Movies: 1123
Comments: 61499
Members: 718
Online: 0 Guests: 10
  • warning: Attempt to modify property of non-object in /home/corona/public_html/modules/date/includes/date_plugin_display_attachment.inc on line 24.
  • warning: Attempt to modify property of non-object in /home/corona/public_html/modules/date/includes/date_plugin_display_attachment.inc on line 25.
  • warning: Attempt to modify property of non-object in /home/corona/public_html/modules/date/includes/date_plugin_display_attachment.inc on line 26.
  • warning: Attempt to modify property of non-object in /home/corona/public_html/modules/date/includes/date_plugin_display_attachment.inc on line 28.
  • warning: Attempt to modify property of non-object in /home/corona/public_html/modules/date/includes/date_plugin_display_attachment.inc on line 29.
  • warning: Attempt to modify property of non-object in /home/corona/public_html/modules/date/includes/date_plugin_display_attachment.inc on line 30.
  • warning: Attempt to modify property of non-object in /home/corona/public_html/modules/date/includes/date_plugin_display_attachment.inc on line 31.
cool_culture news

You saw his insanity in The Shining, now read Jack Torrance's novel

Posted by Patrick Sauriol on Friday, January 9, 2009

One of the creepiest moments in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining comes when the wife of Jack Nicholson's character (played by Shelley Duvall) discovers what her writer husband has been up to for all the time spent in their snowbound hotel: writing the same 10 words over and over and over again on hundreds of typewritten pages. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Guess what? Now you can read the book!

All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy was "written" by Jack Torrance but edited by Phil Buehler. The book, which can be purchased on Blurb.com, runs 80 pages long so it's really more of a novella rather than a full-length novel. Here's how the book is described on the publisher's website:

"Jack Torrance's first novel, finally published after his untimely death at the Overlook Hotel. Dramatized in the Stephen King book, The Shining, as well as the film by Stanley Kubrick.

"All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy is nothing short of a complete rethinking of what a novel can and should be. It's true that, taken on its own, All Work is plotless. But like the best of Beckett, the lack of forward momentum is precisely the point. If it's nearly impossible to read, let us take a moment to consider how difficult it must have been to write. One is forced to consider the author, heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence. It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power. Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint."

Really, it's 80 pages of the same sentence typed thousands of times. If you don't believe me there's a 10 page preview of the book that you can check out here showing the madness as it appears on the page.

As the bio of Torrance states on the backside of the book jacket, the writer died at the Overlook Hotel so don't expect a sequel but that doesn't mean that the book can't get optioned by Hollywood, right? A softcover version of All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy will cost you $8.95 while a hardcover sets you back $22.95.

-Blurb.com, Variety.
SlamShut
Location:
Posts: 139
Posted: 4 years 18 weeks ago

You've gotta be fucking kidding me.

slealos
Location:
Posts: 1
Posted: 4 years 18 weeks ago

That is hilarious

Baelzar
Location:
Posts: 213
Posted: 4 years 18 weeks ago

This is genius!

I wonder if they do it in different patterns and shapes.

"INDEED!"
Baelzar
Location:
Posts: 213
Posted: 4 years 18 weeks ago

Actually, the only way I'd buy this is if they sold it in raw manuscript form; a bunch of typed sheets in a box.

That'd be a real conversation starter.

"INDEED!"
SlamShut
Location:
Posts: 139
Posted: 4 years 18 weeks ago

Baelzar wrote:

This is genius!I wonder if they do it in different patterns and shapes.

Look at the preview linked in the article. That's exactly what it is: the same sentence laid out in many different patterns and shapes.

trazalca
Location:
Posts: 35
Posted: 4 years 18 weeks ago

As crazy as it may sound, I wonder if the shapes and patterns of the repeated sentence reveals anything about the psyche of Jack Torrance - mad genius, or just mad? Does one shape dominate over others? And if so, what does it say about his fall to madness? I'd be curious to know if there's anything to that, or if it's a dumb idea. (And if dumb, why?)

[Enter witty witticism of no particular brevity or relevance here.]
Bill_the_Only
Location:
Posts: 702
Posted: 4 years 17 weeks ago

I think this would be good reading on an airplane.

Gentlemen Death
Location:
Posts: 270
Posted: 4 years 17 weeks ago

Better yet, Bill....Good reading for when your in the bathroom!

I keep my standards low, that way im never dissapointed
The Swollen Goi...
Location:
Posts: 12485
Posted: 4 years 17 weeks ago

"All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy is nothing short of a complete rethinking of what a novel can and should be."

No it's not.

mckracken
Location:
Posts: 965
Posted: 4 years 17 weeks ago

I think this would be good reading while hotel sitting for the winter...