I’m still reading Stephen King’s the Shining and enjoying it. But since this is “Comments on Things I’m Reading”, I thought I would point out something that occurred to me while writing my last post on the Shining (it was for November 2nd).
I didn’t put this in as the last post was pretty much finished and…if we’re going to honest, my posts can get a little wordy. (I admit it. But as a professional fiction writer this is really the only place that I can get away with being overly wordy. The rest of the time I’m limited by word counts and editors who’d really prefer not to slog through another ten thousand word manuscript in their slush pile.)
This bit is really an addendum to my thoughts – perhaps even a random tangent. I’m a HUGE fan of the Kubrick movie version of this book. I have easily seen it over ten thousand times (actually I’ve lost count, but it’s a lot), so comparisons to the book have inevitably cropped up. There have been a lot of, “Hm, Kubrick definitely used that, but very differently.” And I’m painfully aware of the fact that King himself hated the film, though some fans (who are unusually amorous of the author – I mean, really, he’s like their cult leader) will soften that view by saying that he felt that the director didn’t really do a good job of encompassing what the book was all about.
The story I get from the fans is that King felt the Jack Torrance character and his addiction was unfairly characterized – at best as unsympathetic and at worst an irredeemable monster. This makes sense since as he saw himself in the Jack Torrance character, and it is well known that he struggled with addiction during his career (and in that he has my sympathies – nothing is more horrible and life destroying, and unfairly stigmatized, than addiction – I mean, other than mental illness).
The Shining is primarily a ghost story that takes place in a hotel isolated by vast and bleak wilderness where the family inhabiting it is trapped by the horrendousness of the natural conditions (an epic snowstorm). There is a bit of a theme of Humanity Versus Nature going on in the background, but if you’re going to pin a main theme to this book it would be the Trap of Addiction. Kind of sounds a little arbitrary, doesn’t it? (Wait, it’s a story about a family trapped in a hotel where the dad goes crazy and tries to kill them, and the theme is addiction?) I agree.
This is where King’s fans and I depart. They think he puts together brilliant mind blowing stuff, I think that he’s a master storyteller, but a so-so novelist. The fact that there really are two distinct themes that aren’t entirely connected (well, tenuously connected at best) and that the journey of Jack Torrance takes prevalence over the journey of, say, his son Danny, who really ought to be the main character, makes me think that he hasn’t really worked his story out as carefully as, say, a James Joyce or Ernest Hemingway. Steinbeck anybody? Those guys ARE master novelists, though I don’t think that they’re all that great at storytelling (except Steinbeck whose characters actually do stuff and the stakes are actually dire, but that’s for another post). Though I’ve never actually snoozed, I mean, read my way all the way through a Hemingway, so I could be wrong. Sorry, Hemingway fans. I’m just not into that novelist (there’s a story behind that – but that too is for another post).
Anyhow, back to this whole Jack Torrance as the main character stuff. Clearly, we’re meant to follow his journey into madness, but keep in mind that he is the monster at the center of the maze in this book. This is part of my problem with King’s complaint. Imagine watching Nightmare on Elm Street and being asked to sympathize with Freddy Kruger, the one victimizing the kids who are helpless to his torments.
King rationalized his choice by saying that this is a human being struggling with something that is really and difficult. True, I won’t argue with that. My problem was with the fact that we’re being asked to sympathize with a guy who picks up an axe and tries to chop his wife and five-year-old son into pieces.
Even Stanley Kubrick couldn’t. It’s why when you watch the film Jack is not a terribly sympathetic character. He’s cool, removed and snide, a Jack Nicholson specialty especially for this phase of his career. He never faces his son until he’s in the lobby of the hotel being given the introductory tour and that is to send him off to the games room (he even has a hotel staffer watch after him while he and his wife finish off the tour). He talks about his son as if he loves him, but when it’s just him, Wendy and son in the car he’s not terribly warm. This makes the later carnage all the more believable.
Later one of the ghosts of the hotel attack Danny and Wendy (Danny’s mom) blames Jack, who becomes quickly petulant grousing about how he gave up alcohol (and it’s so unfair that he had to do that) and still she rides him with accusations – won’t ever let him forget it. He doesn’t sound like someone being unfairly persecuted, he sounds a bit like a petty teenager. He claims that the Danny’s attack wasn’t him which is true, but then goes on to claim that grabbing his son and breaking his clavicle six months earlier was also not his fault which is…well, Wendy was there to witness that one, so that’s not true.
At this point in the movie Jack quickly slides into monster mode moving from petty and whining to exploding with rage and axe wielding. But from the beginning of the movie Kubrick portrayal of Jack is not of a good person.
But King’s is. Jack thinks about his actions, feels bad about them. He regrets many of his life decisions and yearns for the alcohol, but only blames himself for the unhappiness that resulted from it. (Still not the same as taking the blame for his actions, but closer to a sympathetic character.) I do feel that there is a point in the story that Jack goes from being a grim character to cheerful, happy dad in a scene that is such a fast 180 degree turn that it gave me whiplash. But King does his best to show that this is a decent guy in unfortunate circumstances…that he brought about. (He’s trapped in a hotel – where he’s forced to attack his family? – because he had to take a lowly caretaker job, because he lost his job, because he punched a student he was teaching. Yeah, his fault.)
My problem is we’re asked to stretch our sympathies out to someone who won’t acknowledge the scope of his addiction (how very bad it is) and the other that we’re supposed to be blind to his rage outbursts. (As if King was saying, “hey, he hauls out and punches one of his students, grabs his kid and breaks his arm, but actually, he’s really a decent guy.” Um, okay.)
Which brings me to my central question: how far do we excuse a person?
I’m not sure if this was King’s intention, or if his dislike of the film brought this idea into focus.
I’m actually of two minds on this and I have a feeling that you’ll either take one argument over the other depending on your own personal life philosophy, but for me it’s not so easy to do so.
On the one hand, a person does need to be accountable for his or her actions. There are behaviors that it isn’t fair to pawn off on excuses like “I was high”, “I was angry” or, even worse, “I just couldn’t help myself”. There are plenty of people who struggle with alcoholism, addiction and depression and mental illness who don’t haul out an axe – who don’t beat up their spouses or kids (either psychologically or physically). If, for instance, Jack had given into his rageful outburst in a shopping mall and started wielding an axe and chopping at people, you better believe that there would definitely be a SWAT team showing up with full automatic weapons and with full permission to gun him down. Nobody would blink an eye at that or defend him for what he was doing – alcohol or no alcohol. Destroying people physically or psychologically is a monstrous action that really has no grounds in civilized society or in any social structure. Getting your jollys off of hurting others is not an acceptable way to exorcise your demons, blow off steam, or get revenge because others have made you feel victimized (or you might think that it’s okay because you aren’t getting what you feel you deserve from society – but why does society owe you anything? What makes you so special?). Even in classic literature, it’s made clear that revenge isn’t the way to handle problems – it only makes the world a more angry, vindictive place (and if you’re angry about being victimized, perhaps you should consider how the victim of your revenge feels).
On the other hand, we do have to find a way to live with each other for better or for worse. Nobody is perfect, grief can impact us a little too hard, and life can be a struggle – especially for someone who is struggling with something as large and monstrous as addiction, personality disorder or mental illness (or any illness…then there’s financial troubles, heartbreak, loneliness, feeling excluded or persecuted, smaller things, but still a terrible struggle that also should count just as much). If a person can’t have a bad day without fear of reprisal, then when can a person feel free to be him or herself? You will fail at something and do something horrible for one reason or another – as will everyone else. It isn’t fair to be unkind to someone who is struggling with something awful, or something that we have struggled with or will struggle with sometime in our lifetime. Nor is it fair to judge. “Let he who has never committed this sin, cast the first stone,” that’s what the bible says; it’s not religious advice, just good advice (and be fair to the person you’re judging, if you search your memory, you’ve messed up in that way too – I know I have). Forgiveness is a key component to a happy society, because it’s only fair. You can’t go around saying everybody else is flawed in one area or another without implicating yourself. You (and I) have flaws and not allowing anyone else to have them is at best unfair and hypocritical, and at worst it’s cruel and judgmental.
But what I find is worse than that is that a society that works too hard to condemn, becomes more and more petty with each condemnation, until condemnation slides into a cruel ganging up on the individual, (take a look at the movie I, Tonya and see that cruelty in action, her life was ruined by an unfair social judgement for an action she didn’t even commit). Hurting people because you believe they deserve it, shouldn’t be a sport. Having a collective schadenfreude at ruining people’s careers, families, even lives, makes society the monster at the center of the maze.
Don’t participate in that.
So, should I forgive Jack Torrance his faults? Or should I judge him for not taking responsibility? The possession by ghosts is what causes him to go crazy, but is that a crazy that’s excusable? (On the one hand, he isn’t himself. On the other wielding an axe at his five-year-old son is a pretty hard thing to ask me to excuse.) Am I taking too much pleasure condemning? (As in, it’s easy for me to sit in my home where I’m not trapped, and judge someone who is.) It seems like a simple answer, but is it?
Perhaps that was what both King and Kubrick were aiming for.
I’m still reading Stephen King’s the Shining and enjoying it. But since this is “Comments on Things I’m Reading”, I thought I would point out something that occurred to me while writing my last post on the Shining (it was for November 2nd).
I didn’t put this in as the last post was pretty much finished and…if we’re going to honest, my posts can get a little wordy. (I admit it. But as a professional fiction writer this is really the only place that I can get away with being overly wordy. The rest of the time I’m limited by word counts and editors who’d really prefer not to slog through another ten thousand word manuscript in their slush pile.)
This bit is really an addendum to my thoughts – perhaps even a random tangent. I’m a HUGE fan of the Kubrick movie version of this book. I have easily seen it over ten thousand times (actually I’ve lost count, but it’s a lot), so comparisons to the book have inevitably cropped up. There have been a lot of, “Hm, Kubrick definitely used that, but very differently.” And I’m painfully aware of the fact that King himself hated the film, though some fans (who are unusually amorous of the author – I mean, really, he’s like their cult leader) will soften that view by saying that he felt that the director didn’t really do a good job of encompassing what the book was all about.
The story I get from the fans is that King felt the Jack Torrance character and his addiction was unfairly characterized – at best as unsympathetic and at worst an irredeemable monster. This makes sense since as he saw himself in the Jack Torrance character, and it is well known that he struggled with addiction during his career (and in that he has my sympathies – nothing is more horrible and life destroying, and unfairly stigmatized, than addiction – I mean, other than mental illness).
The Shining is primarily a ghost story that takes place in a hotel isolated by vast and bleak wilderness where the family inhabiting it is trapped by the horrendousness of the natural conditions (an epic snowstorm). There is a bit of a theme of Humanity Versus Nature going on in the background, but if you’re going to pin a main theme to this book it would be the trap of addiction. Kind of sounds a little arbitrary, doesn’t it? (Wait, it’s a story about a family trapped in a hotel where the dad goes crazy and tries to kill them, and the theme is addiction?) I agree.
This is where King’s fans and I depart. They think he puts together brilliant mind blowing stuff, I think that he’s a master storyteller, but a so-so novelist. The fact that there really are two distinct themes that aren’t entirely connected (well, tenuously connected at best) and that the journey of Jack Torrance takes prevalence over the journey of, say, his son Danny, who really ought to be the main character, makes me think that he hasn’t really worked his story out as carefully as, say, a James Joyce or Ernest Hemingway. Steinbeck anybody? Those guys ARE master novelists, though I don’t think that they’re all that great at storytelling (except Steinbeck whose characters actually do stuff and the stakes are actually dire, but that’s for another post). Though I’ve never actually snoozed, I mean, read my way all the way through a Hemingway, so I could be wrong. Sorry, Hemingway fans.
Anyhow, back to this whole Jack Torrance as the main character. Clearly, we’re meant to follow his journey into madness, but keep in mind that he is the monster at the center of the maze in this book. This is part of my problem with King’s complaint. Imagine watching Nightmare on Elm Street and being asked to sympathize with Freddy Kruger, the one victimizing the kids who are helpless to his torments.
King rationalized his choice by saying that this is a human being struggling with something that is really and difficult. True, I won’t argue with that. My problem was with the fact that we’re being asked to sympathize with a guy who picks up an axe and tries to chop his wife and five-year-old son into pieces.
Even Stanley Kubrick couldn’t. It’s why when you watch the film Jack is not a terribly sympathetic character. He’s cool, removed and snide, a Jack Nicholson specialty especially for this phase of his career. He never faces his son until he’s in the lobby of the hotel being given the introductory tour and that is to send him off to the games room (he even has a hotel staffer watch after him while he and his wife finish off the tour). He talks about his son as if he loves him, but when it’s just him, Wendy and son in the car he’s not terribly warm. This makes the later carnage all the more believable.
Later one of the ghosts of the hotel attack Danny (the son) and Wendy blames Jack, who becomes quickly petulant grousing about how he gave up alcohol (and it’s so unfair that he had to do that) and still she rides him with accusations – won’t ever let him forget it. He sounds a bit like a petty teenager. He claims that the Danny’s attack wasn’t him which is true, but then goes on to claim that grabbing his son and breaking his clavicle six months earlier was also not his fault which is…well, Wendy was there to witness that one, so that’s not true.
At this point in the movie Jack quickly slides into monster mode moving from petty and whining to exploding with rage and axe wielding. But from the beginning of the movie Kubrick portrayal of Jack is not of a good person.
But King’s is. Jack thinks about his actions, feels bad about them. He regrets many of his life decisions and yearns for the alcohol, but only blames himself for the unhappiness that resulted from it. (Still not the same as taking the blame for his actions, but closer to a sympathetic character.) I do feel that there is a point in the story that Jack goes from being a grim character to cheerful, happy dad in a scene that is such a fast 180 degree turn that it gave me whiplash. But King does his best to show that this is a decent guy in unfortunate circumstances…that he brought about. (He’s trapped in a hotel – where he’s forced to attack his family? – because he had to take a lowly caretaker job, because he lost his job, because he punched a student he was teaching. Yeah, his fault.)
My problem is we’re asked to stretch our sympathies out to someone who won’t acknowledge the scope of his addiction (how very bad it is) and the other that we’re supposed to be blind to his rage outbursts. (As if King was saying, “hey, he hauls out and punches one of his students, grabs his kid and breaks his arm, but actually, he’s really a decent guy.” Um, okay.)
Which brings me to my central question: how far do we excuse a person?
I’m not sure if this was King’s intention, or if his dislike of the film brought this idea into focus.
I’m actually of two minds on this and I have a feeling that you’ll either take one argument over the other depending on your own personal life philosophy, but for me it’s not so easy to do so.
On the one hand, a person does need to be accountable for his or her actions. There are behaviors that it isn’t fair to pawn off on excuses like “I was high”, “I was angry” or, even worse, “I just couldn’t help myself”. If, for instance, Jack had given into his rageful outburst in a shopping mall and started wielding an axe and chopping at people, you better believe that there would definitely be a SWAT team showing up with full automatic weapons with full permission to gun him down. Nobody would blink an eye at that or defend him for what he was doing – alcohol or no alcohol. Destroying people physically or psychologically is a monstrous action that really has no grounds in civilized society or in any social structure. Getting your jollys off of hurting others is not an acceptable way to exorcise your demons, blow off steam, or get revenge because others have made you feel victimized (or you might think that it’s okay because you aren’t getting what you feel you deserve from society – but why does society owe you anything? What makes you so special?). Even in classic literature, it’s made clear that revenge isn’t the way to handle problems – it only makes the world a more angry, vindictive place (and if you’re angry about being victimized, perhaps you should consider how the victim of your revenge feels).
On the other hand, we do have to find a way to live with each other for better or for worse. Nobody is perfect, grief can impact us a little too hard, and life can be a struggle – especially for someone who is struggling with something as large and monstrous as addiction, personality disorder or mental illness (or any illness…then there’s financial troubles, heartbreak, loneliness, feeling excluded or persecuted, smaller things, but still a terrible struggle that also should count). If a person can’t have a bad day without fear of reprisal, then when can a person feel free to be him or herself? You will fail at something and do something horrible for one reason or another – as will everyone else. It isn’t fair to be unkind to someone who is struggling with something awful, or something that we have struggled with or will struggle with sometime in our lifetime. Nor is it fair to judge. “Let he who has never committed this sin, cast the first stone,” that’s what the bible says; it’s not religious advice, just good advice (and be fair to the person you’re judging, if you search your memory, you’ve messed up in that way too – I know I have). Forgiveness is a key component to a happy society, because it’s only fair. You can’t go around saying everybody else is flawed in one area or another without implicating yourself. You (and I) have flaws and not allowing anyone else to have them is at best unfair and hypocritical, and at worst it’s cruel and judgmental.
But what I find is worse than that is that a society that works too hard to condemn, becomes more and more petty with each condemnation, until condemnation slides into a cruel ganging up on the individual, (take a look at the movie I, Tonya and see that cruelty in action, her life was unfairly ruined by social judgement) having a collective schadenfreude at ruining people’s careers, families, even lives. Hurting people because you believe they deserve it, shouldn’t be a sport. It makes society the monster at the center of the maze.
So, should I forgive Jack Torrance his faults? Or should I judge him for not taking responsibility? The possession by ghosts is what causes him to go crazy, but is that a crazy that’s excusable? (On the one hand, he isn’t himself. On the other wielding an axe at his five-year-old son is a pretty hard thing to ask me to excuse.) Am I taking too much pleasure condemning? (As in, it’s easy for me to sit in my home where I’m not trapped, and judge someone who is.) It seems like a simple answer, but is it?
Perhaps that was what both King and Kubrick were aiming for.
Comments on stuff I'm reading and watching (and a little bit about media literacy) 