I think what King does best is show us madness in the form of a fractured consciousness.
There are times when it looks like the quote you reference, in which the mind is drifting in and out of the present, rattling around erratically and incoherently.
And there are also times when the mind feels totally disconnected from what it is doing. My personal favorite quote from the book is the part which I consider the climax, in which Jack decides to destroy the snowmobile, their one hope of escape from the Overlook. What he is doing is essentially dooming his family and himself, but his mind is totally calm and nonchalant about the whole thing. Eerie.
Here’s the passage:
~~~
He was standing by the snowmobile’s cockpit, his head starting to ache again. What did it come down to? Go or stay. Very simple. Keep it simple. Shall we go or shall we stay?
If we go, how long will it be before you find the local hole in Sidewinder? a voice inside him asked. The dark place with the lousy color TV that unshaven and unemployed men spend the day watching game shows on? Where the piss in the men’s room smells two thousand years old and there’s always a sodden Camel butt unraveling in the toilet bowl? Where the beer is thirty cents a glass and you cut it with salt and the jukebox is loaded with seventy country oldies?
How long? Oh Christ, he was so afraid it wouldn’t be long at all.
“I can’t win,” he said, very softly. That was it. It was like trying to play solitaire with one of the aces missing from the deck.
Abruptly he leaned over the Ski-Doo’s motor compartment and yanked off the magneto. It came off with sickening ease. He looked at it for a moment, then went to the equipment shed’s back door and opened it.
From here the view of the mountains was unobstructed, picture-postcard beautiful in the twinkling brightness of morning. An unbroken field of snow rose to the first pines about a mile distant. He flung the magneto as far out into the snow as he could. It went much farther than it should have. There was a light puff of snow when it fell. The light breeze carried the snow granules away to fresh resting places. Disperse there, I say. There’s nothing to see. It’s all over. Disperse.
He felt at peace.
~~~
Also, it’s interesting to me that the breaking of the magneto is very similar to the breaking of Danny’s arm
😂😂This ends up being ecstatically funny, Ben! I’m planning a rereading of The Shining.
Great argument.
I think what King does best is show us madness in the form of a fractured consciousness.
There are times when it looks like the quote you reference, in which the mind is drifting in and out of the present, rattling around erratically and incoherently.
And there are also times when the mind feels totally disconnected from what it is doing. My personal favorite quote from the book is the part which I consider the climax, in which Jack decides to destroy the snowmobile, their one hope of escape from the Overlook. What he is doing is essentially dooming his family and himself, but his mind is totally calm and nonchalant about the whole thing. Eerie.
Here’s the passage:
~~~
He was standing by the snowmobile’s cockpit, his head starting to ache again. What did it come down to? Go or stay. Very simple. Keep it simple. Shall we go or shall we stay?
If we go, how long will it be before you find the local hole in Sidewinder? a voice inside him asked. The dark place with the lousy color TV that unshaven and unemployed men spend the day watching game shows on? Where the piss in the men’s room smells two thousand years old and there’s always a sodden Camel butt unraveling in the toilet bowl? Where the beer is thirty cents a glass and you cut it with salt and the jukebox is loaded with seventy country oldies?
How long? Oh Christ, he was so afraid it wouldn’t be long at all.
“I can’t win,” he said, very softly. That was it. It was like trying to play solitaire with one of the aces missing from the deck.
Abruptly he leaned over the Ski-Doo’s motor compartment and yanked off the magneto. It came off with sickening ease. He looked at it for a moment, then went to the equipment shed’s back door and opened it.
From here the view of the mountains was unobstructed, picture-postcard beautiful in the twinkling brightness of morning. An unbroken field of snow rose to the first pines about a mile distant. He flung the magneto as far out into the snow as he could. It went much farther than it should have. There was a light puff of snow when it fell. The light breeze carried the snow granules away to fresh resting places. Disperse there, I say. There’s nothing to see. It’s all over. Disperse.
He felt at peace.
~~~
Also, it’s interesting to me that the breaking of the magneto is very similar to the breaking of Danny’s arm
That's an amazing moment and passage, I'd forgotten that. Great point.