The Shining

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Synopsis
A family goes to a remote hotel to be caretakers for the winter. The father is a drunk, the mother with mother issues of her own and a 5 year old boy with an ability to interact with the supernatural called "the shining".

My Thoughts
I've never seen the movie with Nickolson, but the cover showing him completely nutzed out was enough to keep me from watching it. But I've read enough King to know that his books, while creepy and horror filled, aren't the kind to give me nightmares.

So a King book a year helps me keep things shaken up.

I found this to be as creepy and disturbing a book as I've yet read. Having a child be at the center will tend to do that. And a whole hotel filled with incorporeal horrors that are becoming more and more corporeal and that are completely malevolent adds perfectly to the mix.

But what I found to be the most disturbing was Jack's [the father] descent into complete and utter madness. He first gives in to his temper, then his desire for drink and finally is willing to sacrifice his wife and son because he thinks it will mean his personal advancement. Instead of being Danny's protector, he becomes as much a nemesis as the spirit of the hotel.

Thankfully, Danny has a protector in his mother [albeit a weak and mostly neutralized one] and a hotel employee who also has a small amount of the shining himself. Needless to say, Danny is rescued from the power of the hotel and the hotel destroys itself.

I found the themes of good and evil, the self-destructiveness of evil and the weakness of mankind to be utterly fascinating. The only thing I don't care for in King's writing is his ignoring of the power of good. He portrays evil but good is always portrayed as barely there or overcoming by happenstance. I wouldn't want to read these books without the solid Christian basis I have or I might find these horribly depressing.

I think one of these a year is enough for me. Highly recommended if you like creepy and disturbing with just a smidge of hope.

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Author: Stephen King