Memory Loss

Stephen King is an alcoholic - I wonder how you could not be with all of his horrors running around in his head all the time. He admits that Jack Torrence (from The Shining) is him. Trapped in an hold hotel with your addiction raging up and down the halls and controlling your life. King says that the creative part of him knew in 1975 that he was an alcoholic, but he did not come to the realization until the early 80s.

"There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all. I don't say that with pride or shame, only a vague sense of sorrow and loss. I like that book. I wish I could remember enjoying the good parts as I put them down on the page."  -- On Writing, p99

Freedom from The Overlook

Ah, I have finally been released from the grips of the Overlook Hotel - no explosions, mallets, axes, or knives needed.

There are some things that work really well in the medium of print that do not translate well to a movie, or television screen. The hedge animals coming to life is one of them, Dreamcatcher is another one (but we will get there much, much later). I realized in reading this again that my viewing of Kubrick's interpretation has overshadowed the brilliance of what King created in this work. But I also appreciate Kubrick's version because he did capture the essence of the novel. I thought the mini-series, which stuck as much as possible to the book, fell very flat--because some things do not translate well from the page to the screen.

This book is such a creeper...a very slow build to a pretty intense ending. I had to put it down many times, just so that I could go to sleep without having any nightmares of men in dog masks lurking around corners. Every strange noise in the middle of the night would make me jump out of my skin. But perhaps the scariest thing of all is the lurking menace of the hotel, the 'manager'. Someone mentioned, but someone that never makes an appearance until the very end. We know that when you do not know what the evil is, everything is much scarier than when that evil is on the page from the get-go.

SPOILER ALERT! 

Forgotten, and not included in the movie, but my favorite part of the book was Jack's redemption at the end. In the movie we see Jack as taken over and evil - the relationship between father and son destroyed. However, in the book, Danny and Jack have their moment as Danny unveils the hotel for his father. Knowing that he is in too deep, Jack destroys himself at the last minute out of love for his son. Perhaps this is a message from King that no matter how taken over we are by our addictions, the good of the individual is still in there and worth not giving up.