Welcome to Week Seven!

When I was reading THE SHINING, all I could think about was how similar the family in the novel was to the Mulvaney family. Both of the father's have issues with their own fathers and it effects the way that they interact with their families. Also they are both very negative characters by the end of the story. Also both of the wives are in a sort of denial about the way their family is functioning. Both of them don't do much to defend themselves in situations in which their husbands are very controlling. The children in both novels have their own ideas about what is going on but don't really try to change anything, as if they just gave up on the family (though I can say that Danny does do a little more than the Mulvaney children do). I do think though that reading about the family in THE SHINING was more interesting than WE WERE THE MULVANEYS.

I can't keep track of all the aunts and uncles... uh.... another winner for a dad...he might be the scariest yet...at least to me because people like him are probably more common than people who live in giant haunted hotels and go crazy...I guess he and the Mike Mulvaney dude are debatable...and yea, I decided to go without sentence structure on this one...i mean, it's 2:10...

This will probably sound asinine, but I'm being serious when I propose this, but I think that the odds against this much alcoholism in our male characters in the past three novels, all the way back to Paul D in "Beloved," without any of them digressing into a more serious drug habit, i.e. cocaine or heroin, is not very plausible. One of them, Paul D, Mike Sr., or Jack Torrance, should have had the prediliction for harder drugs. It's statistics. Frankly, in my opinion, Jack Torrance would have been more believable, and "The Shining" a whole lot more interesting, if Jack had been hitting the rock, so to speak. Seriously. I mean, it wouldn't have been a stretch for King to have had him spiral down into a mean coke habit. But the Overlook's isolation would have made that a problem. Yeah, "The Shining" would have been way better if King had thrown in a little Penelope Cruz from "Blow" into Jack Torrance's character. I mean, why have Morrison, Oates, and King just stopped at alcohol addiction??? They could have done so much, much, much more with the illicits. Honestly, as a reader, I feel a little cheated...

I have started reading Bastard Out of Carolina, and I rather enjoy it. I really like the southern language and writing style the writer uses, as I think it adds so much to the story. I am also enjoying all the characters. They also add an entirly different dimension to the story... ok now to change the subject... I went to see Andrea Dworkin last night for her reading and will be attending her lecture this morning. I thought she was extreamly captivating. I thought I would be watching the clock the entire time, however before I realized it, it was almost time for the reading to be over. Her pieces were incredibily descriptive and also somewhat disturbing. As she graphically goes into the touchy subjects such as rape, prostitution and women's rights. I think above all, she delivered a different way to look at those issues. For anyone that knows, was she reading about her own life? I couldn't figure it out. Anyway, I really enjoyed her readings, although I don't agree with her on all points, she makes very good arguments. If nothing else, to force people to re-look at the issues she discusses.

I thought that The Shining was the best book we have read so far. However, I have one major complaint about the story. I could not believe the character of Danny. He was just way too young to have that part in the story. Most five year olds have to sleep with a night light on because they are afraid of the dark, but Danny could read people’s minds and see dead bodies yet, not be affected that much. The only way that the character of Danny could be made believable within this story is if he was huddled in some corner for the entire book crying. I know if I could read people’s minds and see dead people, I would be affected a lot. I could not even imagine what I would do, but I know it would be more than what the character Danny did.

I'm a little over a hundred pages into Bastard out of Carolina. So far, I am really interested in it and enjoy reading about the Boatwrights' way of life. (However, my friend told me that he threw the book away after reading it because he was so upset. So now, each time I start to read I become a little apprehensive about what is going to happen.)

I have not seen the movie for any of the books we have read, however my goal is to watch a few of them. I am so interested to see who they would cast for certain roles, one being Glen Waddell. In the book on page 34 it says, "Glen Waddell's feet were so fine that his boots had to be bought in th boys' department of the Sears, Roebuck, while his gloves could only be found in the tall men's specialty stores." I don't know, but when I think of Glen now I think of a distorted person and each time his name is mentioned I picture his distorted, almost freakish looking body in my head. In other books, the description has done the same to me... I really can't recall which ones though. It could be that Allison was just trying to describe how big Glen's hands were since that seems to be important in the story so far. I don't know, but personally it is just frustrating to me.

Well I'm pretty sure that The Shining quiz will be the one that I am going to drop. However, I did enjoy the book. This is the first King novel I've ever read, mostly because I don't like scary stories. But I really don't think this story was so warped that it was horrifying. I found it really interesting that there was a semi-happy ending. Most stories along these lines end in complete tragedy. I also like how King made Jack out to be a sincere person, so that when he was taken over a part of me felt bad for him.

Since I am not sure what else to really say about the Shinning, I think I will compare it to the movie.

Movie: The movie focused mostly on the mysterious ghosts haunting the Overlook, while we slowly watch as Jack Torrance seems to give in to cabin fever. We see very little of the love that Jack is supposed to have for Danny, and it really comes as very little surprise when Jack finally does loose it.

The movie actually does not touch as much on the actually Shining ability that Danny has. In the movie. Tonny is an irritating iinvisible friend who lives in Danny's finger(and has a really wraspy voice). Tonny does remain partially true to the story in that he tries to warn Danny about the Overlook through visions. Unfortunatly, the visions are all very vague and haunting, and Danny is unable to relate to them. Dann'y first vision about the Overlook is a huge pile of blood spilling out of an elevator. This image does not really seem to suggest as much about the actual evil of the Overlook as it could.

The Mother Wendy is a pale and irritating character who did some great acting I suppose, but all she really did was cry and look terrified. She would be more appropriate for the movie if Stephen King had not already stated that Wendy was already a very attractive women with BLONDE hair.

Book: The book focuses a lot more on the true evil of the Overlook. In the movie, we are left to wonder exactly how much of Jack's madnesses is actually due to cabin fever. However in the book, it is made painfully clear that the Overlook is feeding almost of Jack's inner demons and using them to control him.

Danny's ability to shine comes into play a lot more in the book. It is what interests the ghosts of the hotel, and it allows him to call Halloran, while in the movie, it is suggested that Halloran may have learned about the trouble the family was in through his own ability to shine. Moreover, Tonny is not some irritating voice in Danny's finger. In fact, in the book, no one in the family but Danny even spoke to Tonny, while in the movie, durring the begining, we see Wendy actually talk to Tonny through Danny and try to convince Tonny of how nice the Overlook is.

Wendy is much more of a concerned mother, who really fights back against her insane husband. In my mind, she is much stronger and braver than her pale(and I mean that literally) imitation in the movie.

Unlike his counterpart in the movie, we see that Jack is actually a loving father who has turned his back on his own demons for the sake of his family. He is still haunted by his demons, but he has turned his back on them giving up drinking and trying to control his temper. What I really liked about Jack in the book is the fact that it wasn't him trying to kill his family. As he is running down to the boiler to dump the pressure, the book describes Jack as 'it'. Some kind of creature that looks like Jack and has his memories.

In conclusion, the book was awesome. The movie still gives me nightmares, but it does a grave injustice to the original story written by Stephen King.

The Shining was a very complex book with many details like We Were The Mulvaneys but this time the details were great. It took me forever to finish The Shining due to all of the details but it was a page turner. I found myself re-reading certain parts just incase I missed something vital to the end. I have read several of King's books but this one takes the cake.
   I wanted to also comment on something that we discussed in class. Someone had mentioned that this was the first and only male author we are reading this quarter and I thought that was pretty weird. Women and men writers do have a lot of differences and I wondered if anyone thought the same as I do. I think that women definately read more novels by other women rather than men. When I compare the novels I've read from the two sexes, it is hard to find something to connect with in a novel by a male. There are always exceptions but I can understand why the male student in class didn't enjoy the other novels we have read in class.