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SPECIAL ART CONNECTION SECTIONS
GROUP OF SEVEN ⎔ SNOW WHITE ⎔ CAESAR ⎔ COLVILLE ⎔ VESUVIUS
COME OUT, COME OUT ⎔ VICTORIA HOLT ⎔ GRADY PAINTINGS ⎔ WALL RUGS
ART OF THE LOBBY ⎔ LESSON KEY BIRDS ⎔ SHARED LIBRARY
In the book, Wendy is reading a “Victoria Holt paperback” upon arriving at the hotel. King doesn’t say which, but here’s some era-accurate titles that might apply: The King of the Castle (1967) (which could be like King saying “Jack is me, I am Jack”), The Secret Woman (1970) (This one has the connection to the “winter of 1970”, and it speaks to Wendy’s interior life, her attitudes she keeps sheltered from Jack, and also to the idea of the crone in 217), The Curse of the Kings (1973) (I think the Kings visited the Stanley hotel in ’74, so this would’ve just come out, and perchance King had his own copy and thought about pulling from real life; the title also sounds like a reference to the alcoholism that has famously ravaged a few generations of Kings at this point).
Sorry to follow up that grim observation with a more tongue-in-cheek one, but I’ve wondered too many times about it not to note the fact that King wrote Danse Macabre (his non-fic about the history of spec-fic and the mechanics of good horror) for publication in 1981, and starred in Creepshow the year after. King famously had probably the most public and longest-lasting author’s hate-on for a film based on their own work, ever. He spoke so often and so menacingly of his hate for Kubrick’s mangling of his masterpiece that one of the conditions he had to agree to to win back rights to The Shining from Kubrick (in order to make his 1997 TV series, which I adored in my youth, and still have a reasonable respect for) was to stop bashing Kubrick’s film in public. Hopefully 17 years was long enough for King’s ego. Anyway, is it a coincidence that King felt compelled to explain to the world how horror should work, and to turn in a first-class canned corn performance (to show Nicholson how it’s done) within one and two years of seeing Kubrick’s film?
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OTHER MAIN PAGES FOR SHINING ANALYSIS
THE MIRRORFORM ⎔ THE BEATLES ⎔ THE RUM AND THE RED
BACKGROUND ART ⎔ OVERLOOK PHOTOGRAPHS ⎔ GOLDEN SPIRALS
PHI GRIDS ⎔ PATTERNS ⎔ VIOLENCE AND INDIGENA ⎔ ABSURDITIES
THE STORY ROOM ⎔ ANIMAL SYMBOLS ⎔ THE ANNOTATED SHINING
EYE SCREAM 