by Stephen King

This wasn’t my first time reading The Shining but, my goodness, it’s been a long time. My original encounter with the story was back in Grade 8, and it sure left an impression on that younger version of me. I distinctly remember being super excited upon finishing it. I almost immediately ran out to find a copy of the Stanley Kubrick adaptation to experience more of this thing I loved … and I hated it. I didn’t understand why the director saw fit to change so many important details that fundamentally altered the story, especially when it was already this good. Flash forward a dozen years. I rewatched the Kubrick film, and I really liked it this time around. I figured it was time to pick up King’s novel again, and this time it felt lacking, at least compared to the picture my rose-coloured memories painted. So, what happened?

To begin to address my feelings, I suppose I should actually talk about the book. It always feels odd to give a plot summary for such a well-known story, but I’ll at least gloss over it. Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic whose anger issues cost him his career, takes a job as a caretaker in the secluded Overlook hotel through the unforgiving Colorado winter. He brings his wife and son, Wendy and Danny, along, the latter possessing a strong psychic ability that serves to awaken the malevolent forces possessing the hotel. All three struggle to keep their sanity and stay alive as these (spirits? demons?) try to add them to the hotel’s possessions.

The Shining is largely an exercise in foreshadowing and pacing, in that most of the action (that is to say, REDRUM) happens in the last 50 or so pages. Of course, things do happen earlier, but most of the story is built upon premonitions and dread of things to come. And that’s fine; if a story just had raving lunatics chasing people around the entire time, it would get tedious. The problem is that King moves things a bit too far from that exciting side for stretches that are far too long, spending a great length of time establishing how Danny’s psychic powers work and giving a detailed account of the hotel’s shady history. But this is where I think I hit on my changing tastes as an adult: I now appreciate ambiguity and tighter storytelling when I read, where I previously had a greater need to know the author’s explanation of why.

Keep in mind that, even with this subjective criticism of the story, The Shining is still filled with great writing. King very effectively captured the struggle of a man haunted by his demons––violence and alcohol, in this instance––as he tries to do right even though it’s so, so hard. If, like me, you lean to the side of ambiguous where your favourite books are concerned, you’ll still be able to appreciate The Shining, you just may not love it as much as someone who prefers their loose ends tied up by the end.