Critique of The Shining

(http://www.illiterarty.com/reviews/book-review-shining-stephen-king)

                 The Shining by Stephen King is a horror novel at its finest, following the Torrance family during their horrifying stay at the Overlook hotel in Sidewinder, Colorado.  The novel, published in 1977 by Doubleday Publishing Group, went perfectly with the up-and-coming horror genre addiction during the 1970’s.  The Shining however, did not spawn a series of its own, after its release.

                Though the novel is of the horror genre, perhaps the easiest genre of which to predict the plot of a novel, it is full of twists and turns.  There are multiple times during the plotline that the reader feels as if they know what is going to occur, but a completely opposite event occurs; making the novel much more interesting to read.  Stephen King also provides detailed thoughts from every main character in the novel, allowing the reader to really feel and understand where each character is coming from, so to speak.  Background information is also included where needed in the novel, to understand various characters’ psychological states based on previous events in their lifetimes.  For these reasons, I continue to read The Shining over and over again.  However, there are also certain things that could be disliked by readers.

                The most confusing part of the novel is the fact that there will be various thoughts of the main characters placed in the text.  For example, in one part of the novel Jack Torrance had been questioning his sanity and the text reads as: “The question had meant to be rhetorical, but his mind answered it (you call it insanity) nevertheless”.  This can be confusing, when various thoughts are placed in the middle of a sentence, despite it trying to show what a main character is really thinking or feeling.  It requires most readers to go back and read the sentence again in order to understand it, making it quite annoying.  Despite this annoyance, I still believe The Shining is well worth reading.

                I would recommend The Shining by Stephen King to anyone that has interest in the horror genre, whether it be novels or movies.  People that enjoy understanding how psychological problems effect one’s actions or have already seen the movie version of the novel by Stanley Kubrick, I would also highly recommend this novel to.