Book Review

The Institute by Stephen King

At some point in about 2013, I simply stopped reading books. Shortly after reading Dr Sleep, the then latest Stephen King novel and sequel to his book, The Shining, I didn't read anything for four years.
Really. No books or novels, just newspapers and magazine articles.

I was busy writing my own novel - The Imagination Station - and that took all of my mental capacity at the time. About to face employment oblivion, I concentrated my efforts on writing and took a fledgling idea to its current final draft stage (a stage that has hovered uncontrollably after a frantic return to rewrite duties, last year). I also didn't want to read anything. We continued to buy books, the wife is an avid devourer of books and many times I'd pick one of her books up and think, 'maybe.' Yet, maybe never really came.

About six months before we moved, I reread the His Dark Materials books. The time was right and I wanted something I could enjoy that wouldn't challenge me too much. I had my book too deeply ingrained (I know what I mean by that, I can't be arsed to explain to those who don't). And that was it. We moved. I continued to not read books. The new Philip Pullman book came out - the new adventure of Lyra - and it took me almost fourteen months to start reading it after having it bought for me the previous Christmas. Even when I did read it, it didn't reignite my once bottomless thirst for fiction, but I did start reading again - selective stuff and mainly re-reading.

The second of Pullman's new Lyra trilogy came out last Christmas and it only took me four months to start to read it. Partly due to my interest being piqued by the recent BBC/HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials. I finished it and felt unfulfilled; don't get me wrong, it's a good book and an intriguing new story, but I felt the itch hadn't been scratched - both in this new Lyra adventure and my return to reading. The desire for something else that was new was growing and that was what brought me to The Institute...

Before we go there, we need to address the last King book I read. I saw Dr Sleep as a stepping off point, not just for reading in general, but to escape my decades old obsession with Stephen King (and his hardbacks). Unfortunately, the wife wasn't prepared to do that, so we've continued to buy them as they come out - with only one missing. That is why we have The Institute, that and because it was one of the Christmas presents I got her.

I can say that I'm already casting my eye across the bookshelves for the next book to consume, now that is finished. I don't know for sure if the old sparkle is back, but it certainly seems that way and the latest Stephen King novel has helped redevelop that...

First off. I feel King has been reusing old ideas in new ways for two decades. Cell is a cut price shorthand version of The Stand and much of what followed could be identified in earlier novels. If it ain't broke why fix it? If you want to revisit old ideas then make them better, not inferior. Pale imitations. Occasionally, there was something that excited; that felt different, but generally King felt like an aged rock and roller trying to recapture his glorious past.

The Institute is Firestarter, but with less pyrotechnics and more 21st century nous. The names change but the faces remain the same. It almost briefly wanders in Dead Zone territory and skirts around earlier King novels which featured The Shop or had characters with vastly superior brains. Yet, unlike those earlier books, this seems to follow a different timeline; is set in a slightly different part of King's multiverse. The Institute isn't The Shop and the two never met in these pages; the earlier incarnation of 'government' sanctioned human experimentation was not even given a recognising nod, even if there was a backhanded reference to the likes of good old Johnny Smith.

The story begins with Tim Jamieson, essentially drifting north after losing his job as a cop, quickly switches to Luke Ellis, bonafide child prodigy/genius and then after a typical King intro plunges straight into shock and awe. It really doesn't hang about. King has never had a problem shocking his Constant Reader with an unexpected death or a peculiar turn; it's almost like he enjoys it - it's one of the way he unsettles his readers - to borrow the advertising line from the first Peter Gabriel album - "Expect the Unexpected" and this is no exception and it's done with such power and almost incredulity that you're hooked from that point.

The Institute is an example of the evil that men (and women) can do if they believe what they're doing is for the benefit of mankind and that belief turns the staff at the Institute into modern day Mengeles and his Nazi scientists... Or does it? It's certainly tinged with a sadistic streak and as you read it you wonder how King could allow himself to go to these places (although he 'went there' far worse in It!); it touches areas that parents of any child would view as barbaric.

It's certainly a rollercoaster ride; many of his books in recent years have swapped exposition for pace; where the minor supporting cast of Dupre would have had almost a book in itself; however it is a fleeting glimpse of the township and its more colourful residents and then, like some hand is guiding the coincidences to reach a certain point, for best part of the rest of the story it is ignored; forgotten about. It never leaves you, the sensation, that at some point the world we're introduced to in the opening pages will collide with the faraway world that is meticulously described as 'hell'.

It does and the pieces placed, in this intricate chess game of a thriller, play their part.

The place in the title of the book is a top secret installation (above top secret) that experiments on children with slight powers of telekinesis or telepathy to enhance their abilities in ways that would have made Nazi scientists green with envy. The 'conscripts' into this program are treated no better than lab rats and the staff are all borderline psychopaths, sadists and outcasts who have found their true calling in the torture and abuse of children. The Institute exists above governmental control; the people there and the work they do is sponsored by a secret government, one that believes it is safeguarding the world by doing heinous things. The bombing of Coventry in WW2 resonates in the reasoning behind its existence, even if it never mentioned; to save the many, a few must be sacrificed. But in a such a cold, pernicious and nasty way?

Despite Luke being extremely clever, it isn't his functioning brain that interests the Institute, it's his latent and mild telekinetic powers and that is the first mistake this decades old 'thinktank' makes. Add to this mix Avery Dixon, an underdeveloped 10 year old who can read minds easier than anyone the Institute had seen for decades, who through his complicity with Luke to aid the latter's escape, is subjected to tests not designed for his level of ability. You give a low level telekinetic - can move an empty pizza box - a near death experience and it boosts their overall psychic abilities, especially when they join with the hive mind in the less attractive part of the Institute.

Luke's escape hinges not just on his unique brain and his ability to cut round corners, but also helps him befriend one of the people who should never have needed a friend. Luke helps this person and she enables him to escape, providing him with information that could bring the entire facility down on their heads. It obviously isn't as simple as that, but it is one of the more feasible of the long shots that King attempts to pull off. Coincidences and all that.

While Luke is engaged in his own carnage in South Carolina, meeting Tim in the process, back at the Institute Avery is setting in motion a chain of events that will leave another trail of dead people. He is also aware of Luke's idea - a gamble put in place designed to fail, because of a strategy underneath that only Luke and his now psychically linked friends know about. The tell tale line is when Tim, finally understanding what he's involved in, suggests to Luke that they're not returning to the Institute to save people and Luke replies, 'No, we're going to pick up the pieces.' The first time in years I got that crackle down my spine reading King's words.

Everything about the book is scarily possible, even in today's world and then just as you read and hope that the denouement will be as good as you hoped there is the one real cop-out. As well as channeling Firestarter, it also borrows themes from Philip K Dick's The Minority Report; the consequences of that idea wouldn't become clear until the epilogue.

Parts of the climax work exceptionally well, other parts feel like they've been ramped up to make a feature film sale more viable. To say the end of the Institute is far fetched is like suggesting the rest of the book isn't, but the plausibility of the book disappears in a conclusion that feels like it's going right back to Carrie but with the volume turned to 11 and that didn't work for me. I would have preferred less bangs and more buck - which might be why there's a long but ultimately unfulfilling epilogue. Everything could have been logical, even the set-up to cause the conclusion, but I feel it could have been handled in a way that cut out the disaster movie and still achieved a desirable conclusion.

It is, however, a cracking read. It has some excellent set-up lines, brilliant exchanges and King writes like he's remembered how to write likeable characters you give a fig about even if you've just seen a flash of their lives. He also channels his inner-villain to perfection with an array of baddies with cameos that make you realise almost always all hope is lost for anyone who enters this Godforsaken place. I can forgive some of the decisions made by the main cast for being caught up in the craziness, but others felt like they were done to reach a point where they may not have happened if it had played out in a real world setting. But that is what writing fiction is sometimes about; cliches exist because if they didn't there wouldn't be cliches.

I almost felt like it could have been a wee bit longer. Both Stackhouse and Sigsby - excellent villains, both instinctively evil in different, but effective, ways were almost superficial; ciphers for their general kind of person. Yet there was a sense that if King had told a little about their lives - more than a couple of almost afterthought lines - they might have been less unbelievable. The impression Ka was at work here was obvious, but carefully hidden; like King wanted us to know, for sure, this was not a story in a universe of dim follies.

I get the impression he's not done with this particular corner of his mind. I do feel we might see these characters again. It is incredibly good at using emotion as an excellent narrative.

It won't make any of my King top tens but it feels like he's actually revisited an old idea and probably done a better job. I'm giving this book a 7 out of 10

Harry in Lockdown

Sometimes people fall through the cracks. It isn't done on purpose, even if it can seem like it at times. Harry found this out, or didn't as the case was, when he told the woman - a local nurse - to get out of his house and never come back. He knew she had, several times, but he'd been out, or hiding in his garage. He didn't like being told what to do. He was 80 years old, for God's sake, old enough to know better than some kid in a uniform telling him what's best for him.

Harry's year had been the worst he could remember, except this was the root of all of his 'problems', his memory was not what it was and he was beginning to get yesterday mixed up with who knows when? The truth was by the time COVID-19 had shut down the British Isles, Harry had already been blighted by a run of bad luck he couldn't quite comprehend, when he was in a comprehending kind of mood.

Shortly after Christmas, his wife, Margaret? Was it Margaret? He wasn't as sure as he once was. Might it have been Mary? Anyhow, his wife had taken a nasty fall and what seemed likely to be a couple of days in the local hospital, turned into a nursing home. Quite why Harry couldn't look after her, he didn't quite understand. Something about 'his diagnosis', which made little or no sense to him. Whose diagnosis, he'd ask? That seemed to be one of the problems, apparently.

In truth, Harry had been suspected of having the early stages of senile dementia, but had managed to make the doctor think he wasn't at the stage where he needed to slow down or stop doing things. Harry was a fit man; he'd never smoked and while he liked a drink, he was never an alcoholic or even a heavy drinker. The problem - a word he seemed to hear far too often - was that shortly after Margaret had her fall - her name was indeed Margaret, but Harry had called her Maggie for the 54 years they had been married - and subsequent failing health, he was deemed unsuitable to care for his own wife and she, of complete sound mind, had forbidden her husband to drive to see her. In fact, Harry's driving licence had been taken away after a minor accident in January he had caused, so the only way he could go the 35 miles to see his wife was if someone took him.

There was also the dog. Harry loved his dog, but during the week he spent almost entirely at the hospital because of his wife's fall, he completely forgot about his 13-year-old dog. It was removed from his residence by the RSPCA and a letter was left explaining why. Harry picked up the letter placed it on the side table and promptly forgot it was there. The positive thing, you could say, was that within a few days, the dog became as distant a memory as his long-departed parents and when he did think of the dog, he invariably thought of ones they had had many years ago. Within a few weeks, his car, his dog and his wife had been taken away from him and he believed they now wanted to take away his freedom; but it might have been so much easier or better had it not been for the virus that Harry seemed determined to ignore.

Of course, by the time the coronavirus found its way into the mainstream of planetary life and the country was shut down, there was no one to drive Harry to see his wife and no one to care for him when he decided that he wasn't going to be told to stay indoors for 12 weeks. "There is no way I'm doing that," he shouted at the girl in the nurse's uniform and he told her to get out of his house and never come back. He knew he didn't feel bad about it, but as March turned into April and the sun came out, the last thing the old man wanted to do was be cooped up inside his bungalow, whatever advice the girl had given him, which he had ignored, and now no longer resided in his memory at all. He'd spent all of his life working outside, he was sure of it, so he was going to wander around the village and chat to all the people he hadn't been able to while his wife had been keeping him at home.

Harry began to interpret his inability to get to see his wife with the belief she didn't want to see him, which wasn't true, she just realised he was a danger to everyone if he drove. Harry now remembered it as her telling him she never wanted to see him again and the way his mind was now working, that meant he was going to go and do what he wanted; see the people he had spent all of his life with in the village and get to know the ones who were new.

Buried at the front of his now scattershot memory was that people were trying to make him stay in. It seemed to him there were a lot of people telling him, from a distance, that he needed to go home unless he was going to the shop. He did go to the shop, not always. It seemed to some of the locals that when they explained the risk to Harry, he simply seemed to drift away from the conversation or wandered off, like a child bored with something. The fact he was told repeatedly by different people made no difference to him; he simply avoided those people - the enemy - and went in search of new people to talk to. He loved talking to people, he didn't understand why they didn't want to talk to him.

Did Harry understand what a pandemic was? Probably not and even if he once understood the danger one posed, it was no longer something that inhabited his brain. It was something affecting the rest of the world and even cases of coronavirus in the village failed to make him comprehend the risk to himself and indirectly to others. If he caught it - and he was almost trying despite not knowing - he could prove to be fatal to those who he came into contact with. Except, that wouldn't happen, because he wouldn't get it.

Do you see the problem? He was in a place of denial but only because his brain no longer understood exactly what it was denying. This was no longer about others, apart from their intent to stop him from going about his business, which now as April slipped into May, was shuffling the streets, in the same clothes, looking more dishevelled and unhappier because the more he tried the more people consciously began avoiding him, crossing the road, locking their doors, closing their gates. There had been instances where he'd simply wandered onto people's property, because he thought someone who hadn't lived there for 40 years still did.

While the world twitched at their curtains and became like honorary members of the Stasi, reporting rule breakers, the kind who, if they were social isolating the way they were supposed to, would never enter their personal spheres, Harry was ignored. People felt sorry for him, but didn't want to help him. Except, they did, they just couldn't because the advice he received, the conversations he had, the shouted abuse from people he didn't know, just compounded his belief - his paranoia - that they were all out to get him. The rest of the world's problems were something he was not even aware of. So the neighbours and locals accepted the wandering old man, the way you might an unwanted tramp sleeping on your local park bench, but without acknowledging, condoning or condemning - it was as it was.

Harry's fate was now down to chance. Maybe he'd be lucky; maybe he wouldn't. The problems arise if he wasn't, but there was no obvious path; no way of knowing who or what he might come in contact with and short of having him committed or sent to a care home - Harry and Margaret had no children - he had fallen through those cracks in the system. Whatever outcome suited the rest of the village was going to be bad for Harry. Do you inform the police and even if you did, what chances of impressing on him the importance, to everyone else, that he stays inside and lets the local resilience group do his shopping, collect his medicine or simply drop by - at an appropriate distance - to talk and see if he's able to cope?

Locals have watched the old man deteriorate over the last few months and the underlying feeling rises in all of them; they are watching the last act of a defiant, but mentally-challenged old man, heading towards an inevitable death, either from the virus or his own diminished abilities. Harry had become a Dead Man Shuffling and people were afraid of him. This was something that would end badly, through no real fault of a system or a person. In the time of an unprecedented plague, responsibilities and duty of care are lost in the unrelenting face of a creeping death, picking off victims even if they never catch the disease...