The Shining (The Shining, #1)

by Stephen King

1977. King on his work and fears, August 2025: https://apple.news/AxLbx2SVmRkm8Yb-1MhOPRw Bought for $9 on 3/16/21 for class on the novel and the Kubrick movie with J. David Wright Parts 1-3 pp. 1-322 for 3/17/21 Parts 4-5 for 3/24/21 King's third published novel and first hardback bestseller Love the epigraphs and the chapter titles Serious provocations: tires slashed, work destroyed 22, Alcoholism: near disasters, self-loathing, unmanageability, can’t see his faults, dwelling on the past with regret and shame, blaming others, uncontrollable temper, An alcoholism untreated with the spiritual experience. See pp. 62, 152 https://detoxtorehab.com/celebrity/stephen-king-alcoholism-drug-addiction-and-fame Papers Furnace & boiler Cabin fever Temper Divorce, blame 74, Danny’s clairvoyance and prescience (Hallucinations), 39, 79 roque mallet elevator scrapbook Bluebeard Roque mallet = Jack’s father’s cane 329 Magic zippo 609 “Play” - theater, games, playground, Remember what was forgotten 189-90, 620, ch. 55 Physical evidence of the supernatural: wasps redivivus, ch. 16 p 197, puffy bruises from lady in room 217 p. 336, bath mat and shower curtain p. 373, mask and party favors in elevator pp. 442, 584, bottles or hallucination? p. 5??, Grady opens the pantry bolt, with gin, olives, and roque mallet waiting, p. 566, sounds of the elevator, the party, the sound of room doors opening and closing, recap p. 578, ballroom lights, brass, and “unmask!” cry, p. 586, man with a green ghoulmask p. 600, hedge lion attacks Dick chs. 51 & 53, Autism in 1977, p. 219 What is the relation between the old papers and Jack’s resurgent need to drink? (Wiping his mouth constantly while in the basement) Why is Danny drawn obsessively to room 217 like jack is to alcohol? Open the door = drink, let the demons out, ok, I get that, but Dad’s voice telling Jack to kill his family? Just not psychological reality 334 Does Jack have the shining too? He sees the live topiary - because he’s gifted? Or because they have objective reality? Does Danny’s shining with visions of the hotel’s past influence his father to read the documents in the basement? The hotel (manager) and a Grady certainly get through to him. At the least, Danny’s presence in the hotel makes the supernatural activity more powerful (did Grady have the shining too?), turning echoes of past tragedies into dangerous threats. King, b. 1947, is such fun - and so easy - to read, even when he’s bad he’s good. When he’s too cute, or precious, it’s endearing because he’s trying so hard and you know just what he’s aiming for (honk, peek, pocket; martians; special deliveries; trim her topiary), and he makes you *want* to like his characters, even when they’re unsympathetic or mockable. One technique is the foreshadowings - stronger word?

revolutions

while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation.

Appears at pp. 227, 233 Text of the story: https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death

From Caprichos, 1797-1799 The most famous of the “Caprichos” pictures a man slumped at his desk. He’s spent, to the point of unconsciousness, and he’s being hounded by a black cat, a lynx and wrinkled bats and owls. Written on the desk is a prime-time Enlightenment slogan: When reason goes, superstition thrives. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/arts/design/goya-met-museum.html

Stuart Ullman

Some of the third-floor chambermaids say they have heard rustling noises.

“Watson

Albert Shockley

May fifteenth to September thirtieth,

Robert Townley Watson

the grandfather of our present maintenance man.

Horace Derwent,

It was Derwent who added the roque court I saw you admiring when you arrived.”

During our first winter I hired a family instead of a single man. There was a tragedy. A horrible tragedy.”

Delbert Grady.

What about the other caretakers?

cabin fever.

The feeling of claustrophobia is externalized as dislike for the people you happen to be shut in with. In extreme cases it can result in hallucinations and violence—murder

“A stupid man is more prone to cabin fever just as he’s more prone to shoot someone over a card game or commit a spur-of-the-moment robbery.

“My wife and I both like to read.

There were hard feelings. All kinds of them.

She thought that to children adult motives and actions must seem as bulking and ominous as dangerous animals seen in the shadows of a dark forest.

Simile

Simile

Sometimes— (Danny with his arm in a cast) —he does things he’s sorry for later.

the men who are in charge of the school

she wondered just how he was supposed to survive with her and Jack for parents.

Haha

Haha

terror of the future.

temper,

furnace,”

furnace = temper

Boiler’s

Or because he wasn’t happy with his dad drinking and thought this would keep him from drinking that boor (which it would).

the sick single thump of that one Spike Jones chord.

Question ?

Just enough of a sound to slit through the red fog like an arrow—but instead of letting in sunlight, that sound let in the dark clouds of shame and remorse, the terror, the agonizing convulsion of the spirit. A clean sound with the past on one side of it and all the future on the other, a sound like a breaking pencil lead or a small piece of kindling when you brought it down over your knee.

Similes - 5

his own voice, weak and drunk, slurry, trying to take it all back,

is there a status quo in the house?—saying:

He saw only that his wife hated him and he felt staggered by it, all alone. He felt awful. This was what oncoming death felt like.

the sense of having no worth at all,

would he ever have an hour,

just one waking hour when the craving for a drink wouldn’t surprise him like this?

Unnecessary verisimilitude

Question?

Simile

a man can’t help his nature.

Gives me the horrors, it does.”

I figure there’s maybe forty–fifty people died in this hotel since my grandfather opened it for business in 1910.”

Did they scream? he wondered.

He shouldn’t have been here. And he shouldn’t have lost his temper.