Polar Vortex Reading

Do you believe that some individuals have a second sight, or clairvoyance, or can read other people's minds? Stephen King's 1977 work The Shining calls this ability "the shining." And it's not always a happy talent to have. But whether it exists in real life or just in novels, King's exploration of this phenomenon impressed me quite a bit.

Being a new reader of King, I expected a much more conventional horror story. I found instead that I was reading a psychological thriller. The ghosts, demons, and unnamable powers that inhabit the isolated, snowed-in Overlook Hotel in this story are eerily able to exploit the mental and psychological weaknesses of the characters that they terrorize. As readers, we are in the heads of these victims of supernatural horror. Every detail reinforces both terror and psychological realism -- even the simple act of making lunch, punctuated by internal voices in parenthetic italics:

"All of these actions, so common and so much a part of her life before the Overlook had been a part of her life, helped to calm her. 

"She melted butter in the frying pan, diluted the soup with milk, and then poured the beaten eggs into the pan. A sudden feeling that someone was standing behind her, reaching for her throat. She wheeled around, clutching the knife. No one there. 

"(! Get ahold of yourself, girl !) 

She grated a bowl of cheese from the block, added it to the omelet, flipped it, and turned the gas ring down to a bare blue flame. The soup was hot. She put the pot on a large tray with silverware, two bowls, two plates, the salt and pepper shakers. When the omelet had puffed slightly, Wendy slid it off onto one of the plates and covered it. (pp. 541-542). 

Or the comfort of soup to Danny, the 5-year-old boy whose "shining" is the center of the entire book:

"(Why are you here?) 

"After the walk behind the Overlook, he and Mommy had come back and she had fixed him his favorite lunch, a cheese and bologna sandwich plus Campbell’s Bean Soup. ...

"Mommy had eaten half a sandwich, no soup. She said Daddy must have gone out for a walk of his own since both the VW and the hotel truck were in the parking lot. She said she was tired and might lie down for an hour or so, if he thought he could amuse himself and not get into trouble. Danny told her around a mouthful of cheese and bologna that he thought he could." (p. 245-246).

Of course we know what trouble Danny can get into while his mom is sleeping and his father is missing!

Likewise, soup can't assuage the growing horror of the Overlook's supernatural and dangerous residents:

"The three of them were in the lobby. Jack had built a roaring blaze in the fireplace. Danny was bundled up in a blanket on the small sofa .... He was sipping hot noodle soup from a mug. Wendy sat beside him, stroking his hair. Jack had sat on the floor, his face seeming to grow more and more still, more and more set as Danny told his story. Twice he pulled his handkerchief out of his back pocket and rubbed his sore-looking lips with it.  

"'Then they chased me,' he finished. Jack got up and went over to the window, his back to them. He looked at his mommy. 'They chased me all the way up to the porch.' He was struggling to keep his voice calm, because if he stayed calm maybe they would believe him." (p. 431). 

Stephen King's books have sold 350 million copies, so I assume that several million words have already been written about him, many admiring! At this point, I don't think I have much more to add. Anyone reading this blog has probably at least seen one of the film versions (1980 and 1997) -- not me, somehow.

The thermometer when I got up Thursday. That's a minus sign at far left.
Not long afterward we spent quite a bit of time thawing out frozen pipes.

While I've been reading, record-low temperatures and wind chills are keeping large numbers of people indoors here in the midwestern states. No doubt many of them are eating soup like the characters in The Shining. We definitely had soup for lunch Thursday: Trader Joe's Sweet Potato Bisque with additions of leftover roast chicken, spices, and a can of chick peas.

When I saw the weather prediction, I decided to read King: an author who is often highly praised, but whose novels I had never read. The Shining is sometimes said to be his best. When I ordered my Kindle copy I had no idea that most of the action takes place during a blinding snowstorm, when the characters are cut off from help and from all outside contact. Quite a choice!