The Shining

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Campbell Scott

Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

Before Doctor Sleep, there was The Shining, a classic of modern American horror from the undisputed master, Stephen King.

Jack Torrance's new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he'll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote...and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.

©1977 Stephen King (P)2005 Random House Audio

Critic Reviews

"A master storyteller." ( Los Angeles Times)

"He's the author who can always make the improbable so scary you'll feel compelled to check the locks on the front door." ( The Boston Globe)

"Scary!... Serves up horrors at a brisk, unflagging pace." ( The New York Times)

Don't expect the movie...

Any additional comments?

I think this audiobook will suffer from people comparing it to the movie. The movie story had very little to do with the actual novel. While the movie eventually reached classic status, the story and character development veered wildly from King's vision, quite notoriously and controversially. The movie is fantastic in its own right but should stand alone. If you are looking for an audio version of the movie or Jack Nicholson's performance, you should give this a pass.

That being said the novel is a tremendously gripping and horrifying read, bringing you along as the characters are more and more absorbed by the forces at work. The centerpiece is the hotel, and King paints an amazing picture over the course of the book, giving the Overlook a back story, a personality and a voice. Campbell Scott does an admirable job capturing the myriad of voices and emotions. A very tough assignment given that he not only has to portray a woman and child, but inner voices and distinguish between lucidity and madness. His performance did not take me out of the story at all and that is a tall order in a suspense piece. I enjoyed every minute listening to this book and when listening at night was truly scared at times.

THE FOG OF ANGER

Jack's Anger
After being amazed that a Stephen King masterpiece actually went on sale, I was again amazed at the listening again. In the first reading you may be scared over one of the scariest books ever written. In the second reading you might want to concentrate on the writing, the dissection of anger and human behavior. King could write in any genre and be considered a genius. I am only glad he chose horror. I belong to a family in which anger is very present and all those things that go through Jack's mind, happen a lot more than you probably think. Keep that in mind when you get one of those fake smiles from someone you are dealing with.

Grab this at the sale price while you can. In five years I have rarely seen a King masterpiece go on sale.

Read this book if you've only seen the film...

...because the book is a much more well-developed story. I saw the movie as a kid and watched it again just after finishing the novel for the first time. While I can understand why the film is iconic, it is a completely different interpretation of King's story and in my opinion just doesn't have as much depth or emotion. And I'm a Kubrick fan!

The story that most of us know: A writer takes his young family from Vermont out west to Colorado as he has taken a position as caretaker of a secluded hotel during its off season. King tackles issues such as alcoholism, self-esteem, and the strength of the family unit while telling a deliciously frightening story of the demons of the Overlook Hotel. He is one of the most talented storytellers out there, and I spent a good deal of time sitting in my driveway to listen to the end of a chapter before turning the car off and going inside my house.

Campbell Scott put me off at first as a narrator - I thought him to be a little too monotone at first, it was lolling me into a zone, not good when one is driving. But I stuck with him and he did brilliantly acting out the different characters, particularly the violent angry ones and I felt my pulse quicken during those parts.

I know it's said over and over again that the book is always better than the movie, but it's especially true in this case. Please treat yourself to this story, now one of my favorites by King.

A Pure Performance

The Shining - Review

As to the performance: it certainly wasn't monotone. The voices are all immaculate and extremely consistent; with a smooth delivery of the constant insertion and switching of inner voice to spoken voice that keeps the listener immersed and dramatizes the story amazingly well. What people are confusing "monotone" with, I think, at the beginning of the story is a wonderful and delicate subtlety.

As the madness sets in the dramatization becomes a very intense and accurate portrayal of the characters. I really don't understand how anyone can consider this narrator to be anything other than perfectly cast.

The statement that comes to my mind is: "A pure performance."

As to the story itself: there was a point at the beginning in which I distinctly remember thinking: this certainly isn't King's best work. It certainly started a little slow and a little dull; not what I'd expected from a Stephen King masterpiece. That was part one. Part two picked up well enough. After that the story continued to get better and better until the fifth part, the climax which I couldn't "put down" until I'd finished the story.

Bad Narration

I've read this book years ago and loved it, So now wanted to have it on audible, I couldn't finish it due to the Narrator's monotone reading

Book is 5 stars, the reader is 3-4

While I enjoyed the book very much, I had to convince myself to keep listening during the first several chapters. The reader was lackluster.

Problems :(

I am currently on chapter 19.. was loving it completely so far, until now. The chapter keeps skipping. I was thinking maybe it was the audible app. I have restarted it and my phone. But no, this book skips and completely stops reading at different intervals in this chapter. The words slowly fade away and then jump right back in at a different, not so far ahead, part of the paragraph.

Drowsy, Monotonous Narrator Ruins a Great Story

I LOVE Stephen King’s work, and this is no exception. The Shining deserves all the accolades it’s gotten over the years and more. It’s one of the most frightening and engaging books I’ve ever read. And so it was a deep disappointment to hear it mangled by the monotonous voice of this narcoleptic narrator. I couldn’t tell the difference between Jack and Wendy in conversation, and so it was unclear who was talking whenever there was no written indicator. In a word, it sucked. And it shouldn’t have. PLEASE redo this with a reader who isn’t half asleep at the wheel. It’s one of my favorite books, but this narrator either makes me give up in disgust or just fall asleep every time I try to listen to him talk. I can’t overstate how stunned I am that this guy got the job. What the hell happened there? A horror novel shouldn’t ever feel like a bedtime story told by an exhausted parent with half his mind on what he’d rather be doing instead. No inflection, no effort to create voices, no way to distinguish one character from another even though the three main characters are a tormented man with a nasty temper, a sweet woman struggling to hold her family together, and a brilliant little boy caught in the frozen hell between the two. Good grief! Worst narration I’ve ever heard, and the tragedy is that this book merits the best of the best.

good story, mixed narration

the narrator was inconsistent. great timing but monotone for much of the book. his telling picked up further in the book, but took awhile to get into.

Wonderful book, lackluster performance.

As many have already stated, the reader was lackluster. While at first it helped the foreboding atmosphere of desolation and monotony, and got you into Jack's psyche as someone trying to keep his cool despite his obvious issues with alcohol and anger, once we really start getting to the meat of the interactions between characters, there is hardly any passion. Jack and Wendy's frantic screaming dialogue which should induce terror and savagery instead just sound like muffled whispers, as if the reader was trying not to disturb a neighbor with thin walls. It was a strange choice. There was characterization to distinguish different speakers, but it was very subtle. Luckily the bulk of the reading focuses on the 3-4 main characters, but that only served to highlight the lack of passionate dialogue when it counted.

As a fan of Kubrick's interpretation and using that as a benchmark, the delivery was just so lacking, which is disappointing because the characters in the novel are so much richer and deeper and more complex. I definitely recommend the book, even if it did leave a few unanswered questions, and the performance is definitely not detrimental overall, just not up to par with other great performances.