Stephen King does well with children. Always has. Think of IT. Think of The Body (more widely known from the movie version title, Stand By Me). King again does well with children in his recent novel The Institute, which I've just finished reading. The problem with the novel is that it feels like a regurgitation of relationships and themes that he has already explored in novels and stories that were fresh at the time he wrote them and much better than this current rerun.
To be honest, I don't know why King continues to write. He certainly does not need to do so, not like Jack London, for instance, or Mark Twain, who not only lived beyond their means, but in a time when novel writing was not nearly as lucrative as it is now, even for widely popular authors, and when pirated publications stole an author's profits and even the original publishers conspired to limit the authors' rights to his own efforts (something which Twain energetically fought to correct in his final years).
But King is rich many times over, and does not appear to live a life of great excess. With more than fifty popular novels (most of them best sellers) behind him, as well as film proceeds, King is perfectly free to rest on his laurels, having no need to produce pale imitations of himself. And this is what The Institute feels like--a practiced, premeditated reproduction, admirable for its likeness to the original, yet itself not original. It's kind of like taking the kids (and of course the dog) from Scooby Doo and dropping them into a new, but very similar situation every week.
Perhaps King simply has to write, like a compulsion. Or perhaps he is seeking the sort of literary acceptance that will never come, for Stephen King is quite solidly enshrined in the robes of popular fiction, in the halls of formula narrative, wherein King is indeed the king (although his garments, even in his own palace, are becoming worn, their style antiquated).
Like most of his previous novels, the Institute is also a page turner--another thing that King is good at. And yet again, in The Institute, the machinery is showing through, the magician's tricks have worn thin with repetition. Moreover, as in many of his novels, the carefully fashioned tension of his story collapses on itself in the end--and, ironically, the end of the Institute features a collapsing, imploding building, as if King himself, deep down, is recognizing his own trademark weakness.
Still, I don't want to be too hard on The Institute. It is classic King, and guaranteed to gratify the King readership. It delivers what is anticipated. The Institute is delicious candy, and a delicious candy, say a peppermint stick, as long as you don't expect it to be a pork chop, is delicious every time around.
To be honest, I don't know why King continues to write. He certainly does not need to do so, not like Jack London, for instance, or Mark Twain, who not only lived beyond their means, but in a time when novel writing was not nearly as lucrative as it is now, even for widely popular authors, and when pirated publications stole an author's profits and even the original publishers conspired to limit the authors' rights to his own efforts (something which Twain energetically fought to correct in his final years).
But King is rich many times over, and does not appear to live a life of great excess. With more than fifty popular novels (most of them best sellers) behind him, as well as film proceeds, King is perfectly free to rest on his laurels, having no need to produce pale imitations of himself. And this is what The Institute feels like--a practiced, premeditated reproduction, admirable for its likeness to the original, yet itself not original. It's kind of like taking the kids (and of course the dog) from Scooby Doo and dropping them into a new, but very similar situation every week.
Perhaps King simply has to write, like a compulsion. Or perhaps he is seeking the sort of literary acceptance that will never come, for Stephen King is quite solidly enshrined in the robes of popular fiction, in the halls of formula narrative, wherein King is indeed the king (although his garments, even in his own palace, are becoming worn, their style antiquated).
Like most of his previous novels, the Institute is also a page turner--another thing that King is good at. And yet again, in The Institute, the machinery is showing through, the magician's tricks have worn thin with repetition. Moreover, as in many of his novels, the carefully fashioned tension of his story collapses on itself in the end--and, ironically, the end of the Institute features a collapsing, imploding building, as if King himself, deep down, is recognizing his own trademark weakness.
Still, I don't want to be too hard on The Institute. It is classic King, and guaranteed to gratify the King readership. It delivers what is anticipated. The Institute is delicious candy, and a delicious candy, say a peppermint stick, as long as you don't expect it to be a pork chop, is delicious every time around.
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