Also having recently finished reading The Shining, it very much is fantastic psychological horror. Absolutely loved the way Jack's lies that he had built up to protect himself slowly decayed as the hotel tightened it's grip on him.
On a personal level, his struggle to maintain his sobriety really was relatable. So many times he struggles with the choice of doing what's right for his career versus his family and resists the urge to have a strong drink or two or ten to numb the pain by recalling the trauma of the problems his alcoholism caused in the past. Having worked in stressful environments, there have been plants of days where I would have loved to have just let the boiler blow up and end it all, but had to do what was required and then try to resist the urge to hit the bottle.
I also found Wendy's character really interesting, because you really get the sense of how much damage her mother caused her by how overly protective she is of Danny. On the one hand, she was totally in the right being cautious of Jack after what he did in the past, but any time something was off, it was automatically his fault.
In the end though, the most horrifying thing about the whole thing is the trauma of it all. I mean, Danny's just a kid and went through that whole ordeal. That's pretty messed up. Then trying to think of the mental and physical trauma Wendy suffered. And not to mention Dick Halloran as well. Yeah, sure the hotel was creepy, but... oh man, that would be tough to recover from. Haven't read Doctor Sleep yet, but it is most definitely on my list.
VerdantSoul t1_itst644 wrote
Reply to Reading The Shining at 30 vs at 14 by readersanon
Also having recently finished reading The Shining, it very much is fantastic psychological horror. Absolutely loved the way Jack's lies that he had built up to protect himself slowly decayed as the hotel tightened it's grip on him.
On a personal level, his struggle to maintain his sobriety really was relatable. So many times he struggles with the choice of doing what's right for his career versus his family and resists the urge to have a strong drink or two or ten to numb the pain by recalling the trauma of the problems his alcoholism caused in the past. Having worked in stressful environments, there have been plants of days where I would have loved to have just let the boiler blow up and end it all, but had to do what was required and then try to resist the urge to hit the bottle.
I also found Wendy's character really interesting, because you really get the sense of how much damage her mother caused her by how overly protective she is of Danny. On the one hand, she was totally in the right being cautious of Jack after what he did in the past, but any time something was off, it was automatically his fault.
In the end though, the most horrifying thing about the whole thing is the trauma of it all. I mean, Danny's just a kid and went through that whole ordeal. That's pretty messed up. Then trying to think of the mental and physical trauma Wendy suffered. And not to mention Dick Halloran as well. Yeah, sure the hotel was creepy, but... oh man, that would be tough to recover from. Haven't read Doctor Sleep yet, but it is most definitely on my list.