User blog comment:HumboldtLycanthrope/The Shining and Room 237/@comment-25073641-20160511144754/@comment-26030957-20160511161202

Is Stanley Kubrick's movie adaption of the Shining equal to the book?

Well, that's a matter of opinion. Last year I wrote a blog asking this very question and the variety of answers I received was really wild. Some King purists really ripped Kubrick apart, others decreed King a hack and lauded Kubrick's film.

I personally think Kubrick's version is better: deeper and more visceral, a psychological thriller and lament on the post-nuclear family and history of American colonialism as opposed to a supernatural horror story.

The two are very different beasts on very fundamental levels; for instance, Wendy in the book is a beautiful blonde cheerleader and in the novel she is, well, Shelly Duval. I suppose I shouldn't put any spoilers in here since you haven't read the book or seen the movie yet; but when you do, please feel free to message me if you want to discuss their differences and the implications those differences imply.

Stephen King is a very entertaining writer who can get the scares going when he isn't bogging himself down in silly and self-indulgent dark fantasy nonsense. But I wouldn't be intimidated by the length of his novels. His writing is very basic and elementary, really just one step up from a comic book (he himself cites the old E.C. horror comics from the fifties as his main influence) and his biggest fan base continues to be high school students. His prose certainly doesn't contain the depth and difficulty of, say, Joyce, Faulkner, or even David Foster Wallace.

Kubrick stated that King's verbosity was a real hindrance to his pacing and said he had to edit out all the "weak" parts, saying that the book certainly had no literary value. This of course really pissed King off, not to mention that Kubrick also refused to even look at King's screenplay and wouldn't let him on the set. This set off a terrific feud that continues to this day, even though Kubrick is now deceased. In the preface to King's sequel to The Shining, Dr. Sleep, King is still criticizing Kubrick's version of his story, thirty-five years later! One can only assume the sting of Kubrick's barbs have yet to heal. Lol.

I would say that King is so great at composing such horror masterpieces because of his understanding of archetypal stories and his knowledge of such stories. He is a total geek of horror, fantasy and sci-fi and isn't afraid to more-or-less rip off Lovecraft, Bradbury, Poe, Stoker, and, of course, the already mentioned E.C. comics. But he does it in such an original and deeply felt manner that it comes off more like a homage, which I guess it is.

When giving him the medal of honor recently, Obama called him America's Dickens. I would not disagree.

One thing that does irritate me about King is that he is always posting pictures of his dog on Facebook. One of these days I'm just going to unfriend him because of that.