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Before Matt Damon was The Talented Mr. Ripley, there was Alain Delon #book2movies

When did Ewan McGregor become middle-aged? Casting Danny Torrance in Dr. Sleep #book2movie #review

Ewan McGregor is 47. If that’s not bloody middle-aged, I don’t know what is!


 When did Ewan McEwan get to be so old? I guess he'll always be that fresh-faced lover boy in Moulin Rouge to me. One of my faves, besides playing the middle-aged Christopher Robin in Christopher Robin coming this summer, McGregor is going to play the now middle-aged Danny Torrance in Dr. Sleep, the Warner Bros adaptation of Stephen King's sequel to The Shining. And according to Variety King approves. While the original film was considered a box office disappointment, making just forty-four million buckaroos back in 1977, it’s gone on to be one of the greatest horror classics of all time. Will Dr. Sleep be as popular? King’s 50th book, Dr. Sleep hit the #1 slot the week it was published in 2013 so it’s got a giant fan base*, not to mention the rest of us still mesmerized by The Shining’s mythology.

Stephen King returns to the character and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance and the very special twelve-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.
On highways across America, a tribe of people called the True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, the True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the steam that children with the shining produce when they are slowly tortured to death.
Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel, where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant shining power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”
Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to this icon in the King canon.

Did you read Dr. Sleep? Are you ready to see little Danny—you can picture him riding his trike down the hall, right?—all grown up? And does all grown up Danny look like Ewan McGregor to you?

 *Maybe not such a giant fan base! I spoke with my twitter friend @rorysbooks after posting this blog who asked me if I'd read the book:


Naturally, I asked if I could share her thoughts with you! Here’s what she said:
“I went back to The Shining before reading the sequel and I'm not sure if that influenced my enjoyment of it.                                      
Reading it again reminded me of what I love the most about The Shining, you can’t help but be constantly on edge, scared; the monster is this unknown entity that you don't understand and the mysterious power Danny has is just as scary.                  
We get none of that in this sequel. Danny is now Dan, we get to see what become of him and that was interesting but no enough to warrant an entire new book. Everything else is just superfluous, the True Knot is at best ridiculous, the new characters - mostly Abra and her family - are so incredibly annoying.  It was all just a waste of time for me.

 @rorysbooks also has a tumblr you might want to check out: