Annotated Bibliography on The Shining and Moby Dick

            
            
             Stanley Kubrick - A Biography, New York, Da Capo Press Inc, 1997.
             A very well researched biography, and LoBrutto is able to appear very close to Kubrick and those who worked with and spent time with the director. LoBrutto manages to incorporate a lot of Kubrick's personal views on The Shining, the original Stephen King book, and especially the process of adaptation. Probably the most useful aspect are the passages on how Kubrick altered the story to better suit the themes which he considered integral to his version of the script. This is of supreme importance to any argument on the film, as it implies that all of the themes which can be drawn from the film are intentional, and there was very little in regards to "grey areas" created in the process of adapting book, to script, to film. .
             Good section on the role of Dianne Johnson's assistance in the adaptation of the script. Details the intensity of their discussion's regarding important themes of the film, and states that they believed the strength of the book was primarily its plot. This allowed them to put their own unique spin on the themes. .
             Interesting details on the alternate endings that Kubrick played with. The intended use of a scrapbook in particular is interesting, as it highlights the significance of The Overlook Hotels past, more fully than does the ending in the film. Places the Hotel more as a character in its own right, sinister and more encompassing.
             Severin, Tim. In Search of Moby Dick, Great Britain, Abacus, 2000.
             Interesting book. Severin is a travel writer who has done a dozen or so works which are styled in a similar fashion- taking historically significant explorers, voyages or novels and tracing their travels, drawing parallel's between their voyages and his own. .
             First chapter good as it sets up Melville's motives, bias and some of the inspiration for Moby Dick, describing the true life events of Owen Chase's encounters with an enraged bull sperm whale, which attacked and sank his ship The Essex.