The Shining

In many circles, The Shining is considered one of Stephen King’s best books.

Let me tell you why I'm giving it four stars instead of five.

Character development is fantastic as you get to know everyone inside and out. It's five-stars at 50%.

But the writing style is simplistic, back in a time when storytelling was (thankfully) more important than today's bad habit of weaving crazily complicated ideas to stand out from the crowd.

It's this over-simplicity that makes The Shining feel - I wouldn't say dated - but a bit rudimentary. A blessing in disguise in many ways for telling it straight.

Now I feel a bit awkward for not positively raving about this terrific book.

And it is terrific!

Father-figure Jack Torrance is a super guy, but unstable. Danny, the son, has the 'shining' - a supernatural ability to perceive things that normal people can't.

Crazy dad.

Clairvoyant son.

Malevolent hotel setting!

Father, mother and son get locked away for six months in the dead of winter at the Overlook hotel.

The Overlook comes alive when a person with enough 'shining' (Danny) awakens it.

The key to The Shining is the impending bad weather. Once the heavy snow hits and winter closes down in full force, there’s no way out and the family are stuck whether they like it or not. All shades of excrement hit the fan as evil stirs because of bad things that happened in the past.

The shining has a lot of grit, with careful and considered use of the C word reminding you that this is serious adult stuff. Also, heavy topics such as alcoholism, fleeing the scene of a crime, wife-beating, child-bashing, aggression and general craziness confirm this as serious horror literature.

Funnily enough, The Shining doesn't feel dated even though it was first published in 1977 when people used to smoke in aeroplanes!

Check out the cover of the very first issue and its amateurish off-centre feel.

Also beware of racial language and slurs that haven't aged well in reference to black people.

Ultimately, Stephen King is comfort reading with terrible twists. My main regret is not reading this 30 or 40 years ago when it was still fresh.