THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
To make comparisons between this book and Kubrick's film masterpiece of the risk of being influenced and being not very flattering review of the work of King. And at the same time, are in the open all the little inventions of the film, those who have special permission to film memorable scenes like the famous manuscript of Jack that endlessly repeats an old English proverb, for example.
This book, in my view, not a masterpiece like the movie, but it is still a good horror.
E 'done a great job on the characters, which are few, but returned and described to the tiniest detail. Each of their weakness, their every small personal hatred and fear are all highlighted by a King who dig deep in their lives, drawing on the great cesspool of hatred and insecurity.
Jack Torrance is a former alcoholic (his father), a failed teacher who is trying to rehabilitate himself as a writer and that hides within it a great violence and anger that can not always control. His wife, Wendy, is a woman who has long suffered the tyranny of the mother who brought him a gift at the same time a great courage and great determination, but also the fear of becoming like her (which is expressed with terror ' envy she feels for her son's close relationship with his father). And finally, Danny, a child who has a powerful "Aura", a power that enables him to communicate telepathically with others who have to read people's minds and to be able to see things before they happen.
The family of Jack finds himself in financial straits and he decides to accept the post of winter caretaker at the old Overlook Hotel, a hotel that has had a tumultuous history, but which represents an opportunity for him to do something good and to keep afloat in the economic situation.
And so the little family party and discovers a few months of being in a place possessed by a demonic force, which for years has absorbed all the evil that has happened inside and that is able to unleash his will. What's more, the Torrance find themselves trapped in the snow, unable to escape from that hotel cursed. The floor plan shows
Overlook his face hidden (beautiful in this regard, references to the story by Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death , with the obsessive repetition of that "Down the mask! Down the mask!" ) and took possession of Jack Torrance, relying on his old habit, alcoholism, and his sense of guilt, on the failures of a lifetime. The office as a clock and freed him to go wild for the corridors. And then
hedges that are animated and can kill. Children buried in the snow trying to grasp Danny, a woman who committed suicide who holds out his hands swollen and purple to anyone entering the room 217. The sudden find themselves in a nightmare, truly, really, in which the ghosts are not just "pictures in a book, but they bite, scratch and kill.
The construction of the novel is admirable. Everything happens just as it must happen. The tension increases as they move through the pages and at every new turn you can see where the story wants to go to finish, without ruining the ending of the book, you save more for the style that made for a surprise.
Some parts I found them all too redundant, especially those relating to the past and the character of the different characters, but it is a verbosity that can be understood well. If King had shortened a few moments of stillness over the story, the novel would have certainly helped.
The rest of the way of the King I found it really appropriate to the narrative. It changes from moment to moment from real to imaginary, from present to past, you enter in the thoughts of the characters and we find ourselves spectators of what is happening. I, from this point of view, I found it perfect.
The weakest point of the story is the predictability of the story. Although he has not seen the movie, I suppose not many people have had problems to guess the ending. The fact remains however that this is certainly a pleasant point for the book, but too many times it seemed that the story should proceed a bit 'too regularly, as if they moved on tracks, perhaps even in the areas where greater uncertainty in the future would have increased the sense of anguish reader.
The images are always powerful and well done. The horror fielded by King floats between the tip of horrific visions in the event of real monsters and living corpses. And all this is really wonderful when it happens suddenly and, on rare occasions, unfortunately, unexpected.
A King novels with more behind would hold the accelerator at the right time and maybe would have invented an unexpected turn for the story, what really is missing in this novel.
bed so, The Shining remains a good horror, which is among a sufficiently full and more than one vote.
Personally, I've found a vital lesson on building the characters and the tension.
Some pictures and a few sentences of this book will remember for a lifetime. Phrases like:
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