‘Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters…’
As Stanley Kubrick’s unassailable adaptation of The Shining has been one of my favourite films for as long as I can remember, I’ve never given Stephen King’s source material a fair shake. Until this re-read, I’d only read King’s third novel once, and a long time ago at that. How foolish I have been. Upon returning to it this time, it is clear that The Shining is not only one of King’s best novels, it might actually be his best…
We know the plot by now. The Torrance family, licking their wounds after alcoholic patriarch Jack lost his job, arrive at the remote Overlook Hotel so Jack can dry out and work as a caretaker while hopefully finishing his long gestating play at the same time. Danny, Jack’s son, has powerful psychic abilities and Wendy, the matriarch, lives in a constant state of fear that her husband will start drinking again or that she’ll eventually turn into her nasty and vindictive mother (or both). Upon arrival at the Overlook, it becomes clear that the hotel has many ghosts, and those ghosts are hungry.
King famously hated Kubrick’s adaptation and it’s easy to see why. Jack Torrance, a cipher for King’s own addiction problems and his feelings of inadequacy, is one of his best drawn characters. The Torrance family as a unit are wholly authentic and the quiet desperation that drives Jack’s actions throughout much of the novel will be familiar to anyone who has lived a hand to mouth existence. In the film, however, Jack never feels like a man who loves his family and is trying his best who is then corrupted by a sinister supernatural force. Instead, it feels as if the Torrance family were doomed from the start. Aside from that, the film is remarkably similar to the source material, entire sections of dialogue are lifted wholesale, with a set piece involving some hedge animals coming to life, and another with a wasp nest the only real difference between the two. But while both versions of the story are broadly similar, Kubrick, a filmmaker known for his detachment and lack of emotional warmth, removes the heartbeat but replaces it with something arguably more profound – the cold indifference of evil.
The Shining is an incredible book, not just because it’s so personal, but also because it’s beautifully written, it’s uncharacteristically concise and it still has the power to shock even decades later. Returning to the book as a father myself added an extra element to Jack’s breakdown and Danny’s reaction to it, once again confirming that the only critic that matters is time. This is a book that rivals anything that King has written before or since – a true horror masterpiece.