The review of the shining

The Shining is to graze in a field of possibilities, to lose oneself in a phantom garden, to seek the shapes of clouds. 2001 is a passive vision of the universe, and history, and thought itself. The Shining is an active experience, like an intimate conversation with an uncomfortable relation, or an old, nearly forgotten friend, who remembers more of the friendship than we do. It pulls us gently in and traps us there to tell …

…search of a footing to stand upon, a stable position from which to launch our critical apparatus. In its repeated challenges to us, daring us to read it on its own terms, we find ourselves as lost as Jack is at the end, within our own labyrinth, led there by our own Danny figure, who, like a ghost, has followed his own trace back to safety, and left us to freeze in the insubstantial night.