Shining (novel)
Shining (in the original: The Shining ; working title: Darkshine , later The Shine ) is the title of a novel by Stephen King , which was published in 1977 by Doubleday-Verlag. The translation by Harro Christensen was published by Bastei-Lübbe-Verlag in 1980.
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Jack Torrance, a former schoolteacher and “dry” alcoholic , hopes to get his life back on track by taking the janitorial position at the remote Overlook Hotel for one winter. Jack lost his job as an English teacher for beating a student. His son Danny, whom he loves dearly, even broke his arm while drunk when he was three years old and had messed up some papers. Jack's wife, Wendy, is considering getting divorced over these tantrums. But she postpones the decision and hopes that the stay at the Overlook Hotel will bring the three back together as a family.
The remote hotel is located in the state of Colorado , in the Rocky Mountains . In winter it is snowed in for several months and is therefore completely cut off from the outside world. During this time Jack Torrance, who is also a writer, would like to finish a manuscript in addition to his caretaker work. One of Torrance's main duties as a caretaker is to manually regulate the boiler pressure every few hours.
The Torrance family arrive at the Overlook Hotel on the last day of the season when the staff is about to leave. The hotel chef, Dick Hallorann, shows them the large kitchen and supplies. He immediately noticed the talent of five-year-old Danny for the perception of the supernatural , which Halloran's grandmother called " the shining of God" . Danny can foresee events and relive the past in visions. Before leaving, Hallorann promises Danny not to be intimidated by things he may see or see in the hotel. In particular, he should definitely avoid room 217. In an emergency, Danny could reach Hallorann with a telepathic call for help. Then the hotel manager Ullman leads the family through the floors. In the upstairs presidential suite, only Danny sees the blood stains on the wallpaper. Ullman says goodbye, the three remain in the hotel alone.
In the basement, Jack finds old documents and begins to reconstruct the history of the hotel, which is rich in crimes, blood acts and suicides. Instead of a novel, he now wants to write a book about the Overlook . He also deals with his own past, his father's excesses of violence and his alcohol addiction . The hotel seems to be taking over Jack more and more, he is becoming increasingly manic and aggressive. Wendy is irritated, sometimes horrified, and wants to leave the hotel with Danny, but the onset of winter with heavy snowfall prevents her from doing so.
Danny begins to see ghosts and other strange apparitions: In room 217, which he finally enters, the ghost of a woman who died long before in the hotel pursues and chokes him. Meanwhile, Wendy interprets the strangulation marks on the traumatized Danny's neck as another assault by the father and brings herself and Danny to safety in their room. Jack checks room 217 and pretends not to see anything unusual.
The phone lines were cut because of the snowfall, Jack also destroyed the radio and made the snowmobile unusable by throwing away the distributor . In one of his trance states, Danny can decipher the word DROM (in the original REDRUM) as a word mirror for MORD (English MURDER). Desperate, he mentally calls the cook Hallorann, who is now working in Florida, for help. He immediately sets off on the arduous journey into snow-covered Colorado.
Wendy now suspects that Jack has gone mad. She now carries a kitchen knife with her as a weapon. In the Colorado Lounge, the hotel bar, she runs into the unconscious Jack. When he wakes up and tries to choke Wendy, she and Danny overpower him and lock him in the pantry. The ghosts of the hotel let him out again. Wendy suspects that the hotel and its ghosts want to take control of Danny's and his psychic powers, the Shinings ; in addition, it drives Jack delusional to make him docile to hunt down and murder Danny.
In an escalation of violence, Jack beats Wendy and the rushing Hallorann with a Roque bat. He is injured himself, but the Overlook continues to urge him to take control of Danny. However, Danny manages to kindle a last glimmer of fatherliness in Jack and can escape him in the process. Wendy, Danny and Hallorann flee the hotel into the snow and see the Overlook Hotel explode. The explosion occurs because Jack forgot to take care of the boiler pressure.
According to Stephen King, the title of the novel is based on the song Instant Karma! by John Lennon , which contains the refrain "And we all shine on". The novel, like many of King's works, has autobiographical features, as Stephen King himself suffered from alcohol problems.
Film adaptations
- 1980: Shining , directed by Stanley Kubrick , with Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance. The exterior of the hotel was filmed at the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood , Oregon .
- 1997: The Shining , filmed as a TV miniseries by Mick Garris , with Steven Weber as Jack Torrance. Stephen King, who was disappointed with Kubrick's film adaptation, wrote the script himself one more time. In this film version, the exterior shots were filmed at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park , Colorado , which King used as a template for his Overlook Hotel. Stephen King himself has a cameo here as the band leader.
Links to other works
- Chef Dick Hallorann, who introduces little Danny to the secrets of the Shining, survived a devastating fire in Derry as a young man, as reported in the novel It .
- George Hatfield is the student Jack Torrance takes from the debating team, for which George takes revenge by stabbing all the tires on the teacher's car. He is incorrigible: When Jack Sawyer finds the talisman in The Talisman , one learns in a subordinate sentence that George is currently in the Rector's office.
- Annie Wilkes from She knows Jack Torrance because she tells her protégé Paul Sheldon about the crazy caretaker of the Overlook Hotel.
- Various locations from the book also appear in the novel "The Stand": Stovington, Boulder, Arapahoe Street and Sidewinder. Just as in "The Shining" the Torrances travel from Stovington to Boulder and from there via Sidewinder to the Overlook, various characters in "The Stand" also travel from Stovington from the local "Plague Center" to Boulder. One of the main characters lives on Arapahoe Street. And of the characters who move west from Boulder, some come through Sidewinder.
- Room 217, the room where Danny meets a walking corpse, is also the number of teacher Edward French in The Model Student ( Spring, Summer, Fall and Death ), that of Richie Tozier in Es and that of Brady Hartsfield's hospital room in End of Watch .
- In September 2013, a sequel to The Shining entitled Doctor Sleep was released , from which King read excerpts on February 18, 2012 as part of the closing ceremony of the Savannah Book Festival.
literature
- Stephen King: Shining. Bastei-Lübbe, 2003, ISBN 3404130081
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The correct room number in the novel is 217. The room number in the film is 237.
- ↑ Stephen King Reads from Shining Sequel Dr. Sleep , accessed February 22, 2012