The Shining Book (Review + Film Comparison)

Hello again!! Another random blog post on here. But I wanted to give a brief (not so brief) review of Stephen King's popular novel, The Shining!

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[Before I fully get into this however, I do wanna preface and say that there WILL be spoilers for the novel (and film too as I'll be making comparisons). If you haven't read the book/seen the film, I highly suggest avoiding this review! But if you've seen both (or don't care for spoilers), read on ahead!]

To cut things short, I LOVED IT. It's a really incredible book and while I did find some bits to be a bit fantastical at points, I still enjoyed it for what it is. That and, the story is about ghosts and a haunted hotel with malevolent influences on its residents. It's already pretty out there story wise so I didn't put it past Stephen King. (This is the same guy who wrote a book about a car that mind controls people into becoming obsessed with her, which by the way I will get to the novel Christine also since I did enjoy the John Carpenter film too.) Overall, I did really enjoy the book and its story, the characters were all really well written, the story was nicely paced too with a slow but steady build up to the chaos that would ensue for the family. I REALLY liked how Danny was written in the book, having watched the film and reading the book afterwards almost gave me a further explanation as to why Danny is the way he is and how his "shine" acts the way that it does. Out of all of the characters I do think Danny is my favourite because of that, and also because I feel the most sorry for- he's only 5- that's not the right age for a kid to be seeing horrifying visions of what will happen to him and his family while at the Overlook. But then again, this IS a horror story, so there's not gonna be a guaranteed happy ending. Obviously I do like Jack and Wendy Torrance too, I think their writing is pretty neat. But Danny shines (ba-dum-tiss) the most out of the 3 of them, for me at least.

Now THIS is the part where it gets all rambley and convoluted. To be brief before I go further into this, I prefer the movie to the book. The book REALLY does hold up all those years later back when it was first published in 1977. But to be completely honest I'd still get a kick out of The Shining film even after multiple rewatches. But as I continued reading the book I did realise how MUCH was cut out in order for the film to be made. In reality, the book and film are almost different entities that just so happen to follow a similar story and features the same characters. Even the endings are all too different. Some of the scenes in the book I liked and would've loved to see done in Kubrick's style in the film. This might just be me talking but what I didn't like about the book was the constant sexual references. Again, feel free to disagree, but I just felt they took me out of the book when they would pop up. What I do prefer too is something that might be an unpopular opinion, but I prefer Wendy in the film as opposed to the book. I know, I KNOW people say "oh but she's so whiny!!" "She's [insert other things people have said]", but I felt as though Wendy in the book was a bit too calm at times?? Is that a bad observation?? I dunno, maybe I need to re-read the book again because I could be missing something. I just prefer Wendy in the film, Shelly Duvall truly does an amazing job at acting the part and personally I think it's more of a realistic take on the character. Think about it, you probably would be the same if one of your loved ones started acting the way Jack did when you're stuck in a hotel, snowed in, contact cut from the outside world for the whole winter. I definitely would be I dunno about any of you. But maybe that's just me. Keep in mind though I'm not saying I hate the book after going on this rant, I really and truly love the book and it's being cemented as one of my favourite all time novels, I just find myself gearing towards Kubrick's film more. Could this be a semi-bias as my first exposure to King's work was the film? Maybe, and I frankly don't mind it. I like to read for fun as it is and not to overly dissect something to hell and back. I'm just here to have fun, not write an 8 page English essay.

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I think that's it for me! Hope you enjoyed reading through my semi-cohesive review and comparison of both the film and movie, The Shining. I do also plan to get to watching the ABC series made a little while after the film's release, who knows, maybe a review will pop up later talking about that and all 3 in comparison. I doubt it, but sometimes you'll never know. Anyways, I've been typing for a good bit, happy holidays everyone, stay safe and have a good day/evening/night :D.