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The Shining

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The Shining Kindle Edition

by Stephen King (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Book 1 of 2: The Shining

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Before Doctor Sleep, there was The Shining, a classic of modern American horror from the undisputed master, Stephen King.

Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.

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The Shining
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June 24, 2008
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She had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there was nothing physically wrong.
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“You shine on, boy. Harder than anyone I ever met in my life. And I’m sixty years old this January.”
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If brains was black powder he couldn’t blow his own nose. It’s a pity the things you see when you ain’t got a gun.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A master storyteller.” —Los Angeles Times

“Scary! . . . Serves up horrors at a brisk, unflagging pace.” —The New York Times

“This chilling novel will haunt you, and make your blood run cold and your heart race with fear.” —Nashville Banner

“Guaranteed to frighten you into fits. . . . with a climax that is literally explosive.” —Cosmopolitan

“The most wonderfully gruesome man on the planet.” —USA Today

“An undisputed master of suspense and terror.” —The Washington Post

“[King] probably knows more about scary goings-on in confined, isolated places than anybody since Edgar Allan Poe.” —Entertainment Weekly

“He’s the author who can always make the improbable so scary you’ll feel compelled to check the locks on the front door.” —The Boston Globe

“Peerless imagination.” —The Observer (London)

Review

The New York Times Horror at an unflagging pace....scary!

Nashville Banner This chilling novel will haunt you, and make your blood run cold and your heart race with fear.

Cosmopolitain Guaranteed to frighten you into fits....freezing terror....with a climax tha is literally explosive. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpted from Chapter One

Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.

Ullman stood five-five, and when he moved, it was with the prissy speed that seems to be the exclusive domain of all small plump men. The part in his hair was exact, and his dark suit was sober but comforting. I am a man you can bring your problems to, that suit said to the paying customer. To the hired help it spoke more curtly: This had better be good, you. There was a red carnation in the lapel, perhaps so that no one on the street would
mistake Stuart Ullman for the local undertaker.

As he listened to Ullman speak, Jack admitted to himself that he probably could not have liked any man on that side of the desk—under the circumstances.

Ullman had asked a question he hadn’t caught. That was bad; Ullman was the type of man who would file such lapses away in a mental Rolodex for later consideration.

“I’m sorry?”

“I asked if your wife fully understood what you would be taking on here. And there’s your son, of course.” He glanced down at the application in front of him. “Daniel. Your wife isn’t a bit intimidated by the idea?”

“Wendy is an extraordinary woman.”

“And your son is also extraordinary?”

Jack smiled, a big wide PR smile. “We like to think so, I suppose. He’s quite self-reliant for a five-year-old.”

No returning smile from Ullman. He slipped Jack’s application back into a file. The file went into a drawer. The desk top was now completely bare except for a blotter, a telephone, a Tensor lamp, and an in/out basket. Both sides of the in/out were empty, too.

Ullman stood up and went to the file cabinet in the corner. “Step around the desk, if you will, Mr. Torrance. We’ll look at the hotel floor plans.”

He brought back five large sheets and set them down on the glossy walnut plane of the desk. Jack stood by his shoulder, very much aware of the scent of Ullman’s cologne. All my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all came into his mind for no reason at all, and he had to clamp his tongue between his teeth to keep in a bray of laughter. Beyond the wall, faintly, came the sounds of the Overlook Hotel’s kitchen, gearing down from lunch.

“Top floor,” Ullman said briskly. “The attic. Absolutely nothing up there now but bric-a-brac. The Overlook has changed hands several times since World War II and it seems that each successive manager has put everything they don’t want up in the attic. I want rattraps and poison bait sowed around in it. Some of the third-floor chambermaids say they have heard rustling noises. I don’t believe it, not for a moment, but there mustn’t even be that one-in-a-hundred chance that a single rat inhabits the Overlook Hotel.”

Jack, who suspected that every hotel in the world had a rat or two, held his tongue.

“Of course you wouldn’t allow your son up in the attic under any circumstances.”

“No,” Jack said, and flashed the big PR smile again. Humiliating situation. Did this officious little prick actually think he would allow his son to goof around in a rattrap attic full of junk furniture and God knew what else?

Ullman whisked away the attic floor plan and put it on the bottom of the pile.

“The Overlook has one hundred and ten guest quarters,” he said in a scholarly voice. “Thirty of them, all suites, are here on the third floor. Ten in the west wing (including the Presidential Suite), ten in the center, ten more in the east wing. All of them command magnificent views.”

Could you at least spare the salestalk?

But he kept quiet. He needed the job.

Ullman put the third floor on the bottom of the pile and they studied the second floor.
“Forty rooms,” Ullman said, “thirty doubles and ten singles. And on the first floor, twenty of each. Plus three linen closets on each floor, and a storeroom which is at the extreme east end of the hotel on the second floor and the extreme west end on the first. Questions?”

Jack shook his head. Ullman whisked the second and first floors away.

“Now. Lobby level. Here in the center is the registration desk. Behind it are the offices. The lobby runs for eighty feet in either direction from the desk. Over here in the west wing is the Overlook Dining Room and the Colorado Lounge. The banquet and ballroom facility is in the east wing. Questions?”

“Only about the basement,” Jack said. “For the winter caretaker, that’s the most important level of all. Where the action is, so to speak.”

“Watson will show you all that. The basement floor plan is on the boiler room wall.” He frowned impressively, perhaps to show that as manager, he did not concern himself with such mundane aspects of the Overlook’s operation as the boiler and the plumbing. “Might not be a bad idea to put some traps down there too. Just a minute...”

He scrawled a note on a pad he took from his inner coat pocket (each sheet bore the legend From the Desk of Stuart Ullman in bold black script), tore it off, and dropped it into the out basket. It sat there looking lonesome. The pad disappeared back into Ullman’s jacket pocket like the conclusion of a magician’s trick. Now you see it, Jacky-boy, now you don’t. This guy is a real heavyweight.

They had resumed their original positions, Ullman behind the desk and Jack in front of it, interviewer and interviewee, supplicant and reluctant patron. Ullman folded his neat little hands on the desk blotter and looked directly at Jack, a small, balding man in a banker’s suit and a quiet gray tie. The flower in his lapel was balanced off by a small lapel pin on the other side. It read simply STAFF in small gold letters.

“I’ll be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Torrance. Albert Shockley is a powerful man with a large interest in the Overlook, which showed a profit this season for the first time in its history. Mr. Shockley also sits on the Board of Directors, but he is not a hotel man and he would be the first to admit this. But he has made his wishes in this caretaking matter quite obvious. He wants you hired. I will do so. But if I had been given a free hand in this matter, I would not have taken you on.”

Jack’s hands were clenched tightly in his lap, working against each other, sweating. Officious little prick, officious little prick, officious—

“I don’t believe you care much for me, Mr. Torrance. I don’t care. Certainly your feelings toward me play no part in my own belief that you are not right for the job. During the season that runs from May fifteenth to September thirtieth, the Overlook employs one hun- dred and ten people full-time; one for every room in the hotel, you might say. I don’t think many of them like me and I suspect that some of them think I’m a bit of a bastard. They would be correct in their judgment of my character. I have to be a bit of a bastard to run this hotel in the manner it deserves.”

He looked at Jack for comment, and Jack flashed the PR smile again, large and insultingly toothy.

Ullman said: “The Overlook was built in the years 1907 to 1909. The closest town is Sidewinder, forty miles east of here over roads that are closed from sometime in late October or November until sometime in April. A man named Robert Townley Watson built it, the grandfather of our present maintenance man. Vanderbilts have stayed here, and Rockefellers, and Astors, and Du Ponts. Four Presidents have stayed in the Presidential Suite. Wilson, Harding, Roosevelt, and Nixon.”

“I wouldn’t be too proud of Harding and Nixon,” Jack murmured.

Ullman frowned but went on regardless. “It proved too much for Mr. Watson, and he sold the hotel in 1915. It was sold again in 1922, in 1929, in 1936. It stood vacant until the end of World War II, when it was purchased and completely renovated by Horace Derwent, millionaire inventor, pilot, film producer, and entrepreneur.”

“I know the name,” Jack said.

“Yes. Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold... except the Overlook. He funneled over a million dollars into it before the first postwar guest ever stepped through its doors, turning a decrepit relic into a show- place. It was Derwent who added the roque court I saw you admiring when you arrived.”

“Roque? ”

“A British forebear of our croquet, Mr. Torrance. Croquet is bastardized roque. According to legend, Derwent learned the game from his social secretary and fell completely in love with it. Ours may be the finest roque court in America.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Jack said gravely. A roque court, a topiary full of hedge animals out front, what next? A life-sized Uncle Wiggily game behind the equipment shed? He was getting very tired of Mr. Stuart Ullman, but he could see that Ullman wasn’t done. Ullman was going to have his say, every last word of it.

“When he had lost three million, Derwent sold it to a group of California investors. Their experience with the Overlook was equally bad. Just not hotel people.

“In 1970, Mr. Shockley and a group of his associates bought the hotel and turned its management over to me. We have also run in the red for several years, but I’m happy to say that the trust of the present owners in me has never wavered. Last year we broke even. And this year the Overlook’s accounts were written in black ink for the first time in almost seven decades.”

Jack supposed that this fussy little man’s pride was justified, and then his original dislike washed over him again in a wave.

He said: “I see no connection between the Overlook’s admittedly colorful history and your feeling that I’m wrong for the post, Mr. Ullman.”

“One reason that the Overlook has lost so much money lies in the depreciation that occurs each winter. It shortens the profit margin a great deal more than you might believe, Mr. Torrance. The winters are fantastically cruel. In order to cope with the problem, I’ve installed a full-time winter caretaker to run the boiler and to heat different parts of the hotel on a daily rotating basis. To repair breakage as it occurs and to do repairs, so the elements can’t get a foothold. To be constantly alert to any and every contingency. During our first winter I hired a family instead of a single man. There was a tragedy. A horrible tragedy.”

Ullman looked at Jack coolly and appraisingly.

“I made a mistake. I admit it freely. The man was a drunk.”

Jack felt a slow, hot grin—the total antithesis of the toothy PR grin—stretch across his mouth. “Is that it? I’m surprised Al didn’t tell you. I’ve retired.”

“Yes, Mr. Shockley told me you no longer drink. He also told me about your last job... your last position of trust, shall we say? You were teaching English in a Vermont prep school. You lost your temper, I don’t believe I need to be any more specific than that. But I do happen to believe that Grady’s case has a bearing, and that is why I have brought the matter of your... uh, previous history into the conversation. During the winter of 1970–71, after we had refurbished the Overlook but before our first season, I hired this... this unfortunate named Delbert Grady. He moved into the quarters you and your wife and son will be sharing. He had a wife and two daughters. I had reservations, the main ones being the harshness of the winter season and the fact that the Gradys would be cut off from the outside world for five to six months.”

“But that’s not really true, is it? There are telephones here, and probably a citizen’s band radio as well. And the Rocky Mountain National Park is within helicopter range and surely a piece of ground that big must have a chopper or two.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Ullman said. “The hotel does have a two-way radio that Mr. Watson will show you, along with a list of the correct frequencies to broadcast on if you need help. The telephone lines between here and Sidewinder are still aboveground, and they go down almost every winter at some point or other and are apt to stay down for three weeks to a month and a half. There is a snowmobile in the equipment shed also.”

“Then the place really isn’t cut off.”

Mr. Ullman looked pained. “Suppose your son or your wife tripped on the stairs and fractured his or her skull, Mr. Torrance. Would you think the place was cut off then?”

Jack saw the point. A snowmobile running at top speed could get you down to Sidewinder in an hour and a half... maybe. A helicopter from the Parks Rescue Service could get up here in three hours... under optimum conditions. In a blizzard it would never even be able to lift off and you couldn’t hope to run a snowmobile at top speed, even if you dared take a seriously injured person out into temperatures that might be twenty-five below—or forty-five below, if you added in the wind chill factor.

“In the case of Grady,” Ullman said, “I reasoned much as Mr. Shockley seems to have done in your case. Solitude can be damaging in itself. Better for the man to have his family with him. If there was trouble, I thought, the odds were very high that it would be something less urgent than a fractured skull or an accident with one of the power tools or some sort of convulsion. A serious case of the flu, pneumonia, a broken arm, even appendicitis. Any of those things would have left enough time.

“I suspect that what happened came as a result of too much cheap whiskey, of which Grady had laid in a generous supply, unbeknownst to me, and a curious condition which the old-timers call cabin fever. Do you know the term?” Ullman offered a patronizing little smile, ready to explain as soon as Jack admitted his ignorance, and Jack was happy to respond quickly and crisply.

“It’s a slang term for the claustrophobic reaction that can occur when people are shut in together over long periods of time. The feeling of claustrophobia is externalized as dislike for the people you happen to be shut in with. In extreme cases it can result in hallucinations and violence—murder has been done over such minor things as a burned meal or an argument about whose turn it is to do the dishes.”

Ullman looked rather nonplussed, which did Jack a world of good. He decided to press a little further, but silently promised Wendy he would stay cool.

“I suspect you did make a mistake at that. Did he hurt them?”

“He killed them, Mr. Torrance, and then committed suicide. He murdered the little girls with a hatchet, his wife with a shotgun, and himself the same way. His leg was broken. Undoubtedly so drunk he fell downstairs.” --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are 11/22/63; Full Dark, No Stars; Under the Dome; Just After Sunset; Duma Key; Lisey’s Story; Cell; and the concluding novels inthe Dark Tower saga: Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah,and The Dark Tower. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, is also a bestseller. He was the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2007, he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Maine with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

www.stephenking.com --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From AudioFile

Little Danny Torrence can read thoughts, and the stories in his father's mind scare him nearly to death. Stephen King's 1977 classic follows Danny's family through a terrifying winter as they care for a deserted Colorado hotel whose history is anything but bucolic. Campbell Scott brings a refreshing perspective to the spooky story. Understated, yet fully engaged, he changes point of view between Danny and his parents, leading the listener effortlessly. Scott colors the secondary characters with slight shades of regional accents, bringing them to life without overperforming them. His detached, choppy rendering of horrors from the hotel's past contrasts with his effusive illustration of its present, wringing every drop of terror from both. R.L.L. 2006 Audie Award Finalist © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

'A writer of excellence...King is one of the most fertile storytellers of the modern novel' -- Sunday Times 'One of the great storytellers of our time' -- Guardian --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B001BANK32
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor (June 24, 2008)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 24, 2008
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3222 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 674 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0307743659

Best Sellers Rank: #11,109 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #16 in Ghost Thrillers
- #37 in Ghost Fiction
- #120 in Paranormal Suspense

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Stephen King

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Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His first crime thriller featuring Bill Hodges, MR MERCEDES, won the Edgar Award for best novel and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Both MR MERCEDES and END OF WATCH received the Goodreads Choice Award for the Best Mystery and Thriller of 2014 and 2016 respectively.

King co-wrote the bestselling novel Sleeping Beauties with his son Owen King, and many of King's books have been turned into celebrated films and television series including The Shawshank Redemption, Gerald's Game and It.

King was the recipient of America's prestigious 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for distinguished contribution to American Letters. In 2007 he also won the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his wife Tabitha King in Maine.

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Deborah L. Norwood

my favorite Stephen King Book!

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2023

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This book is perfect. I reread it often…and have been doing so ever since it first came out. If you never read any other of his works, you must read this one.

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Dr. Death

One of the best haunted house novels of all time!

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2023

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I haven't read this novel in years, but it was firmly seared into my mind; I must have read it at least six times over the years and now I have just re-visited it again on the Kindle. Forget The Haunting of Hill House; this is the ultimate haunted house novel. Stephen King established himself as the master of the horror genre with this book and the good news is that it holds up remarkably well after all this time. All the familiar scenes still resound with a firm impact: the empty ballroom with its memory of parties past, the dead woman in the bathtub, the hedge animals, the hornet nest. Do yourself a favor and re-read this book again. It is absolutely chilling at times. King's narrative is absolutely spot on. Horror done correctly!

2 people found this helpful

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Catherine H.

Great book

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2023

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This one's a classic! I couldn't put it down. The movie's really good too. Stephen King is a national treasure.

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2023

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Maybe my favorite of the classic King novels. I loved every minute of it. So much better than the film, though it still holds special place in my heart.

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Carole Wooten

A fantastic reading experience!

Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2023

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I finally tackled this book! And it was really good. I have never seen the movie but I still thought that I knew what to expect when I started this one but it was a bit different. There is a ton of hype surrounding this book and I fully expected this book to become an all-time favorite. It didn’t quite make that list for me but it was still a great read.

After losing his teaching job, Jack accepts a position as the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Jack, his wife, Wendy, and their son, Danny will spend the winter alone at the hotel. Jack thinks that this will be the perfect opportunity for his family and hopes to finally finish the manuscript he has been working on. Jack’s 5-year-old son, Danny, seems to know things because of his special gift. He can sense that some bad things have happened in this historic hotel.

This story felt ominous from the start. The more I learned about the hotel the more certain that I was that I would not want to visit. Whatever you do – stay out of room 217! Jack had his share of problems before taking on the job at the hotel and after a short period of time, he spirals into periods of madness and violence. Danny was really the star of this novel though. Being at the hotel was hard on this gifted boy who could see things others couldn’t but he proved to be incredibly brave. I really appreciated his connection with the former cook at the hotel, Mr. Halloran, quite a bit.

I thought that Campbell Scott did a great job with the narration. I believe that this was the first time that I have listened to his work and I was rather impressed. I thought that he did a great job with the cast of characters in this story which included not only an adult male and female but also a child. I thought that he brought a lot of excitement to his reading and found myself wanting to listen for hours at a time.

I would recommend this book to others. I thought that it was a very enjoyable story and I am thrilled that I am finally able to say that I have read it. My only complaint is that the story did feel overly long at times and bogged down a bit in some sections but overall it was a great reading experience.

5 people found this helpful

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Ciera

A Must Have Stephen King Classic

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2023

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Purchased for an extended family member looking for book recommendations. The movie was SIO good, the book even better. Thought they'd enjoy it even more as they live in the mountains where it snows quite a lot! Shipped and delivered as promised too!

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Sebastian Mullis

Terrible ending, DON'T SPOIL THE MOVIE FOR YOURSELF

Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2023

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It starts like any book with a movie made from it, better than it's film counterpart. However as the pages go on Stephen King runs out of steam and refuses to stop and catch his breath. Do not read this book without seeing the movie first. The movie is amazing and spoiling it with this book is unjustifiable. Stephen King absolutely did not know what to write once he reached the half-way point. The writing isn't just bad its down right lazy. Mortally wounding a character to be dramatic then constantly going "They somehow found the strength in them..." "They somehow pulled out the energy from within them" "Despite their wounds they somehow managed to..." Like dude their entire body is broken and beat to a pulp and they're walking around like nothings wrong and functioning like a normal person when they shouldn't even be able to breathe. Complete textbook lazy forced drama and avoiding writing the consequences.

This book is a complete joke from the halfway point on and you are spoiling one of the greatest movies ever made at the same time.

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K. Harvey

Great price, Great Value

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2023

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Bought for my son. He loves magazines and books of all genres.

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Laura McToal

Excellent - as usual

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 30, 2023

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This was a re-read for me and I don't think I have ever cried for Jack Torrance before. I always felt like he was weak for being consumed by the hotel. However, in this reading, all I could see was how fiercely he holds onto his love for his son, and that is something that the hotel can never completely strip away. In one of the final chapters, when Jack comes back through for a moment and tells Danny to run and to remember that he loves him, my heart broke.

Traffic

King is the Master.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 1, 2023

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An awesome book from the Master of horror and suspense. What more is there to say? Looking forward to reading the sequel, Dr Sleep.

Simon Edwards

They call it Shining and it is a true classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 7, 2013

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Critically acclaimed British horror writer, Peter Straub, once described this novel as "obviously a masterpiece, probably the best supernatural novel in a hundred years!" I don't think a better statement could have been conjured to enforce the true genius of this novel, Stephen King's third published novel, a novel that is a far cry from his first published attempt, "Carrie".

I think everyone who has been alive for at least the last twenty, if not ten years, knows of Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of the novel, an adaptation in which Mr Kubrick took a lot of liberties, and ignored a lot of what Stephen King had written in his fantastic novel. I was one of the lucky people to have read the novel before I watched the film because the film is so different, there could be a lot of disappointment for reading the novel after watching the movie.

There have been many great haunted house/hotel novels in the past: Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" is one of the greats that comes to mind, but there is something different and more reality-based about "The Shining", and I think this comes from the brilliance King enthuses his three main characters with when he writes about them. Most haunted house stories have a company of about four different people, most of whom don't know each other, are innocent within their own lives, and have to face up to a fear that is supernatural. In "The Shining", the three main characters are a family, known as the Torrance's: Father (Jack), Mother (Wendy) and Son (Danny). Jack is an ex-alcoholic who gets a job as winter caretaker for the heavily pristine Overlook Hotel, one of the greatest American hotels in the last century. He will bring his family with him to stay over the winter months - they will be snowed in, they won't be able to get out without help from park rangers, if they are able to make it through the snow, and they are not alone.

The title of the novel comes from a gift that Danny has - he is susceptible to people's thoughts and emotions as well as to the past and future of his surroundings. He is able, through his gift, to sub-consciously awake the hotel's past horrors - those that have died or been murdered, that are now permanent residents of the hotel that want Danny's gifts for their own terrifying purposes and they don't care who they have to get through to get to Danny.

This would have been a very horrific process of story-writing had King just decided to use this as the basis for his novel, but this is Stephen King we are talking about and Stephen King is not a normal writer - he is a genius, up there in the Dickens class as a storyteller, as some critics have put it. Jack has an alcohol problem and a violent temper. He has already broken up his son's arm in one of his rages before the story has even begun, and the horrors of his alcoholic addiction play a large premise towards the horrors of the story and the way in which the Overlook uses him for their own ends. Not only this, but he has a history of watching his own father as an abuser, someone who took a cane to his wife and, in simple terms, smashed her up. It is these terrifying experiences that make this one of the greatest horror novels ever written, and in my own humble opinions, it ranks for me, as perhaps one of the greatest American novels of the post-war period.

This is the novel that made Stephen King a true star and set him on his way to being the most popular novelist of his generation. "Carrie" and "'Salem's Lot" had sold very well as paperbacks, but now King had a hardcover bestseller on his hands. The world was now his oyster, and as a writer, he could do anything he wanted.

I can still remember the first time I read "The Shining" and how much fun I had with it. It is a very deep novel, a novel written by someone who has now found his craft and truly understands it. He is not just telling a story that will scare his readers - he is approaching the method of this art with his own demons and his own thoughts and teachings. Stephen King was an alcoholic himself at this point, battling with his own fears, as a writer and as a father and family man. This comes through a lot in the novel. The character of Jack Torrance seems to be Stephen King himself, in a parallel universe, a Stephen King who had allowed his fears to get the better of him, to have never had a wife who had retrieved "Carrie" from the dustbin, urging him to complete it. King is not afraid to admit his own faults and fears, and I think that is another genius of his writing. A lot of authors would never admit to their demons and if they had written "The Shining", it would just have been another haunted hotel novel that might have passed through the boundaries of time and gone on to become just a good story. But King has made this into a masterpiece and it is a novel that can be read again and again, allowing the reader to discover something different each time they fly through the pages. Kubrick might have made a great movie, but he took out all that made this novel important, and I think King was right in his criticism of Kubrick's adaptation for all them years.

If you want to really understand "The Shining", don't see the movie first - read the novel and you will not need to worry, because your guide for this great journey will be the true genius master, Stephen King himself. For me, it is certainly one of my favourite novels that has ever been written, and in a hundred years when we are all dead (hopefully not haunting the Overlook Hotel), this book will still be read and still be thought of as not just a great horror story, but a great American classic!

6 people found this helpful

G. Robinson

Almost perfect.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 29, 2018

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Jack Torrance needs to get away, anywhere will do as long as he can have some peace and quiet. He needs to forget about getting fired from his job as a teacher for a violent assault, forget about his excess drinking, forget about having broken his young sons arm in a fit of uncontrolled anger and at least try and bury deep down his seething and uncontrollable resentment that his wife knows exactly what he really is, a drunken violent bully with a temper! Five months as a caretaker in a supposedly haunted and extremely empty Colorado hotel cut off from the outside world by deep snow sounds just about right. Perhaps he can write the great American novel, perhaps he can finish his long gesturing play, or maybe just maybe he will try to murder his family!

Stephen Kings utterly fantastical supernatural novel introduces us, from page one, to one of his finest ever creations, the truly frightening Jack Torrence. On a par with the deranged nurse Annie Wilkes from Misery, Jack is a supremely complicated man who seems uncomfortable with the world around him, his high opinion of himself and his intelligent is at odds with his inability to recognise or even accept his own deep and ultimately fatal personal flaws. Jack, like al Psychopaths, sees the world in terms of himself, and sees his son and wife as merely extensions of him, they live in his world and are expected to follow the rules as he sees them. He doesn't outwardly hate them but he doesn't love or really care for them either, he just seems to accept them as a necessary inconvenience that he just has to put up with to appear normal. It's his well practised outward projection of ordinariness that sets him apart from your run of the mill homicidal killer, he's the kind of person you don't notice, the guy who mows his lawn and takes out the trash, the guy who takes his kid to the park, the guy who is always pleasant and says hello. However there is something old and ugly hiding in Jack Torrence, something from his past, something rotten, something extremely dangerous, something deadly waiting to emerge.

Although The Shining is at heart a variation on a “ghost story”, King's ability to present the reader with real and credible (if horrible) characters lifts this novel to a higher plane. Jack's tortured and often very unpleasant internal narrative peppers the text and even interrupts his own lines of dialogue and in doing so we see him in a much broader light. We see what he is saying and also know what he is really thinking in real time. We know he lies, we know he is weak and frustrated, we know he does not respect or love his wife and we know of his true feelings, those he keeps well hidden possible even from himself.

Some have said rather unfairly that it's not “very scary” or words to that effect. It is certainly true that some of the book is about Jacks early life and it does take some time to set the stage. However once set the terror builds as Jack becomes more unstable and unpredictable. The true horror of possible living with an undiagnosed and extremely dangerous psychopath who believes ghosts are communicating with him to kill his family becomes very real. As his and Danny's visions become more “real” the fight for survival intensifies as does the pace of the book. I found it very scary, not for the ghosts but Jack's inability to hold onto reality.

Whether the hotel really does have “demons” that can affect a weak and easily dominated mind or the “demons” are his own fully formed ready for use in the right circumstances is a debate for another time. King thought one way (the hotel was haunted) and that Jack was a victim. Kubrick the other (the hotel was just a hotel) and Jack was a Psychopath, however which ever way you side it's a grand ride finding out.

I have always felt that Kings earlier work (pre 1995) was his best. This his third novel is probably his second best novel after The Green Mile and that is saying something.

Enjoy.

30 people found this helpful

Calculus

Don't know why S. King has a problem with the movie

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 21, 2023

Verified Purchase

Stephen King has said he doesn't like the Shining movie because it deviates from the book. Sure, the movie is slightly different but I think it's pretty damn close to the book.

I enjoyed both but for me, the movie was better.

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