In the present case he dares to give us the sequel of The Shining (1977), the sequel of the life of Dan Torrance, the son of the caretaker Jack Torrance of the famous Overlook Hotel in Colorado Who escaped with His Mother When Wendy Their doom the hotels furnace exploded and the hotel was burned down to the ground. They escaped thanks to the help of the shining of the son and Reviews another shining character, Dick Hallorann, the hotels cook in the summer.
Purpose When You dare you must have a lot of imagination to renew the characters, the themes theme or, the story Itself to Avoid Any repeat gold Weaker Version of events. And he renew Does, Stephen King.
Dan Torrances life is picked Some twenty Years After this catastrophic winter of old. He Has Become what His Father Was, Even Worse in Many Ways, and he is an alcoholic drifter. Who can not hold a job more than A Few A Few weeks or months, just long enough to earn what he needs to pay for the next alcoholic binge. And the last episode of this descent into the underground hell of ever darker alcohol is Even More than we can imagine. Or is it really? It sure is not for the famous Alcoholics Anonymous, the AAs. These stories-have Heard Even Worse.
Goal Dan Torrance willfully get at least the willful acceptance of being white driven by the whip of desire alcoholic fascination if not lured by a junkie woman into her bed, gold Rather Some Kind of cruddy mattress-filed pallet In Some slummy tenement. He wastes, When drunk unconscious, all His Money from His Last Some job on heroin and when to he wakes up she is by far too far-gone to wake up and she will-have to sleep many more hours. She has not yet Oded qui is a good thing though It makes the next step ugly.
We are back in the descent to hell in the car of an elevator partner after the cable has-been cut off and the car is dropping at neck-break speed in the shaft.
The heroin or cocaine is there lying on the coffee table. A toddler Appears in a diaper. He wants to get the candy on the table goal Dan takes it away. Dan Discovers the girls purse, takes the seventy dollars it contains, leaves the big wad of coupons and food stamps and leads the toddler to His mother with Whom the toddler while the mother spoons curdles around _him_. And Then he leaves town and drifts away. Dan will learn later que la girl vanished more or less out of life and the child was dead Was beaten into pulp by the brutal mothers brother.
This is the starting point of end of year That Could be tragic. I wont tell more of this very first hand of the novel.
Strangely enough Stephen King Dan That redeems in a city Known As That Frazier owns a small touristic train, and Where He meets the train engineer and the city manager Who Was an alcoholic himself and once this lath character Introduces Dan to the more than world-famous Alcoholics Anonymous. And the real stuff of the story can start in the novel and it will cover fifteen years.
The redemptive mood is new in Stephen King. In a way it is the positive characterization you find in the Dark Tower novels. Aim the Dark Tower novels are only a never-ending and ever-cycle restarting from Beginning to year end, from year to year alpha omega, hence not a redemption. It is a year-breakable Buddhist dukkha cycle: birth-life-death-rebirth or if you prefer-Adventure-Beginning-End Restart. Purpose in this novel we do here-have redemption. Dan is Redeemed goal That Is not easy.
The main heroin of the novel is not Dan himself girl goal Abra Who: has a stronger brand than of shining Dan and she is a niece of spells de son. She is under a threat from Some Strange monsters and she will beg for help in Tony doppelganger (short for Anthony His middle name), inner mental His Imaginary friend and accomplice. Dan will pick the task and will volunteer. The girl is fourteen at the end of the book, partner after the redemption, and she is a toddler, a little girl later and still later a teenage girl in the novel ,. It is not the first time the character is a girl hand. Remember Cell or Even Carrie. Purpose in this case she: has a Tremendous power and she is a meddler as well as an eavesdropper thanks to her strong brand of shining. She can not resist meddling with Some horrible killing of a young teenage boy, a baseball player, and she Decides to get the murderers down.
Then Stephen King Has To invent a new species of monsters not to trample the flower-beds and the private gardens of Many Other writers. The Overlook Hotel HAD ghosts and Some still exist. The land there is evil and it will be the basis of the monsters back Stephen King invents. This gang of monsters are disguised in Recreational Vehicles (RVs) That Gives' em great invisibility and mobility. They live on and from a special gas can be extracted through That Suffering leading to slow death from Who-have the children shining. Not only children, aim Especially children Because You can get more from thesis and it is a lot more fun to torture children. These monsters are associated under the name of The True Knot.
This pedophile vein is not new in Stephen King. Many children are abused in His novels in all kinds of ways of Any kinds. It is in fact share of a 'wider concern. That self-satisfied of blind violence against Some Particular groups of people: children by sexual perverts, Their children by parents, children by school teachers or --other Their children Known As bullies (even female bullies), teenagers of all kinds and of all ages Gay ; The best novel along That Line is It That starts with an episode of gay bashing and is the story of a band of children defeating and destroying an underground monster That Appears as a giant spider or a clown. Here it is a child, and mind you a girl again Who destroys the band of monsters though this time with the help of an uncle of hers.
The objective is to destroy the True Knot of pedophile vampiristic steam drinkers. Steam is the name give to this petrol They of the child That Is released through Suffering When he or she dies.
The new species of monsters is needed, as I have Said, not to step on the toes or feet of --other writers-have vastly Who revived all kinds of vampires, werewolves and ghosts. Unluckily - and I think it is a draw back thesis steam-drinkers are not specified in origin, in real kind and the only thing we know gold sccm to be told Is That They look nice and agreeable to outside eyes, They Are goal very old in age though not eternal Because They can die, What They call cycle, or killed by And Then Die, They Can purpose stay young-looking thanks to the steam They Are Supposed to take Regularly, qui Prevents em from aging. They look quite ugly monster In Their identity When They are on the verge of capturing or consuming a human being white. Yet no general description Is Given. The only thing we know Is That They Can Catch Some human diseases, and measles in the book is at stake. Their dying is Described in details. They just vanish leaving behind PHYSICALLY Their clothes and shoes and nothing else.
Their leader is Rose. Like all others she used to be a human, She Had a human name and a new one she adopté When She Became a member of the True Knot. She is, in monster-lore, a one-tooth ugly female That being white: has a high level of shining and she is a locator Because she can feel at a great distance people Who-have That Same shining. In fact Abras eavesdropping will lead her to reveal her existence to Rose by accidently getting into her mind and in her vicinity.
Rose is a common name or color in Stephen King, along with red and it is Often associated to Some danger. We can think of the book Rose Madder, of the character Rose in Under the Dome. Red is the color in REDRUM in The Shining. Purpose there is something new here in the fact que la gang is Dominated by a woman and the story is Dominated by the arch-enmity cette Rose and Abra, two females. Women are not that dominant in Stephen Kings novels, at least in the last three quarters de son books. We-have to remember Christine, who is a red magical goal and evil because she has Dominates high school student, Carrie, her menstrual blood and her mother, and her father Firestarter Who Could machinery command and control the minds of people. Obviously in this last book he goes back to this feministic inspiration. Aim it is mostly an innovation for a writer Whose MOST significant characters are male and Whose are mostly novels like The Stand Dominated male with a black female seer Who Dominates distance from the good side of the goal surviving human society are the four hostages That Sacrificed dans le destruction of the bad side of the surviving humans are all males. Even in The Dark Tower is a woman Susannah goal aussi black and a legless person in a wheel chair, hence not hand the central character.
Strangely enough, Among thesis monsters Stephen King que la Clearly states women are at least bisexual or Even lesbians. Noteworthily no gay men are in Any Way envisaged and the human side of the story is Exclusively heterosexual. There Seems To be in Stephen King impossibility year plans and state ie to accept Any lesbian and gay sexual relationship whats more have a normal relationship Among His human characters. In His older age he shoulds maybe innovate and open His human society to a more open vision of life.
The last major element That Is Strikingly here is the overpowering strength of death, gold Rather the magnitude of the last transition from life to death, that 'short moment in which one shifts from here to over there, seen as a big dormitory for sleeping BEINGS OF Some fate. Doctor Sleep Known as Dan is here is a simple man and old peoples home orderly Who can communiquer mentally with old people on the verge of dying and he can put 'em to sleep literally make' em sleep from life to death the way anyone can step from wake to sleep every night. That beyond this except falling asleep no one knows What They are going to find.
This vision of death is the only reasonable one vision can and must-have Develop When coming close to it. Obviously Stephen King is fait que période de son life When That next internship de son existence is Becoming crucial and Fundamental.
Just as no one is Supposed to go out and play around bareback uncovered just for fun, one must always be ready for the next stage and third in the Buddhist cycle of birth-life-death-rebirth, PRECISELY death. Death is the nature of life and the steam One Has To Develop the exhilarating touch with it all along ones life. Death is the light or the star That Has To guide us all along in the shape of a single issue That Is not rhetorical at all. First the possessive question: What will I bring along with me when I die? And One Has To Realize one will bring nothing along with oneself into death. Then you prefer asking this May --other non-possessive question. What will I leave behind me when I die That is going to be regarded as my legacy to be used and enriched by my survivors? And do not heritage to Reduce inheritance. You can put it in simpler Even thesis terms before going to sleep every night: What have I done today That makes me worthy of not waking up tomorrow morning?
This or contention issues are ever present in this book. Stephen King confronted us to death as The Most Humanizing human act in our human life.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
