The Institute is archetypal Stephen King, but with less guts and more optimism
Aux Features Book Review
The marketing for The Institute boldly compares Stephen King’s new novel to the estimable It, no doubt due to Pennywise’s long shadow over the zeitgeist of the moment. But, while there’s a gaggle of pre-teens akin to The Losers’ Club at the center of this story, The Institute shares more DNA with another book bandied about the log line: Firestarter. That 1980 tome, the inspiration for the 1984 film starring a young Drew Barrymore, told the story of a girl with “pyrokinetic” powers who finds herself isolated from her family by nefarious government forces. Such is also the case for The Institute’s Luke Ellis, a 12-year-old prodigy with just a whiff of telekinetic powers, who one morning wakes up in a room that looks just like his own—except there’s no window.
Outside the door is a sterile hallway, a dingy playground, a sad cafeteria. There are other rooms, each made to resemble the home bedrooms of their residents. Luke meets Kalisha, George, Iris, Nick, and several others around his age. They all demonstrate some shade of telekinesis or telepathy—here dubbed TK and TP—and they’re all subject to tests from staffers who carry “zap-sticks” and are more than happy to administer backhanded slaps. There are painful injections, immersion tanks, and a woozy onslaught of spectral lights that, according to Luke, feel as if they’re “replacing his brain.” Eventually, all the kids disappear into an ominous “Back Half,” never to be seen again. Answers are scarce, and the staff’s claim that everyone is returned to their families following their stint in Back Half isn’t fooling anybody.
This revolving door adds a dose of compelling instability to the tale, but it works against the bonds that King is trying so hard to cement among his ensemble. By virtue of necessity, the narrative is told almost entirely from Luke’s perspective, robbing us of the strengths of King’s oft-peripatetic point of view, which in books like It, The Stand, and Under The Dome, emotionally mines myriad individuals for the benefit of the whole. Here characters either disappear or disengage from Luke just as they’re starting to crystallize, only to resurface after a new batch of characters has been introduced. The same goes for the Institute’s shadowy management and hatchet men, most of whom remain as opaque as the organization itself. One longs for King to dig into these villains, to make us despise them as we did Henry Bowers’ thugs in It or the sadistic henchmen of The Talisman’s Sunlight Gardener School.
Of course, as a handful of his colleagues point out in this New York Times piece, King’s not quite as cruel these days as he once was. The Institute has its fair share of blood, but it’s a shockingly idealistic and optimistic story, one that, in a well-intentioned if utterly cringeworthy sequence, directly echoes the slogan of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The warmth is welcome, though, especially in a story that investigates the nameless, faceless forces exploiting our most vulnerable. So, even if the bonds don’t quite resonate, the young heroes still do. Like Danny Torrance before them, they’re impeccably balanced between being wise beyond their years and as emotionally tender as their age would suggest. King’s always excelled at couching coming-of-age narratives in moments of horror, and The Institute’s most thrilling stretch finds Luke reckoning with his own loneliness during a punishing test of mental and physical will.
That kind of journey won’t be unfamiliar to King fans, and it’s likely they’ll see The Institute as a return to form for an author who’s spent the last several years mired in supernatural crime fiction—like The Outsider, Mr. Mercedes—and collaborations—like Sleeping Beauties, Gwendy’s Button Box. The Institute is archetypal King in that it contains much of what we love about and associate with his name—powerful kids, supernatural forces, small towns, heartfelt explorations of friendship—but it’s also a grander glimpse of the bright-eyed King we saw with last year’s hokey Elevation. It’s easy to miss the guts, but contrary to what some might think, nobody reads King just for the guts.
30 Comments
In before somebody inevitably brings up knockoff X-men despite this being a trope way before the X-men.
Since King is an acknowledged fan of 60s Marvel, I always wondered if Carrie WHITE, red-headed teen with telekinesis, was inspired at all by Jean GREY, red-headed teen with telekinesis.
I think it was happenstance.
Carrie in the book didn’t have red hair.
Yeah, but what about the ending. I don’t want to know how it ends, but whether Steve again went for whatever ending appeared to him (or whether he actually planned out something that works).Is the ending another Under the Dome travesty, or does it work?
“whether Steve again went for whatever ending appeared to him”Can you elaborate? Did he say that about another book ending?
Well, have you read IT? And noticed that the ending seemed like some tacked on bullshit he thought up at the last minute? What about Under the Dome, where Steve painted himself into a corner and decided to go with the “Explorers” ending? Or the Long Walk, where he just stopped typing?Steve has long said he doesn’t outline, just lets the story “go where it wants,” and unfortunately that often results in a stone-cold turd of an ending.
I thought the ending of The Long Walk was pretty clearly:*Spoilers*That the protagonist dies of exhaustion after “winning” and in fact all of the participants of The Long Walk die during or afterwards. Because that’s the sadistic point of the whole enterprise.
Yeah, I’ve read it several times and never got that. Seems most people consider the ending an open question.To be fair, that ending is still vastly superior to It, Under the Dome, the Dark Tower (ugh), and lots of other later-era King endings. Definitely not saying he can’t stick an ending (Salems Lot, Carrie, Christine, the Stand, Shawshank, the Jaunt), but that he’s very, very hit and miss in that regard.
The ending of the Long Walk is a bit of a Rorschact test. It doesn’t say he dies; he could just be hallucinating from exhaustion and malnutrition as the Colonel rolls up.
*Major
My version of “the author is dead” is that the story is going to mean something. If it doesn’t mean anything clear from the author, I’m going to read some tea leaves into it. I don’t think the ending of The Long Walk required much of a stretch to divine, considering what the story is clearly about. My suggested ending closes the theme of the work very succintly. The other suggested ending means… nothing? I dunno.
Last time I read Salem’s Lot I was actually surprised by how abrupt the ending was. It’s fine, but it seems like after all the buildup there would’ve been more to it.It has the opposite problem – it just never seems to end, and the plot becomes so insular and untethered from reality that it’s really hard to invest in what’s happening. There’s the Turtle, and the Ritual of Chud, and Richie smashing the eggs, and Silver curing Bill’s wife’s catatonia, and dozens of pages of denouement. I mean… Jesus.
it’s not that it doesn’t end. it’s that it ends too many times. i felt that way about the recent “it part 2″ film. to many endings.
Yeah, I’ve read it several times and never got that. Seems most people consider the ending an open question.What’s possible question is there to ask about the ending? “Did Garraty then immediately die?” That’s a dumb question. It doesn’t matter. He “won” but didn’t “win”. He paid the ultimate price etc etc… sanity, death, who cares? The important part is what he didn’t get – a lobster dinner and maybe beautiful ladies.
The Long Walk? Garrity died. I thought that was pretty clear. Of course I’ve been re-reading it since the late 70s, so maybe it only became obvious after multiple reads?
Google it, it’s an open question. I never understood that he dies (he starts running?), but then I never understood what actually happens.
Oh, I’ve been through the wars on this topic through the last 2 and a half decades. It was my favorite book for a very long time.The gist of it is that Garrity goes through the stages of terminal illness in the last chapter. He is done, absolutely done and dying. He pushes himself to get up to Stebbins to tell him he’s won (terminal patients often have a last day of sudden clarity before dying soon after). Shockingly Garrity wins, but he sees a distant figure still walking (this was a common trope to describe dying in the 60s and 70s, like the bright light of the 80s and 90s). When the Major touches him, he shrugs it off, focusing on the distant figure. When the Major touches him again, he finds the strength to run, an impossibility in his physical condition. He is chasing the figure, which is the embodiment of a beckoning Death. Garrity dies. End Scene.While this interpretation of the ending always made me sad, it made total sense. The Garrity who started the race is dead. You can argue that a new Garrity rose from those ashes and collected his winnings, but I feel the important thing is the Garrity you know from the book is gone forever.
Actually, I thought It was one of his better endings. Not as good as the Dead Zone or the Shining, but much better than Pet Sematary or The Stand.
No, I’ve only read one or two of his books, so I was missing the context to your comment. But I was interested in this one. And I say “was” based on the second part of your comment.
I thought the ending for IT was fine – the threat is definitely resolved and I really liked the bike ride/’leaving Derry’ section. I did read it quite awhile ago though, I might give it another look.
Stephen King is a master of writing everything but a decent ending. That said – I’m one of the hot take people who absolutely LOVES the ending of the Dark Tower series. To me, it was perfect.His other books… not so much.
The actual ending of The Dark Tower was great, though it took me time to realize it. A lot of the stuff that led up to the ending was…not great.
Didn’t The Outsider begin with a young boy ripped apart with a tree branch jammed up his butt? And there was a sequence in Doctor Sleep where the bad guys torture a kid until he can barely take it anymore, and then keep going. Saying King has become less cruel or lost his guts is odd; that’d be like saying he went soft after Eyes of the Dragon. This isn’t a trend.
Yeah, you might want to check the expiration date on this premise, Stephen…
I feel like he saw the Stranger Things title font and said “oh yeah? Well FUCK YOU!” (turns on computer, goes to work. three days later has a novel)
He’s a fan of the show and I have to imagine was inspired by it.
This is literally exactly what happened.
due to Pennywise’s long shadow over the zeitgeist of the momentWow. Zeitgeist of the moment. Not quite as good as zeitgeist of our times, but close…Speaking of IT the movie chapter two, I wonder if those kids got a satisfying feeling of schadenfreude from the misfortune of the adult cast? By which I mean, the way most people seem to think IT the move chapter one was better.I know, that pleonasm was quite tautological. Or is it the other way around?As for Stephen King, the last book I read of his was The Outsider, and that is a book in which almost nothing happens. Or more precisely, in which almost nothing is shown happening, it’s just characters telling each other about things that happened earlier, in dialogue, until a bunch of stuff at the end.This didn’t strike me until the point when a girl breathlessly told her parents about a scary encounter with the monster that had happened five minutes ago to her sister.I think Stephen King might be ill.
so i just finished this. i’m a big king fan, have read all his stuff. some works for me, some doesn’t. he does have trouble with endings. i thought this was “meh.” “firestarter” was better. i’m always leery of stories where the protagonist is a “genius” child b/c usually, writers can’t write normal child characters so they have to make them smarter than their years (easier to write), also b/c if you’ve spent any time around younger kids (pre-teens), you know they’re annoying as shit & not smart enough to outwit adults. authors should just make these young main characters older. the last king book i liked was “revival” b/c it was pretty creepy. he’s gotten less scary as he’s gotten older. the “holy shit!” reactions to “shining” & “salem’s lot” & “the stand” are gone now.