I use Goodreads lots, to keep track of the stuff I’m reading, to write wee reviews, to read what other people think about a book too- especially if I found it irksome. Here’s a link and my review of The Shining.
The Shining by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I started reading this book ages ago, then chickened out. It was a strange kind of scary. Not a jumpy ghostly kind, but the slow disintegration of what is real and what isn’t kind. I think that is the type that fascinates me the most. Recently I’ve been reading and researching a lot of Gothic Fiction. This book and the lines between madness and possession, and the house and the space as a conduit or site of the haunting, has lots of lovely elements of Gothic horror.
As for the difference between the film and the book. Well, there are big differences. I think both work really well for the different mediums. The movie characters are great. But in the book the characters are deeper and darker and the domestic violence issues are strong, as is the madness, and the shining! Inner dialogue is something really hard to show in a movie. So the actual ‘shining’ really works well in the book. In the film, kinda.
There is a sequel, with Danny all grown up and dealing with everything in The Shining. That could potentially be pretty damn cool. I’ll put it on my ‘Want to read’ list.
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Dane Divine: Storyteller 