The Shining
by Stephen King · first published 1977
13% recommend80% neutral7% critical
The Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. It is King's third published novel and first hardback bestseller; its success firmly established King as a preeminent author in the horror genre. The setting and characters are influenced by King's personal experiences, including both his visit to The Stanley Hotel in 1974 and his struggle with alcoholism. The book was followed by a sequel, Doctor Sleep, published in 2013. The Shining centers on the life of Jack Torrance, a struggling writer and recovering alcoholic who accepts a position as the off-season caretaker of the
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…become a fantastic film -- it is rare for a film and a screenplay that are inarguably among the greatest of all time to come from a book that would likely not be memorable without the film. I think The Shining is a great example of a good book, while the movie is one of the best horror movies ever made. And yet, reportedly Stephen King hates the Kubrick film. As someone who enjoys both, I simply think he’s…
on “The Godfather almost never happened” ↗…Cryptonomicon, Anathem, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World (twice or three times) Frank Herbert: Dune (three times) Tolkien: Lord of the Rings (three times) Stephen King: Salem's Lot, The Shining, It (three times each) Stephen King & Peter Straub: The Talisman (twice) Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon The Deep, Rainbow's End (each twice) Tracy Kidder: The Soul of a New Machine…
on “Ask HN: Which books did you read at least twice?” ↗* Currently reading: Edgedancer * Flowers for Algernon * Going Rogue: Spells, Swords, & Stealth * Split the Party: Spells, Swords, & Stealth * NPCs * Children of Time * Death's End * The Shining * IT * All 7+1 books of The Dark Tower
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2017?” ↗…it looks an awful lot like madness to us humans. Until he starts solving cosmological problems . . I sort of felt like the truth of the matter should have been more ambiguous than was presented. More Shining, less Friday the 13th. I remember the premise being far superior to the film, but maybe the novel is worth a look.
on “Relativistic Spaceship” ↗> It's such a bizarre wonderful dreamworld of the human psyche that Kubrick created. Like if Kubrick made a Fellini film. Of course The Shining shows that what Kubrick makes of a novel is not necessarily what the author made, but it's probably worth giving some credit for the dreamworld to Schnitzler—the novel is literally called, or so Wikipedia…
on “Eyes Wide Shut: Hidden in plain sight” ↗Stephen King is publicly critical of Kubrick's treatment of "The Shining", mostly about its unchanging and one-dimensional characters. While I expect "2001" would not have been improved by a lot of explanatory voiceovers, I think "The Shining" would be seriously improved by…
on ““Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)” ↗…idea with the audience. Maybe to remind you once more that the movie is supposed to be a sequel, despite an almost total discontinuity with 2001. It draws a lot of parallels with Stephen King and The Shining, which had provoked Stephen King to exert more creative control over movie adaptations, often with laughable (or maybe unintentionally comedic) b-movie results.
on ““Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)” ↗>Stephen King is publicly critical of Kubrick's treatment of "The Shining", mostly about its unchanging and one-dimensional characters. It's not like King is some king of nuance in characters himself...
on ““Close to tears, he left at the intermission”: how Kubrick upset Clarke (2017)” ↗Kubrick doesn't always stick to the book. In the ending of Stephen King's "The Shining", the Overlook Hotel literally blows up in a giant explosion. I think most people can agree Stanley Kubrick did the right thing by leaving that out of the film!
on “Staging That Scene from ‘Eyes Wide Shut’” ↗The Shining movie is different enough from the book in key elements as to go in a completely different direction. Also, though it's an enormously famous, atmospheric horror movie, Stephen King disliked it, especially…
on “A book Stanley Kubrick didn’t want anyone to read is being published” ↗we should absolutely make the originals available, next to the "sanitized" versions that are clearly labeled as "not original" or "loosely based on the original story" Even "The Shining" is labeled as "based on the original novel from Stephen King" and not as a "faithful adaption of ..." Any other way of presenting the redacted material it's bad, as in "universally bad".
on “The case for not sanitising fairy tales” ↗…applies to the book as well. King certainly has a tendency to push fetishized characteristics that take the place of earnest characterization. This is certainly true of the Stand, the Dark Tower series, the Shining, Insomnia, Green Mile, and probably many others of his works. This is not an original take. See one popular opinion here: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/stephen-king...
on “Shelley Duvall has died” ↗Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is clearly a masterpiece of film making and to be honest, Stephen King's opinion just makes me think less of him (King) although I'm also a fan of his writing too. I'd seen a few analyses of the film,…
on “King vs. Kubrick: The Origins of Evil (2020)” ↗…to think that the majority of Stephen King film adaptations were likely to be rubbish, but I think there's plenty of exceptions to that now. I can imagine that King has a very deep connection to The Shining as Jack is probably the closest that King has got to an autobiographical character.
on “King vs. Kubrick: The Origins of Evil (2020)” ↗But it suffers from being an adaptation of a Stephen King's book. King is really good at making you live through the eyes of his protagonists. Which is really hard to do in movies. Same thing with Shining were you follow Jack's fall to craziness from his PoV. And the same thing will happen with "The Long Walk", another great novel which I recommend if you like the death game theme.
on “Before Squid Game, there was Battle Royale” ↗