such as Carrie, Cujo, and IT.  Many of his books are known to be terrifying, and The Shining is no exception.  This novel follows a family of three roaming an isolated Colorado hotel in the middle of winter.  As time goes on, the stress of keeping up with the furnace, potential ghosts, and being sober causes Jack Torrence to begin to lose it. King uses everyone’s thoughts and points of view to tell the story, making it hard to pick out exactly who the main character is. Although this novel is in the horror genre, King has stated that he set out to write a tragedy, meaning that because all the characters love one another the ending is tragic. Let’s discuss the plot, scariest scenes, and characters and find out why this book is a classic. 

     The novel’s plot is set at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado in the middle of winter. Jack Torrence got the job of taking care of the hotel while everyone else left for the winter. There is only one road to and from the hotel, making the isolation extremely hard to ignore. Jack brought his wife, Wendy, and his son, Danny, to join him in the hopes of making the loneliness less of a problem. With writer’s block and recently becoming sober, Jack begins to start hallucinating people in the hotel with them, spirits of the hotel’s past. Danny can see them too, but usually, he shows dreamlike visions from his imaginary friend named Tony. Many of these dreams were of the hotel, usually all the same, the word redrum flashing in his head and a monster lurking in the halls yelling at Danny to take his medicine. This plot seems scary, but I wasn’t expecting this story to become as horrific as it did. The slow destruction of a family is unnerving. The subtle hints of domestic abuse and a person you thought you could love and trust trying to kill you in a place that has no escape are grim. I believe the way that Stephen King writes is very powerful and makes this simple plot terrifying.

     My favorite thing about this book is that we get to see everyone’s point of view. In some chapters, it is written as if Jack is telling the story, but in others, it is one of the other characters. Each could have been separated into their own books and still have been just as good. In the chapters you read as Jack you get to watch a man descend into madness. This descent is gradual and impressively written. In the beginning, we learn of Jack’s back story, that he was a drunk who broke Danny’s arm in a moment of rage and swore to never touch alcohol again. The reason Jack needed this new job at the Overlook Hotel was that he was fired from his teaching job for beating a student in the parking lot. We see hints of abuse and spurts of rage as the book goes on. Jack’s anger becomes harder to hide, and instead of taking accountability for it, he blames everyone around him. This will lead to the maddened Jack Torrence we see at the end of the book. Wendy’s point of view does a good job of showing the other parent’s perspective in a domestically abusive relationship. We watch how she contemplates leaving Jack but chooses to ignore the acts of abuse to avoid upsetting Danny. She constantly tells herself that Jack is getting better and trying to stay good, but the longer they spend in the hotel the harder it is for Wendy to ignore the inevitable violence Jack will do. Danny sees this story in a very childlike way. He somewhat understands the situation that his father and mother are in but not fully. You see Danny blames himself for Jack breaking his arm because he made a mess of Jack’s office that day. Danny’s perspective is a little different from Jack and Wendy’s. Danny has these sorts of visions, he passes out in his head and follows his imaginary friend Tony. Tony shows up many times throughout the book, he seems to be almost a guardian angel for Danny. He is also our biggest source of foreshadowing. Tony shows Danny images of the hotel before Danny has even walked into the place. But these visions are not as sweet as we may think, these visions are sent from Tony as a warning. The word Redrum flashes in Danny’s mind and he is sent images of a scary monster that he can not make out swinging a mallet and yelling in the halls. As the book goes on we see that these visions are of Jack and the violence that will come soon after the snow that falls and traps them inside. I believe this style of writing could easily become too messy and could make the reader confused but Stephen King does it brilliantly. It keeps you engaged and almost feeling some sort of empathy for all the characters throughout the novel. 

     There were a couple of scenes in The Shining that gave me chills as I read them. The first one that was hard to read was the description of the moment Jack broke Danny’s arm in his office. Throughout the book, you hear all three perspectives on it but, to me, Jack’s seems the worst. It is horrifying to listen to Jack describe the sound the arm made and how easy it was for him to do it. The worst part for me was not just the description of the sound the young child’s arm made but the way that Jack felt after. Instead of taking any of the blame he claims it is a variety of reasons that weren’t because of him. He blames alcohol, Danny’s immaturity, and an array of other things, but never just himself. The guilt he does carry is soon smothered with the overwhelming feeling of anger. This scene is disturbing to me because the victim of this abuse was a child and as the story goes we see Danny’s point of view that he still loves his father despite this “accident”. The way King can depict and accurately describe all sides of abuse is astonishing and eye-opening. 

     Another one of my favorite scenes is when Jack is trimming the animal-shaped hedges. This is just another one of his duties at the hotel while everyone is away. The introduction to the supernatural hedges is slow as Jack only thinks he sees something. As he goofs around on the playground alone he hears a noise behind him, at first, he does not realize what is out of place but notes that he has goosebumps. It soon becomes clear that some of the hedges have moved. The two lion-shaped hedges have blocked Jack’s path back to the hotel, and the other three seem to have joined them and are in attack mode. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again the hedges have gone back to normal. The encounters with these hedges in the book only get more and more terrifying and are the scariest scenes in the book in my opinion. 

    The Shining is a great book that I would recommend to anyone who likes the horror genre. It is written very well and has so much more than the things that I have mentioned. I think the best way to appreciate this book would be to read it yourself. If you have the time and enjoy a scary read, take a shot with The Shining by Stephen King. Because this book is well-written and depicts domestic violence with a mix of supernatural elements I give it a 4 out of 5. It is not my all-time favorite but I think it is a novel I’ll remember and might even enjoy reading again.