Review: The Shining by Stephen King
a.k.a. I would like to officially retract every bad or unflattering thing I’ve ever said about Stephen King’s writing.
I’m not a fan of Kubrick’s film so there was little chance of my picking up the book… until I ran across King’s comments:
The character of Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie. Absolutely no arc at all. When we first see Jack Nicholson, he’s in the office of Mr. Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know, then, that he’s crazy as a shit house rat. All he does is get crazier. In the book, he’s a guy who’s struggling with his sanity and finally loses it. To me, that’s a tragedy. In the movie, there’s no tragedy because there’s no real change.
and:
[Wendy is] one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film. She’s basically just there to scream and be stupid. And that’s not the woman I wrote about.