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I don't usually rate between 2-4 I either recommend or I don't. If you like intense and thrilling scenes this book delivers its just that they are few and far between. The book is just too long for what it gives you in return. The journey is just not worth it in the end. Perhaps King struggled with his ending and I'm feeling it, but I don't think so the book should just end way earlier than it does. King's character details are amazing at first but by page 300 you start to get really tired of it. I have to say that I don't recommend this one. King says his second draft is 1st draft minus 10%, I recommend -25%.
The only thing scarier than room 217 is Chapter 38 absolute snooze fest for quite a few pages only to give you two bits of information that could have been delivered in two paragraphs and been just as interesting. To be fair I have to say that the highs in this book are awesome. What really surprises me is that for the first 300 pages I was stoked on this book and telling people to read it, but now I'm getting to the end and I can't wait to be done with it. This is only my fourth King book and I will certainly read more but I hope they can be as good as the first half of this one all the way through.
in my opinion, this is king's best. the characters are so finely developed, and the suspense builds up at a perfect pace. this is the book i would reccomend to anyone new to king's works. this isn't just a great horror novel; it's a geat novel, period.
Making the violence occur not because of flaws in Jack's character but from ghosts could so easily have turned trite, or delivered what TV Tropes would call a Space Whale Aesop--a situation too rooted in the fantastic to really be relevant, and with murderous domestic violence that risks downplaying the significance of the reality in the premise. Normally King's characters are pretty flat, but here some pretty intense and well rounded psychologies are pulled off. What makes the story work is the depth given to characterization. To an extent this occurs, particularly in the climax, but the major buildup makes it more complex. In particular Jack Torrence emerges as one of King's more effective protagonists/villains, a main of equal measure talent and frustration, deeply flawed but aware of this and trying to overcome his own propensity for alcohol and violence. And this allows the main conceit of the novel to work, perhaps better than it should. The final result is not Jack becoming psychotic purely on his own devices or him being bodyjacked by ghosts. Instead it's a process of corruption and seduction, at once metaphysical and deeply personal, which in itself builds up a lot of pathos on all sides.
Leaving the reader thoroughly frightened and impressed. Wendy and Danny explore the empty hotel.The hotel is empty, but not abandoned. Read this Stephen King classic first, and then see the Stanley Kubrick movie. Jack is slowly instructed in what he must do as a drink is prepared and set before him.
The Torrances will be alone, isolated by distance, then cut off by snow. Jack, who struggles to be a writer and struggles not to be a drunk, has signed them up to be a caretaker family during the hotel's winter off-season. Dick Hallorann, the hotel's cook, explains this phenomenon to Danny before departing for the season. The first is a strong sense of history and place.
The well-written contrast between the ordinary and supernatural is part of the book's tension.The second theme is the book's illustration of the nature of evil. It "shines" with the residue of past evil. Recognizing that they share a psychic ability to see more than others, Dick tells Danny to ignore what he sees. It cannot harm him. Jack Torrance, his wife Wendy, and their son Danny check in to the Overlook Hotel in remote Colorado--sort of.
You get to know the Overlook Hotel in terms of what has happened there and as an ordinary hotel with rooms, a kitchen, ballroom, storerooms, and all of its other parts. You will wonder how a place designed to meet its guests' daily needs can possess such a hidden hunger for their souls. Jack could not have been possessed by the hotel had he not taken willing steps toward it. In a key scene, Jack enters the formerly empty hotel bar to find it fully stocked and tended by a former caretaker, now deceased. As the book progresses, the hotel's evil takes gradual possession of Jack, releasing a homicidal rage that Wendy and Danny slowly recognize then desperately try to escape.This story will give you a lasting scare. Jack works away at his novel. Weakened by his alcoholism, Jack takes this first drink, tacitly agreeing to destroy his family and giving the hotel greater power over him.
While the hotel cannot harm Danny directly, it can work through others. While you deal with this, savor two accompanying themes. This "entice, agree, enslave" sequence repeats several times as Jack slips into madness.It all works out. The later miniseries is also interesting, but not as moving as either of the first two.
then The Shining is the book for you.I read it when 1st released and could not read it after dark or when alone. Ive only read it once.it scared me silly the 1st time and that was enough for me. ShiOne912
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