Mind Over Matter: Book Review of The Institute

 

The Institute by Stephen King

Gratitude 

Thank you to the Montgomery County Libraries for providing Stephen King’s The Institute free for public use.

Description

Stephen King’s The Institute features Luke, a twelve year old kid who is also a genius. He’s about to begin attending two universities at the same time and is excited to begin this next portion of his life. Then everything is upended—Luke wakes up in his bedroom that is not his bedroom, but a re-creation at the Institute. At the Institute, Luke discovers that all the children have ESP or telekinetic powers. None of them know exactly why they’re at the institute. They also don’t know what happens when they leave the intake part of the Institute, but Luke knows it’s nothing good. And while he also knows that there’s no way to escape the Institute, Luke knows he must find a way out.

There are many parallels between The Institute and Firestarter—both feature exceptional children who are kidnapped and tested on. In both, children are separated from their parents. And in both, the children must find a way to escape their captors.

Would I Teach This Book?

Would I teach The Institute? The Institute, published in 2019, is classic Stephen King, and written in much cleaner and more sophisticated prose than Firestarter, which was published in 1980. The books are similar enough that in my fantasy course on Stephen King, I would probably not teach both. One represents King’s early work, when he was first establishing his presence as a best selling author and the other represents his more skilled work, decades into his career. In considering teaching a class that represents an author’s work, it makes sense to represent different moments in their career.

While The Institute is arguably better written than Firestarter, Firestarter is, again, the classic, and lives in the American psyche in a way that The Institute does not. A book like Fairy Tale might better represent the breadth of King’s work than The Institute. While it is better than many of King’s books, The Institute would not be a good fit for the course I long to one day teach.

I did enjoy reading The Institute--it is a solid Stephen King book.

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