Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽'s Reviews > The Institute
The Institute
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Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽'s review
bookshelves: all-aboard-the-superpowers-train, library-has, science-fiction, horror
Mar 05, 2020
bookshelves: all-aboard-the-superpowers-train, library-has, science-fiction, horror
3.75 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Stephen King takes over 550 pages here to relate the story of the mysterious Institute and its merciless dealings with kidnapped children. Given that page count, it shouldn’t be too surprising that King spends the first forty pages setting up his tale with a seemingly unrelated story of a man adrift in his life. Tim Jamieson, an out-of-work cop, takes a hefty payout to give up his seat on an overfull flight, and ends up making his rambling way from Tampa, Florida to the small town of DuPray, South Carolina, where the local sheriff gives him a job as a night knocker, an unarmed beat cop who patrols DuPray during the night. But — as King informs us not once, but twice — great events turn on small hinges.
That same summer, Luke Ellis, a twelve-year-old Minneapolis boy with genius-level intelligence, loving parents, and a very mild talent for making pie pans and other lightweight items rattle and move in moments of strong emotion, is kidnapped from his home by a SWAT team that murders Luke’s parents as part of the operation. When Luke awakes from his drugged sleep, he’s in a bedroom that, spookily, almost mirrors his own (there’s no window, for one thing). But outside of the bedroom, he finds he’s in an institutional building in rural Maine that’s nothing like his home, with other kidnapped children and some adult caretakers.
A black girl, Kalisha, introduces Luke to his new life. All of the children and teenagers at the Institute have some degree of talent with either telepathy or telekinesis, and the doctors and staff forcibly work them over to try to enhance their supernatural gifts and to bring out the more-desired telepathy in children like Luke who have only displayed telekinetic power. Luke and a handful of other children are in the part of the Institute called the Front Half. After a few weeks, children “graduate” to the Back Half … and none of them knows for certain what happens to them there, or why they are there. But what’s clear is that no child has ever escaped from the Institute.
The Institute is a horror story of the human heart. The children who have the supernatural powers are entirely sympathetic; it’s the adults surrounding them who are horror figures, particularly the cruel head of the Institute, Mrs. Sigsby, who is of the Nurse Ratched school. She’s assisted by doctors, technicians and orderlies who punish and torment the children in pursuit of their secret goals. The tortures they inflict on their young charges can make for difficult reading. King weaves in allusions to Nazi concentration camps and digs at individuals who, in their fanatic pursuit of a goal, lose their moral compass. If you’re thinking that might also be applied to the current political climate in the U.S., King certainly wouldn’t disagree.
King is a talented storyteller, and though The Institute is a fairly hefty book it moves with a sense of urgency. But even if one accepts (at least for purposes of reading this novel) the existence of telepathy and telekinetics, the plot’s logic breaks down when the Institute’s true goal is finally revealed. The justification for the entire secret scheme of those in charge of the Institute, combined with some cost-benefit analysis when considering the cost in lives and the other potential methods of reaching their goals, really strained my ability to suspend disbelief. That issue is briefly raised and dismissed in a few short paragraphs, but I wasn’t convinced.
If you’re not too inclined to find logical plot holes and poke at them, The Institute is a compelling science fiction read with a solid mix of action, suspense and horror.
Content warning: death, mistreatment, abuse and torture of teens and children.
Stephen King takes over 550 pages here to relate the story of the mysterious Institute and its merciless dealings with kidnapped children. Given that page count, it shouldn’t be too surprising that King spends the first forty pages setting up his tale with a seemingly unrelated story of a man adrift in his life. Tim Jamieson, an out-of-work cop, takes a hefty payout to give up his seat on an overfull flight, and ends up making his rambling way from Tampa, Florida to the small town of DuPray, South Carolina, where the local sheriff gives him a job as a night knocker, an unarmed beat cop who patrols DuPray during the night. But — as King informs us not once, but twice — great events turn on small hinges.
That same summer, Luke Ellis, a twelve-year-old Minneapolis boy with genius-level intelligence, loving parents, and a very mild talent for making pie pans and other lightweight items rattle and move in moments of strong emotion, is kidnapped from his home by a SWAT team that murders Luke’s parents as part of the operation. When Luke awakes from his drugged sleep, he’s in a bedroom that, spookily, almost mirrors his own (there’s no window, for one thing). But outside of the bedroom, he finds he’s in an institutional building in rural Maine that’s nothing like his home, with other kidnapped children and some adult caretakers.
A black girl, Kalisha, introduces Luke to his new life. All of the children and teenagers at the Institute have some degree of talent with either telepathy or telekinesis, and the doctors and staff forcibly work them over to try to enhance their supernatural gifts and to bring out the more-desired telepathy in children like Luke who have only displayed telekinetic power. Luke and a handful of other children are in the part of the Institute called the Front Half. After a few weeks, children “graduate” to the Back Half … and none of them knows for certain what happens to them there, or why they are there. But what’s clear is that no child has ever escaped from the Institute.
The Institute is a horror story of the human heart. The children who have the supernatural powers are entirely sympathetic; it’s the adults surrounding them who are horror figures, particularly the cruel head of the Institute, Mrs. Sigsby, who is of the Nurse Ratched school. She’s assisted by doctors, technicians and orderlies who punish and torment the children in pursuit of their secret goals. The tortures they inflict on their young charges can make for difficult reading. King weaves in allusions to Nazi concentration camps and digs at individuals who, in their fanatic pursuit of a goal, lose their moral compass. If you’re thinking that might also be applied to the current political climate in the U.S., King certainly wouldn’t disagree.
King is a talented storyteller, and though The Institute is a fairly hefty book it moves with a sense of urgency. But even if one accepts (at least for purposes of reading this novel) the existence of telepathy and telekinetics, the plot’s logic breaks down when the Institute’s true goal is finally revealed. The justification for the entire secret scheme of those in charge of the Institute, combined with some cost-benefit analysis when considering the cost in lives and the other potential methods of reaching their goals, really strained my ability to suspend disbelief. That issue is briefly raised and dismissed in a few short paragraphs, but I wasn’t convinced.
If you’re not too inclined to find logical plot holes and poke at them, The Institute is a compelling science fiction read with a solid mix of action, suspense and horror.
Content warning: death, mistreatment, abuse and torture of teens and children.
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Reading Progress
February 2, 2020
– Shelved as:
to-read
February 2, 2020
– Shelved
February 2, 2020
– Shelved as:
all-aboard-the-superpowers-train
February 2, 2020
– Shelved as:
library-has
March 2, 2020
–
Started Reading
March 2, 2020
– Shelved as:
science-fiction
March 2, 2020
– Shelved as:
horror
March 5, 2020
–
Finished Reading
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Matt
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rated it 4 stars
Mar 06, 2020 04:11AM
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![Tandie](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1450327909p1/11494588.jpg)
I had some issues with the children in It, and got into a discussion with a bookshop employee. He said that King’s shift to writing disturbing things focused on children (like, seriously disturbing, not like Firestarter or other previous works involving kids) is an evolution into writing a different kind of horror. We all flinch at the combination of innocent children and evil things. Especially sexualizing kids or abuse and torture. He wants to make us uncomfortable. I was put off his books after It, because that particular thing is a trigger for me, not because he isn’t an excellent writer. Your thoughts?
![Tandie](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1450327909p1/11494588.jpg)
![Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1648407601p1/8734459.jpg)
This book had very little sexual content in it (the only thing I remember is a few kisses and a comment about some teens hooking up). But the physical and emotional (not sexual) abuse of the kids is real, and not for anyone who's really going to be distressed by reading it.
![Dichotomy Girl](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1443544131p1/2462318.jpg)
It's been interesting, though I admit, I am completely bogged down in the middle of the monstrosity that is "The Stand" because I can so not deal with the whole Pandemic / Apocalypse thing right now.
But after reading some of his earlier novels / short stories, you can see that there are themes and subject matter that King has been fascinated with for over 50 years.
![Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1648407601p1/8734459.jpg)
That sounds fascinating! Even though much of what King writes is very definitely Not My Thing. I'll have to go stalk your King reviews. :) I've heard about his recurring themes (and have seen it to some extent). As long as it's not just revisiting the well, but exploring new aspects of the issue, I'm cool with an author doing that.