137. the SHINING

Stephen King 1973

In a picturesque remote town somewhere in Colorado, sits the Overlook, a grand old hotel that is the setting of this expectedly disturbing and frighteningly vivid book. The perfect storm builds up to an explosive ending when Jack Torrance, a short-fused recovering alcoholic, his wife Wendy, and their son Danny, a five-year old with the gift of the 'shining' move in to the hotel as it's out-of-season caretakers, and the hotel with it's equally sinister garden starts to slowly take over their lives.

'Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.'(opening line)

'Watson shrugged. "Any big hotels have got scandals," he said. "Just like every big hotel has got a ghost. Why? Hell, people come and go. Sometimes one of em will pop off in his room, heart attack or stroke or something like that. Hotels are superstitious places. No thirteenth floor or room thirteen, no mirrors on the back of the door you come in through, stuff like that,'(25)

'He had been frightened, had tried to explain to them that there was nothing wrong, that this sometimes happened to him when he concentrated on understanding more than what normally came to him. He tried to explain about Tony, who they called his "invisible playmate."(32)

'Don't go, Danny...
Then the wind gusted again, making him squint, and the shadow by the bus stop was gone... if it had ever been there at all. He stood by his window for
(a minute? an hour?)
some time longer, but there was no more. At last he crept back into bed and pulled the blankets up and watched the shadows thrown by the alien streetlight turn into a sinuous jungle filled with flesheating plants they wanted only to slip around him, squeeze the life out of him, and drag him down into a blackness where one sinister word flashed in red:
REDRUM.'(64)

'And in the bug, which moved upwardly more surely on the gentler grade, he kept looking out between them as the road unwound, affecting occasional glimpses of the Overlook Hotel, its massive bank of westward-looking windows reflecting back the sun. It was the place he had seen in the midst of the blizzard, the dark and booming place where some hideously familiar figure sought him down long corridors carpeted with jungle. The place Tony had warned him against. It was here. It was here. Whatever Redrum was, it was here.'(71)

"You got a knack," Halloran said, turning to him. "Me, I've always called it shining. That's what my grandmother called it, too. She had it. We used to sit in the kitchen when I was a boy no older than you and have long talks without even openin our mouths."(89)

"...a lot of folks, they got a little bit of shine to them. They don't even know it. But they always seem to show up with flowers when their wives are feelin blue with the monthlies, they do good on school tests they don't even study for, they got a good idea how people are feeling as soon as they walk into a room. I come across fifty or sixty like that. But maybe only a dozen, countin my gran, that knew they was shinin."(90)

'There was an iron scream behind his lips, but he would not let it out. His mommy and daddy could not see such things; they never had. He would keep quiet. His mommy and daddy were loving each other, and that was a real thing. The other things were just like pictures in a book. Some pictures were scary, but they couldn't hurt you. They... couldn't... hurt you.'(105)

'They watched until the car was out of sight, headed down the eastern slope. When it was gone, the three of them looked at each other for a silent, almost frightened moment. They were alone. Aspen leaves whirled and skittered in aimless packs across the lawn that was now neatly mowed and tended for no guest's eyes. There was no one to see the autumn leaves steal across the grass but the three of them. It gave Jack a curious shrinking feeling, as if his life force had dwindled to a mere spark while the hotel and the grounds had suddenly doubled in size and become sinister, dwarfing them with sullen, inanimate power.'(112)

'Once, during the drinking phase, Wendy had accused him of desiring his own destruction but not possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish. So he manufactured ways in which other people could do it, lopping a piece at a time off himself and their family. Could it be true? Was he afraid somewhere inside that the Overlook might be just what he needed to finish his play and generally collect up his shit and get it together? Was he blowing the whistle on himself? Please God no, don't let it be that way. Please.'(203-204)

'The bewilderment seemed to grow and for a moment she saw his true face, the one he ordinarily kept so well hidden, and it was a face of desperate unhappiness, the face of an animal caught in a snare beyond its ability to decipher and render harmless. Then the muscles began to work, began to writhe under the skin, the mouth began to tremble infirmly, the Adam's apple began to rise and fall.'(256)

'The whole place was empty.
But it wasn't really empty. Because here in the Overlook things just went on and on. Here in the overlook all times were one.'(339)

'Dying was a part of living. You had to keep tuning in to that if you expected to be a whole person. And if the fact of your own death was hard to understand, at least it wasn't impossible to accept.'(349)

First Pocket Books trade paperback edition, October 2002
505 pages
Book borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge
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Personal Note: I could not stop reading this book,  and it was perfect for the 16-hour flight to the Philippines.  It definitely made the long flight seem shorter. It was a busy two weeks, and only found myself finishing three books instead of the six books I planned.  Thanks to all the thoughtful well wishers. A few pictures from the trip:

overlooking Laguna de Bay

catching the sunset

  Jackfruit (Langka) Tree

111. A LONG FATAL CHASE

Louisa May Alcott 1995

This rare book originally found as a handwritten manuscript written by the author in 1866 laid safely out of site until 1993, and was eventually published in 1995. It is a mystery thriller in which the title explains the plot. A long fatal love chase. Rosamond is a lovely, spirited but naive and trusting young woman who was looking for adventure when she meets Philip Tempest. She falls in love, marries and sails away with him on his yacht only to discover his past and his dark, horrid and true character. She tries to repeatedly escape from him, traveling with the aid of various resourceful friends through Italy, France and Germany. Sadly, somehow, Mr. Tempest successfully lurks behind and manages to find her every time, until that one final moment.

"I tell you I cannot bear it! I shall do something desperate if this life is not changed soon. It gets worse and worse, and I often feel as if I'd gladly sell my soul to Satan for a year of freedom."(opening lines)

'In the fitful light of the dusky hall the newcomer's face suddenly appeared fiery-eyed and menacing, and, glancing at a portrait of Mephistopheles, Rosamond exclaimed, "Why, you are the very image of Meph--"(5)

"No, I never wish that. I don't intend to die till I've enjoyed my life. Everyone has a right to happiness and sooner or later I will have it. Youth, health and freedom were meant to be enjoyed and I want to try every pleasure before I am too old to enjoy them."(7)

"Even at the cost of what is called honor and honesty? That is comfortable philosophy, and having preached and practiced it all my days I've no right to condemn it. But the saints would call it sinful and dangerous and tell you that life should be one long penance full of sorrow, sacrifice and psalm-singing."(8)

'For an hour Rosamond paced up and down the deck reveling in the breezy motion of the boat, the delicious sense of freedom which possessed her, the atmosphere of romance which surrounded her. Tempest lounged beside her, watching her beautiful face, listening to her happy voice, and enjoying her innocent companionship with the relish of a man eager for novelty and skillful in the art of playing on that delicate instrument, a woman's heart.'(36)

"I was thinking what a curious thing love is; only a sentiment, and yet it has power to make fools of men and slaves of women."(61)

"Suppose I broke away and left you, or made it impossible for you to stay. That I was base and false; in every way unworthy of your love, and it was clearly right for you to go, what would you do then?"(62)

"I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue. You'll find that is true, Rose, when you know the world better."(87)

'Not another day or hour would she remain, no help was possible, no atonement could retrieve the past, no love or pity, pardon or excuse should soften the sharp pang of reparation for the guilty man. To go instantly and forever was her only thought, and this gave her strength to rise and look about her.'(129)

'Back to him she would never go, but in her lonely life still lived the sweet memory of that happy time when she believed in him and he was all in all to her.'(135)

"The sin is yours, but the shame and sorrow are mine, the past I cannot retrieve, the future is still unspoiled and I will not embitter it by any willful sin. Before I was innocently guilty, now I should be doubly guilty if I went back to the 'gay free life I love.' Atone for the wrong you have done me by ceasing to tempt and trouble me. I will not yield, though you hunt me to death."(143)

'In vain she told herself that he was unworthy any woman's trust and love, still the unconquerable sentiment that once made her happiness now remained to become her torment.'(172)

'Because in spite of this longing, I know that I shall purchase happiness at high price if I return; that new falsehood may betray me, new tyranny oppress me, and above all I feel that with this man I must lose more and more the love of all good things, so strong is his influence, so unprincipled his nature. My only hope is that I may save his soul and yet not lose my own. Can I, dare I do this?'(182)

"I must know where you are, but I will not molest nor betray you till the time arrives. Go where you like, assume what disguise you choose, do what you please, except die or marry. I'll stand off and watch the play, but I must follow. I like the chase, it is exciting, novel and absorbing. I have tried and tried of other amusements, this satisfies me and I am in no haste to end it."(194)

Dell Publishing Edition

354 pages

Book owned

91. the SILENCE of the LAMBS

Thomas Harris 1988

In this well-known mystery thriller, Clarice Starling is an FBI rookie asked to gather information from an infamous cannibal murderer, psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter to help them catch a serial murderer nicknamed Buffalo Bill. As Hannibal Lecter stunningly escapes his captivity, Clarice and the FBI team race against time to save the latest high-profile victim, a Senator's daughter from a surely gruesome death.

'Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth. Clarice Starling reached it flushed after a fast walk from Hogan's Alley on the firing range. (opening lines)

'Be very careful with Hannibal Lecter. Dr. Chilton, the head of the mental hospital, will go over the physical procedure you use to deal with him. Don't deviate from it. Do not deviate from it one iota for any reason. If Lecter talks to you at all, he'll just be trying to find out about you. It's the kind of curiosity that makes a snake look in a bird's nest.'(6)

"And then Raspail himself... died. Why?"
"Frankly, I got sick and tired of his whining. Best thing for him, really. Therapy wasn't going anywhere. I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me."(54)

"Listen to me, a crime is confusing enough without the investigation mixing it up. Don't let a herd of policemen confuse you. Live right behind your eyes. Listen to yourself. keep the crime separate from what's going on around you now. Don't try to impose any pattern or symmetry on this guy. Stay open and let him show you."(70)

'Out of the cosmic hangover the Smithsonian leaves came her last thought and a coda for her day: Over this odd world, this half the world that's dark now, I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears.'(97)

"Clarice, I'm going to tell you what Buffalo Bill wants Catherine Baker Martin for, and then good night. This is my last word under the current terms. You can tell the Senator what he wants with Catherine and she can come up with a more interesting offer for me... or she can wait until Catherine bobs to the surface and see that I was right."(138)

'In Crawford's experience, anger made women look tacky. Rage made their hair stick out behind and played hell with their color and they forgot to zip. Any unattractive feature was magnified.'(175)

'Starling wished she could talk to Crawford. Waste and stupidity get you the worst, that's what he said. Use this time and it'll temper you. Now's the hardest test-- not letting rage and frustration keep you from thinking. It's the core of whether you can command or not.'(201)

"Do you think if you caught Buffalo Bill yourself and if you made Catherine all right, you could make the lambs stop screaming, do you think they'd be all right too and you wouldn't wake up again in the dark and hear the lambs screaming? Clarice?"(211)

"The moth was wonderful and terrible to see, its large brownblack wings tented like a cloak, and on its wide furry back, the signature device that has struck fear in men, for as long as men have come upon it suddenly in their happy gardens. The domed skull, a skull that is both a skull and face, watching from its dark eyes, the cheekbones, the zygomatic arch traced exquisitely beside the eyes.'(239)

'What does he do, Clarice? What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing? He covets. How do we begin to covet? We begin by coveting what we see every day.(272)

'Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness except greed.'(294)

St. Martin's Press First Edition
338 pages
Book owned

76. CHILD 44

Tom Rob Smith 2008

This suspense thriller debut novel set in Totalitarian Stalin-era Russia opens up in 1933 with a disturbing scene of poverty-stricken brothers Andrei and Pavel snaring a cat for food. Twenty years later, we meet Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a decorated MGB agent who suffers an explusion when he refused to denounce his wife Raisa as a spy, and transferred from Moscow to small town Voualsk where he discovers a gruesome pattern of child serial killing, the heart of the novel. As he works with reluctant militia officer Nesterov to solve the murders, the true nature of his relationship with his wife Raisa also unravels. It is a fast paced, action-packed page turner that is immensely satisfying.
'Since Maria had decided to die her cat would have to fend for itself. She'd already cared for it far beyond the point where keeping a pet made any sense. Rats and mice had long since been trapped and eaten by the villagers. Domestic animals had disappeared shortly after that.'(opening lines)

'The traitor had escaped. Leo was to blame. He'd given this man, a stranger, the benefit of the doubt. He'd presumed he was innocent; the kind of mistake a novice might make. Better to let ten innocent men suffer than one spy escape. He'd disregarded a fundamental principle of their work: the presumption of guilt.'(44)

'The duty of an investigator was to scratch away at innocence until guilt was uncovered. If no guilt was uncovered then they haven't scratched deep enough. '(46)

'Though he never said as much, he was uncomfortable making an arrest without more evidence. Of course that was a qualm he'd lived with throughout his professional life. He'd made many arrests knowing only the citizen's name and address and the fact that someone mistrusted them. A suspect's guilt became real as soon as they became a suspect. As for evidence, that would be acquired during their interrogation.'(47)

'Even though it had been his place of work for the past five years, Leo had never felt comfortable in the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the MGB...An invisible borderline existed around the building... There was no chance you could be found innocent inside these walls. It wasn't an assembly line of guilt. Perhaps the Lubyanka hadn't been constructed with fear in mind, but fear had taken over all the same, fear had made this former insurance office its own, its home.'(79)

'Leo had heard of prisoners who lay abandoned for weeks and doctors who served no other purpose than the study of pain. He taught himself to accept that these things existed not just for their own sake. They existed for a reason, a greater good. They existed to terrify. Terror was necessary. Terror protected the revolution. Without it, Lenin would've fallen. Without it, Stalin would've fallen.'(80)

'In the one hundred and forty articles of the criminal code Leo had just one article to guide him, a subsection defining the political prisoner as a person engaged in activity intended to: Overthrow, subvert, or weaken the Soviet Power. And that was more or less it: an elastic set of words stretching to accommodate anyone from top-ranking Party officials to ballet dancers to musicians to retired cobblers. Not even those who worked within the Lubyanka's walls, not even those who kept this machinery of fear ticking, could be certain that the system they sustained would not one day swallow them too.'(81)

'Only children still believe in friends, and only stupid children at that.'(107)

'An officer must train his heart to be Cruel. Cruelty was a virtue. Cruelty was necessary. Aspire to cruelty! Cruelty held the keys that would unlock the gates to the perfect State.'(114)

'Leo couldn't sleep. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the slow breathing of his wife... She was an unsettled sleeper. Was that enough reason to denounce her? He knew it was. He knew how it could be written up: Unable to rest easy, troubled by her dreams: my wife is clearly tormented by some secret.

'How different was he from the man he considered his moral opposite-- Vasili Nikitin? Was the difference merely that Vasili was senselessly cruel while he'd been idealistically cruel? One was an empty indifferent cruelty while the other was a principled, pretentious cruelty which thought of itself as reasonable and necessary. But in real terms, in destructive terms, there was little to separate the two men.'(211)

'The problem with becoming powerless, as you are now, is that people start telling you the truth. You're not used to it, you've lived in a world protected by the fear you inspire. But if we're going to stay together, let's cut the deluded romanticism. Circumstance is the glue between us. I have you. You have me. We don't have very much else. And if we're going to stay together, from now on I tell you the truth, no comfortable lies-- we're equal as we have never been equal before.'(225)

'How may other incidents have been covered up? Our system is perfectly arranged to allow this man to kill as many times again and again, and we're going to keep arresting the wrong people, innocent people, people we don't like, or people we don't approve of, and he's going to kill again and again.'(287)

'In many ways Nesterov had collected this information in a comparable frame of mind. At first he'd tried to dismiss the similarities: the ground-up material stuffed into the children's mouths, whether officers called it soil or dirt, the mutilated torsos. But the points of similarity were too striking. There was the string around the ankles. The bodies were always naked, the clothes left in a pile some distance away... They'd been solved by blaming drunks or thieves or convicted rapists-- undesirables, to whom any allegation would stick.'(314)

'Yet why wouldn't the wounds heal? Why couldn't he move on as he'd moved on from his decision to the MGB? He'd been able to swap devotion to the MGB with another cause, devotion to this investigation. But he had no one else to love; there'd never been anyone else. The truth was that he couldn't let go of the small hope, the fantastical notion that maybe, just maybe, she could love him for real.'(339)

'Your mother and I considered very carefully the contents of this letter. it contains everything we wanted to say to you but were unable to for one reason or another. It contains all the things we should've spoken about a long time ago.'(356)

Grand Central mass market Edition 2009
493 pages
Book owned
Great review from Random Ramblings here.