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A review by immabehazzie
The Shining by Stephen King
4.0
A horror novel that follows Jack Torrence, a struggling writer and a recovering alcoholic as he takes the job as the winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, alongside his wife Wendy and their young son Danny who possesses abilities known as ‘the shining’. As the family settles into the hotel for the Winter, Danny’s psychic visions intensify, revealing malevolent forces at work within the walls of the Overlook who are determined to not let the family leave. Falling under the influences of the hotel's supernatural forces, Jack becomes increasingly more violent as he falls further and further into madness.
Jack makes a reference to ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson and since then I haven’t been able to stop drawing comparisons. The Overlook Hotel just like Hill House has come alive with menacing things that will stop at nothing to prevent the protagonist from leaving.
‘The Shining’ is a novel that is filled with deeply vivid and human characters. Their wants, flaws, and fears are understandable and tangible and despite the supernatural aspect of this story, the real tragedy is the want and struggle of the characters to do better and almost achieve it before they fall into the traps of manipulation that the hotel sets.
‘The Shining’ has slotted itself as one of my top three Stephen King novels. The eerie atmosphere and suspense is relentless and doesn’t give the audience a chance to breathe. It’s suffocating in the best way. The story is also filled with metaphors and instead of bogging down the story being told, I believe it only heightens it, because it’s done subtlety enough that it’s not the only thing you focus on but it’s obvious enough that most people should pick up on it. Such as how the hotel symbolizes the darkness that resides in Jack and the evil that lurks in the human psyche. I’m the end, Jack can struggle through it and if he sinks or swims in his darkness is l down to him. It’s an interesting metaphor for addiction as Jack struggles against the forces of the Overlook but still ends up consumed by the malevolence of it.
Jack makes a reference to ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson and since then I haven’t been able to stop drawing comparisons. The Overlook Hotel just like Hill House has come alive with menacing things that will stop at nothing to prevent the protagonist from leaving.
‘The Shining’ is a novel that is filled with deeply vivid and human characters. Their wants, flaws, and fears are understandable and tangible and despite the supernatural aspect of this story, the real tragedy is the want and struggle of the characters to do better and almost achieve it before they fall into the traps of manipulation that the hotel sets.
‘The Shining’ has slotted itself as one of my top three Stephen King novels. The eerie atmosphere and suspense is relentless and doesn’t give the audience a chance to breathe. It’s suffocating in the best way. The story is also filled with metaphors and instead of bogging down the story being told, I believe it only heightens it, because it’s done subtlety enough that it’s not the only thing you focus on but it’s obvious enough that most people should pick up on it. Such as how the hotel symbolizes the darkness that resides in Jack and the evil that lurks in the human psyche. I’m the end, Jack can struggle through it and if he sinks or swims in his darkness is l down to him. It’s an interesting metaphor for addiction as Jack struggles against the forces of the Overlook but still ends up consumed by the malevolence of it.