BookJack tells about the new novel by Stephen King "The Institute" - it was with him that Russian book publishers began to "reload" the author for the domestic market. This edition of King no longer resembles mass low-quality fiction - finally, King retains the (almost) original cover, and the text itself is excellently translated. However, the main advantage of the "Institute" is still in the plot, thanks to which one cannot tear himself away from the book.
Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many were gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.
In 2003, Stephen King was awarded the US National Book Award for Outstanding Contribution to American Literature, ending a protracted debate over whether King was a living classic or just a prolific fiction writer, convincingly in favor of the former. In Russia, there was no such discussion and could not have been: all the time that King is published in Russian, he passed through the department not even of brisk fiction, but frankly rubbish literature, extremely massive - such that it is awkward for a decent person to take it in his hands ... Both the covers and the defiantly low quality of the translations spoke about this (or, rather, shouted).
The Russian edition of King's latest novel, The Institute, looks like an attempt to reboot King for the domestic market: the book will be published in its original design (the difference with the American edition is only in the font solution), but, most importantly, in an excellent translation, finally made with interest, love and respect for the original. If things really are this way (which I really want to hope for), then choosing the Institute as a kind of restart button, the publishers did not lose: this book has every chance to capture several audiences at once - from loyal King fans to neophytes, from adults to teenagers and from "naive readers" to intellectuals.
Stephen King is habitually called the "king of horrors", but "The Institute" is not so much a terrible book as it is ingenuous, childishly exciting. And the word "childish" is quite appropriate here: the main character, a boy named Luke Ellis, recently turned twelve years old. Luke is similar to his peers in every way, except for one thing - Luke is abnormally, atypically smart, practically genius. Despite his young age, he successfully passes his final exams at school, puzzling his own parents (loving, but quite ordinary) with this, and two prestigious universities await him with open arms.
However, all these wonderful plans are not destined to come true, because one night people in black suits will enter Luke's house, and a completely different life will begin for the boy: in a few hours he will wake up in a very strange place, surrounded by very strange children and completely ruthless adults. Pretty soon, both the reader and the hero will understand that the main feature of the children abducted and collected at the Institute (this is the name of the place where Luke ended up) is paranormal abilities. So, getting nervous, the main character is able to move light objects without using his hands, and some of his new comrades can read minds. Experiments are performed on children here (ranging from unpleasant to savagely cruel), but it is obvious that everything that happens is just preparation for something much more terrible. However, the adults who torture Luke and his friends lose sight of the fact that their new victim is a genius, and not just a mediocre telekinetic. And this genius is ready to challenge his tormentors.
The "Institute" definitely does not belong to the category of horror films, but it is still impossible to call it not at all scary. Without stopping to the trivial "boo!", Without overusing mysticism and blood, King, nevertheless, finds a way to thrust his hand into the soul of the reader and wiggle his fingers there. And first of all, fear is born from the feeling of a distorted, turned inside out world order (by the way, the hero himself constantly feels this). In the world of the Institute, the simple rule “be polite and people will treat you kindly” does not work, here an adult can with complete impunity and, it seems, without the slightest remorse of conscience, hurt a child, here children are allowed and even recommended to smoke and drink alcohol, here they shamelessly lie in the eyes about the most important things. And although against the background of everything that is happening within the walls of the Institute, this is, in essence, the most complete nonsense, it is precisely such penny violations of the seemingly basic and self-evident rules that destabilize (and ultimately frighten) most of all, creating an atmosphere of dense Kafkaesque darkness inside the novel.
King's fans can easily distinguish in the Institute references to the writer's former things - from Eyes Incendiary (it seems that this is where the theme of an inhuman state organization looking after children with special abilities originates) to Talisman (of all King's heroes, more all of Luke Ellis looks like Jack Sawyer), and from "Gwendy and Her Box" (there for the first time the writer has the image of a teenager, on whose shoulders lies the responsibility for the fate of the whole world) to "Mister Mercedes", which pops up in the text as a funny Easter egg. However, all this does not give the impression of a mechanical repetition, if only because this time King's typical motives are thickly seasoned with ideas from "The Banality of Evil" by Hannah Arendt and "Leaving Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin - not to mention the notorious "teardrop of a tortured child" Dostoevsky, which, in fact, serves as a hidden key to the entire text in the Institute. Agree, not so bad for a novel, the main advantage of which, I repeat, is that it is technically difficult to break away from it.
This article was sponsored by Homayon Tavakoli
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