Something I've encountered in re-reading The Shining!

I'm only about eighty-five pages into The Shining. The reason for this is that I've only been reading the novel during my lunch breaks at work. When I've been getting home in the late afternoon I've had just enough energy left to answer my e-mails, check my Kindle stories to see how the sales are doing (much better in England than here), and then watch a couple of episodes of the former HBO series, Deadwood. A friend wants me to review the complete three season's DVD set I purchased, but I'll have to think about that. That's thirty-six episodes! I just finished Season One, and I'm totally hooked on the show. I bought the set because I'm a big fan of Timothy Olyphant from the new TV show, Justified, that's based on an Elmore Leonard character. Dare I say that Deadwood definitely deserved all the awards it won and should have been continued for at least another season or two. But, that's history. I've glad I don't have to wait a week in between episodes.

There is, however, something I wanted to talk about in regards the to re-reading of Stephen King's The Shining. First of all, I'm loving the experience of reading the book for the third time. I would also say that I'm getting more out of it this time around than I did the first two. As I read each sentence, paragraph, page, chapter, I attempt to study Stephen King's style of writing and how he's able to create such vivid characters and scenes, hooking the reader in only the first couple of pages. What I actually find myself doing, however, is getting caught up in the story and forgetting about the "study" aspect. I'll read three or four pages and the realize that I haven't been doing my homework as a writer. In fact, I've almost been late twice in getting back to my job after lunch because I find myself totally lost inside the world of Jack, Wendy, and Danny Torrance, not to mention the Overlook Hotel.

What has been happening to me as I read The Shining is the result of having seen the Stanley Kubrick film version of the novel with Jack Nicholson in it at least a dozen times over the years (I hated the movie when it first came out, but have since grown to enjoy certain parts of it over the last three decades) and the Mick Garris television mini-series at least four times...maybe five. As I read certain sentences, dialogue, descriptions, inter-actions between the characters, I keep seeing the actors who played the roles in the two films in my mind's eye. It just naturally happens, and I can't help myself with it.

First of all, forget Shelly Duvall and Danny Lloyd from the first movie. I never saw them as Winnifred and Danny Torrance. I know from reading interviews and seeing documentaries that Shelly was under a lot of stress and worked her buns off in playing the role, but she just wasn't Wendy Torrance. Hell, I wanted to see Jack kill her in the movie because she was getting on my nerves so bad. I would've killed her myself if I'd been at the Overlook. I blame Kubrick and the casting director for hiring her. In the book Wendy is a beautiful, sexy, smart, strong lady with blond/brownish hair. That wasn't Shelly Duvall at all in the role.

Danny Lloyd playing Danny Torrance? Nah, I couldn't buy a little boy talking to his finger throughout the whole movie, but that was how Kubrick wanted to shoot it. Go figure that this great director couldn't be a little more creative in the filming process.

Now, most everybody who saw the movie and read the novel had trouble with Jack Nicholson's performance at the beginning of the film. I certainly did. Good old Jack acted somewhat crazy and abnormal at the start so there was no gradual descent into madness like in the novel. Once the character did become crazy, however, Jack Nicholson stole the movie. He was perfect. Hardly no one can do "crazy" like Jack can. There are scenes in the film that are now considered classic, and I have to agree wholeheartedly with them. There's the one where he's walking down the long hallway talking to himself as he heads to the lounge where the ghosts now come alive. Then, there's the scene on the lobby stairs when Wendy is swinging the bat at him in an effort to keep him from coming closer to her, and there's the locker scene where he's trying to talk his wife into letting him out so he can get another shot at trying to kill her. Finally, there's the famous scene of him chopping down the bedroom and bathroom doors with an axe in his attempt to get to his wife and son in a rage of pure, unadulterated madness. "Hereeeeee, Johnny!" Those are classic Jack Nicholson scenes and no one can take them away from the actor.

Along with Jack Nicholson is Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann, the black cook who also shares the gift of the shining with little Danny. I've always seen Scatman Crothers as Hallorann even though Melvan Van Peebles did an excellent job in the role for the mini-series.

With regards to the mini-series, Rebecca De Mornay was Wendy Torrance through and through. She looked the role and played it to perfection. The same with Courtland Mead who played little Danny Torrance. I was rooting for both of them to get out of the hotel alive. Last is Pat Hingle who played Watson in the mini-series and showed Steve Weber the boiler room at the beginning. Pat Hingle was literally Watson from the novel. Perfect casting for that small role.

What does all of this have to do with re-reading the novel? Pure and simple, I find myself seeing many of these actors in my mind as I read the book. Sometimes I see Steve Weber as Jack Torrance, but other times I see Jack Nicholson when a certain line of dialogue comes along. I always see Rebecca De Mornay ("Get away, fly") and Courtland Mead as the characters in my reading of the book. Mostly I see Scatman Crothers as Hallorann, but sometimes Melvan Van Peeple's face will edge its way into my mind. Remember, I'm still roughly at the beginning of the book and the Torrance's arrival at the hotel. As far as the Overlook Hotel is concerned, I often see both the real Timberline Hotel in Oregon and the Stanley Hotel in Colorado as the real character of the novel.

At this stage of my life, I'm finding that seeing actors in the roles of the characters makes the reading experience even better for me. That doesn't take away from Stephen King's utter craftsmanship in the creation of this story, but rather enhances it. I do the same thing with The Green Mile and Shawshank.

Okay, I have a book review of F. Paul Wilson's By the Sword to write this weekend, my final rewriting of the short story, "No Hitchhiking," to finish, and Ben Hur and couple of other movie classics to watch for Easter. This is going to be the best Easter weekend I've had in a long time.