Review: The Shining

Today I am home 'sick.' I say 'sick' because, well I'm not really sick. I have this odd allergic reaction going on right now that has caused my ankles/feet to swell up and therefore, it is very painful and I basically can't walk. I went to my doctor, and that's what he said I had, and sure enough, one of my meds lists "Edema, or fluid retention around the ankles and feet" as a side effect. It was so painful, I felt like I wanted morphine last night. But, it's much better at the moment, though, so I should be able to go back to work tomorrow.

So I finally finished The Shining today. I couldn't wait to finish it. As Jarrod said, if I couldn't wait to finish it, it must not have been that great. And: it wasn't. This was my first Stephen King book, and supposedly many people have voted this story to be one of the scariest/most horrifying of all time, but I just didn't get it.

But before I get to my thoughts on the book, I must bring up two points:
1. I hate scary movies and have never seen the movie The Shining. I think it has to do with the unbelievable amounts of blood and gore, although I'm not even sure that is it because I loved Watchmen. So maybe it is that I just do not like getting scared; I don't enjoy that shock that you feel when the hand grabs the girl from somewhere off-camera. I have never been to a haunted house either, and am pretty positive that if I went, I would end up crying because I would hate it and there would be no way I could leave in the middle of it.

2. I originally started reading this in honor of Halloween.

So, as you can gather, this is not my usual type of book. It was a bit of a 'shock' to my friends that I was reading this since it is supposed to be so scary. And I was expecting it to be so, expecting to have to throw it in the freezer at some point like Joey on "Friends", but it just never happened for me.

I did not find this book to be scary, I found it to be kinda boring.

I had been told and had read that Stephen King tends to get long-winded, which I will agree with. I kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the plot to pick up, but it just never did... until maybe the last tenth of the book. Being a full-time reader, I understand the point of a back-story; unfolding a character's ambitions, fears, and so on so that you, the reader, can identify with them and develop a connection. However, a lot of the back-story was so meaningless to me. King could have summed up the history of the Torrance family in a chapter, maybe two, instead of dragging it out through about half the book with small strange happenings of the Overlook interspersed. If I remember correctly, the boy finally encounters room 217 and the woman inside when I was halfway through the book. Halfway through the book you [King] decide to break out the first key piece to the plot? Halfway?! The rest of the strange things of the hotel reveal themselves slowly throughout the next good third of the book: Jack checks out room 217, there are the fake parties, the elevator comes to life on its own, Jack starts to identify with the hotel, Jack gets drunk and falls back into his alcoholic ways, Jack gets locked in the pantry. Then in the last tenth of the book, the hotel goes crazy, Dick shows up, Jack hacks through the door, Danny talks to Tony one last time, Jack tries to kill Danny, and all that jazz. The last bit of the book was probably the best part, but by that point, it was too late for me: I just wanted to finish the dang thing.

I think the problem was that I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't care what happened to Jack because I thought he was an ass. I didn't really care what happened to the boy because I thought he was annoying. I didn't really care what happened to Wendy because I thought she was kind of annoying too and, in a way, brought this all on herself. The only person who I cared if they lived or died at the end was Dick, and he was only in the story for maybe 40 out of the 500+ pages! And as far as the scary imagery in the story (all of the 'creatures' of the Overlook) I felt they were... silly. And they didn't bother me. I understand that the book was about psychological terror and dementia and the monsters deep within us, but as I said, I didn't develop that connection to Jack, so I didn't care.

From what I've read on the movie, there are a lot of changes. First of all, it is room 237, not 217; an insignificant detail, but it kind of bothers me that Kubrick changed it. Apparently there is a hedge maze, whereas the book has hedge animals. Danny does not cry redrum constantly at any point in the book, neither does he begin to call himself Tony. Jack never says "Here's Johnny!" and I'm sure there are many more differences.

I was really going into this expecting to be scared out of my wits; I would have to put the book down and have someone tell me how it ended I'd be so scared. Complete opposite. Not only did I have no inkling of a nightmare, inclinations to check behind my shower curtain, or a newfound fear of elevators, I also had no emotional connection with the characters, leaving me just bored and feeling like I kind of wasted my time on this.

And also wondering if I'm ready to try a scary movie again...