So we have somewhat of a momentous occasion here. This will be the first new review for a Stephen King book following the publication of the Tracing Trails project. There was a time when I had grand ambitions of publishing a new edition of the book every year, increasing the content with each new round. In the end though, I knew that wasn’t realistic and that I shouldn’t expect people with the book to just keep downloading the new version, year after year. Also, I know the schedule of having to constantly update the files online would be a bit too much for me to keep up with. So this website is the compromise, a way for me to continue offering content to fans of Stephen King’s work. 

Now for the book itself, The Institute. 

Overall I would say that I enjoyed the book, although I don’t think I would heap quite as many accolades as I have seen many other readers doing in the weeks following the release. Many seem ecstatic about the book, making statements that it holds up to some of the best works of King’s most prolific periods. I have seen many a mention of how the “old Stephen King” is back, whatever that could mean. Regardless, I was pretty excited to get in to it.
And as I said, I am not willing to go quite so far in my evaluation but I did enjoy the read quite a bit. I wouldn’t place this among King’s greatest works, but it definitely had its strong moments and overall I felt like the story was compelling and engaging.

I will say that I had a bit of trouble at the beginning engaging my suspension of disbelief. The premise is about a young, gifted boy who is kidnapped and taken to a location known as…well… “the Institute.” At this place, he and other gifted children are tested and exploited for various telekinetic and psychic abilities. And for me, while I was ultimately able to overlook it, it was a little hard for me to believe that an organization could get away for so long with committing acts like these. Maybe in the eighties in the height of King’s career, something like this could have been done. But in the times that we live in, law-enforcement agencies are now so interconnected with the capabilities brought by the Internet that I don’t think such acts would be able to go so long unnoticed.

All that aside, I was still able to ultimately roll with it and enjoy the story for what it was. When I originally read a description of the story before it was published I was hoping that we were going to maybe return to the universe of Firestarter. The description of the Institute made me think quite a bit of the Shop, which was mentioned in several of King’s earlier books. And while there ended up being not quite as much of a connection as I would have liked, the spirit and drive of the book still felt quite familiar and comfortable to me.
I’ll say that regardless of how I felt about the book as a whole, the opening sequence after the prologue in which the kidnapping takes place is gripping and sets a great tone for the book. And as we grow progressively entrenched in the Institute, the main character’s lack of knowledge of his situation adds a beautiful layer of tragedy to everything. I don’t think King was able to really live up to the promise of that beginning but it was still enough to keep me engaged.

I was also a bit thrown by the beginning in which a character is introduced and then proceeds to disappear like Frodo on a ring quest while the rest of the book happens. Still, when he is brought back into the fold, the timing feels correct and effective as all the elements of the book start to come together. And while it was well-telegraphed, I felt that King built up to and delivered the ending that I was expecting (for the most part).

And like a bookend, I have to say that the ending of the book did catch me a little bit by surprise. Mostly because mixed in with the triumphalism, there was also a fairly heavy dose of tragedy and loss. And while much of the book had me thinking of Firestarter, the ending for me felt like a callback to the brutal decision he made to conclude his famed title, Cujo. It leaves us with a taste of sadness and regret, a reminder that nothing is free in life and the victories we strive for pretty much always come with a price attached. It is a feeling I also attribute to the end of IT, an ending which the movie chose to duck around. In that book also, we see that while evil can be vanquished, the sacrifices made in order to bring that about are just as real and just as tragic.

As I said at the outset, I don’t feel like the book is perfect. There are certainly aspects where it came up short for me. Thinking over the issues I have, the best I can explain them is by drawing a comparison again to Firestarter. With that book, while John Rainbird is a frightening character, I never felt any real peril for Charlie McGee. Sure, she’s in a bad situation but I think we all knew that in the end, her powers would be brought to bear and she would emerge from her predicament.

Same situation here. 

While the story of these children is definitely tragic, and while there are numerous moments that are disturbing to read, I never really felt like there was any risk of the kids not overcoming their adversaries. And while I felt a certain amount of intellectual curiosity in seeing where the story went specifically, most of it had a fairly strong air of inevitability to it. I have stated a criticism of much of Stephen King’s recent works, dating all the way back to Dr. sleep, in that I often feel like his villains don’t carry the same edge and menace that they once did in the eighties and nineties. While there is definitely potential, the monsters of the story often end up seeming more like bumblers than anything else and in this book, that trend seems to hold true once again. The adults who run the Institute clearly have some issues with their morality and they’re willing to inflict abuse on the faceless children they have taken against their will. But at the same time, I always had the feeling in the back of my head that we were just waiting for the inevitable moment when the children would rise up and get the better of these adults who terrorized them.

It’s not a great element to have as a part of a story but it did make me think of something I read when I recently picked up the first Jack Reacher novel for the first time. Author Lee Child had written a retrospective introduction to the book and one of the things he talked about was his decision to make Reacher such a powerful character. That often in the books he doesn’t really seem that challenged by the people who are pursuing him and seems to usually come out on top fairly easily. Child’s explanation for his decision (as I remember it) was that essentially as readers, sometimes that’s what we want in a story. We want to read about a character who is strong and capable and has the ability to handle a situation. And I guess to some extent I felt this was applicable to this book as well. That maybe the enjoyment of the book isn’t in seeing the horrible eminent peril of all these children, but in enjoying the dramatic irony of knowing what’s in store for these awful adults. 

I think that was what allowed me to enjoy the book as much as I did.

One last observation, not necessarily about the book itself but more around the book. I’ve noticed more and more this phenomenon where readers who are passionately -not- Stephen King fans will none-the-less charge out on release day to be some of the first to buy a new King title, and blaze through it just about faster than anyone just so they can proudly declare that they still don’t like Stephen King. It’s an odd phenomenon where you have people who aren’t fans but could also be described as being a Constant Reader.

It’s bizarre to witness. And understand that everyone has the right to not like King’s writing. If I have made any one thing clear with my reviews, I would like to think it would be that I have no interest in convincing people to like Stephen King. In fact, I’ve grown quite irate with how aggressively some in social media go after people for just not liking something. Not liking a thing doesn’t automatically make you a racist or a bigot or sexist. It’s not always about some kind of ideology and it’s okay to not like things. 

But when I see people proclaiming their now “verified” distaste, it always begs the question to me, if you so clearly don’t like Stephen King’s writing, then why the heck are you buying the books in the first place? If you didn’t like the first twenty books of his that you read, chances are you’re not going to like this one. So why are you dwelling so hard on things you don’t like? Just for the pleasure of declaring to the masses that you’ve been right the whole time?
I think the world would be a fundamentally better place if we all just focused on the things we do like.

And this goes for fans who constantly bemoan what they see as the demise of his prose, that his newer offerings don’t hold a candle to days long gone. I think I felt this more acutely with this book as I saw so many people seemingly heaving a sigh of relief that the “old Stephen King” was back.

Look. His process has changed. There’s no denying that and I think it’s totally forgivable, if not at least understandable. Stephen King is not a young man anymore and has lived a life strained through the behemoths of addiction and near death from an automobile accident. You may not like his style anymore but I think it’s also important to respect that this is how he writes. Could this book have been better? There’s no doubt of that. But this is the book we got. This isn’t the guy who, in times past might have spent seven to ten years writing a book. From what I have read in interviews, his books now are largely the result of polished first drafts. And in my opinion, this still produces some engaging and entertaining books, I can understand how people would see a loss of complexity to the stories. You’re free to move on to other things but this is just the way it is, and dropping twenty bucks on a book just so you can proclaim out a big, “YOU SEE?” to the largely uncaring masses is just a depressing way to lead a life. Take pleasure in the books you love. Don’t focus so much on the things you had no shot of liking in the first place.

For me, I’m going to carry on enjoying these books that spring forth from a well that seemingly has no bottom. And as I write this, I am already waiting excitedly for a new collection of novellas from Stephen King. If It Bleeds is due for release sometime next year. I’ve already preordered my copy and will be giving it a pass straight to the top of the reading pile as soon as I can get it.

It’s okay if Stephen King isn’t your thing. 

But I love his writing.

My name is Chad Clark and I’m proud to be a Constant Reader.