The Shining: Review

The third, and final, book of my selection, The First 3, has always been a favourite of mine, The Shining.

Unlike both Carrie and ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining has a more claustrophobic quality that drives the horror. The book’s plot centres around the Torrance family; Jack, Wendy and their five-year-old son Danny, who has some sort of physic ability, which his parents, mostly his mother, have noticed but quickly dismiss, calling Tony, the older boy that tells Danny things in his mind, just Danny’s imaginary friend.

After Jack loses his job as a school teacher for striking a student, the Torrance family move into the Overlook Hotel for the winter so that Jack can work as the caretaker. They arrive on the last day of business for the Overlook, and as the final guests are leaving, the Torrance’s prepare to settle down for a harsh winter, and not just from the weather.

On being shown around the hotel’s kitchen by the cook, Dick Hallorann, he and Danny strike up an instant friendship because like Danny, Hallorann also has some physic ability which he calls ‘The Shining’. Hallorann is surprised at how powerful Danny’s power actually is, and warns the boy that if he is in any trouble while staying at the hotel, Danny can physically call him and he, Hallorann, will come as fast as he can.

Pretty much all hotels have a history, and many things happen within their walls, including illicit liaisons and death, sometimes both at the same time. Some people believe that buildings can absorb the energies of the events that occur in them, and those sensitive to those energies can feel or even see them. In The Shining, the Overlook Hotel has a history so powerful, that Hallorann’s fears for Danny and his mother’s safety are well and truly justified. And as the snow pens the Torrance’s in, making escape almost impossible, the ghostly forces inside the Overlook make their move, and begin focusing on Jack.

Jack Torrance is a troubled man, an alcoholic clinging onto the ‘Wagon’ for dear life, and a victim of his own father’s brutal abuse when he, Jack, was a child. These things the evil force inside the Overlook Hotel latch onto, driving Jack further and further down the road to self destruction, and to try and murder his wife and son. As he falls deeper and deeper under the Overlook’s power, Jack believes that the Overlook wants him to join those ghosts housed there; however, its real desire is for Danny.

The main themes of the book are the effects of alcoholism, and do those who are abused as children go on to be abusers themselves, leading to the breakdown of the family. In The Shining, King gives us a horror not just supernatural in nature, but one of domestic abuse that unfortunately more people can relate to now, 33 years after it was written.