Stephen King – The Ranking
The best books by Stephen King, number 29: “The Shining”
A fantastic series of publications: King’s third book and third global success. And a quasi-autobiographical narrative at that. An alcoholic father, like King, breaks his son’s arm. A caretaker job in the abandoned, snow-covered Overlook Hotel is supposed to bring peace.
Instead, Jack Torrance is possessed by ghosts who want to make him the murderer of his family. His biggest opponent will be his five-year-old son Danny, he has the “Shining” – he can predict events. A gift that King devotes attention to in many subsequent novels.
Stanley Kubrick would later make The Shining into a film – and King would hate it for some time afterwards. The director almost eliminated the subject of alcoholism from his film. Both author and filmmaker have created carefully composed narratives with “Shining” – but they are only effective to a limited extent. The most impressive scenes in the novel include those of the evil hedge animals that have come to life. The grass sculptures always move a few centimeters towards you when you are not looking. Sneaking up unnoticed. No less disturbing is the elevator, which seems to be operated by ghosts (actually by ghosts), in which streamers indicate a secret party.
You can rely on this chef
Unfortunately, Kubrick wasn’t interested in any of that. Having your own idea in the film is still better than any of the horror that Stephen King came up with. One try, one hit: “What you can get today, don’t put it off until tomorrow” – that is the only sentence that Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) typed on his typewriter in days of quiet, concentrated work, thousands of times, on one huge pile of paper. That’s how madness works.
This makes it all the easier to remember an important supporting character, the hotel chef Hallorann, who becomes the family’s savior. When Hallorann is mentioned again in “It” almost ten years later, you almost feel safe: He will be able to outwit “It” a little. You can always rely on this chef.
Incidentally, King’s most convincing loss of control by his main character, Torrance, does not occur until the moment when Jack roams the lonely hallways of the Overlook Hotel with an axe. The decline is clear in the conversations. As is so often the case with alcoholics, it’s the people you’re close with who help you, but who take it all. In unprecedentedly self-destructive phone calls, the caretaker makes a mess with his probation officer and his employer.