A well-written intriguing inner monologue but eventually neither complex nor deep as a whole work.I went into this novel expecting it to be science fiction. Dead wrong. Once I have an inkling that I want to read a certain book—such as if I hear about the author, read the beginning of the summary, or skim a review by one of my Goodreads friends—then I dig no further. I prefer to read the book cold so that no promotional chatter interferes with my impression of the work itself. In the case of The Wasp Factory, I had some GR friends who liked Iain Banks and another GR friend wanted to trade books, so I swapped with the mistaken impression that Banks was a science fiction writer. Apparently, he does write some science fiction but adds his middle initial “M.” to his science fiction novels. Is this like color coding? He must do it because he’s jealous of George R.R. Martin who has two middle initials.The Wasp Factory is a moderately realist (if extreme) drama set in the near past (90s?) on an isolated island off a small town in the U.K. It is a first-person drama of a psychopathic protagonist with a psychopathic brother.In a nutshell, we get a character study with a twist endingIn fact, this book is primarily a character study with a modest plot attached. Most of the book consists of the political and cultural musings, strange obsessions, and amoral cruelties of the main character, Frank, with a few set pieces designed to make him seem more likeable. The cultural and political musings were the most interesting elements to me, and as such garned this the three stars. Were they brilliant revelations? Certainly not but they were at least intriguing. The scenes related to Frank and his friend Jamie—called a dwarf—do not really serve to advance any plot threads. I’m not one who typically demands plot, but as I pondered this book, I started to realize that since the dwarf was not integral to any forward movement in the story, the scenes with him were extraneous and existed only as set pieces to “show us another side” of the main character. Not only that, but I would argue they serve to soften the sociopathology of the main character, to make him seem less despicable, and to give us a little relief from the cruelty. They seem inserted to make him not entirely unlikable. This struck me as manipulative. Something about the “he’s a good friend who just happens to like torturing animals” wasn’t convincing.Both brothers torture animals. As a vegetarian, I wasn’t offended per se. As a writer, I feel it is perfectly acceptable to present characters who are immoral/amoral or just plain reprehensible in a variety of ways and even make them likeable. I wasn’t offended by the author’s choice. On the other hand, as a reader, I admit it was rather unpleasant to read descriptions of animal torture. Repeated instances of it leave a very unpleasant taste in my mouth. I would, no doubt, feel the same about repeated scenes of rape or torture of humans in a book as well. I would choose not to read such a book if I knew in advance that it was coming because … well, so little time to read and such is not my priority. Do I like books that are difficult or unpleasant to read? Yes, I certainly do. Shocking or extreme, yes, sometimes. But a truly realist drama that features torture or rape or other abuses to the extreme, well, I don’t find such things interesting or valuable to expose myself to. Reading Marabou Stork Nightmares swore me off ever reading Irvine Welsh again, it made me so angry. I tend to think of violence as the easy way to shock people. I’d rather be shocked in some other less mundane fashion.So do we get a sense for why the two brothers were psychotic? In one sense, we get a very generic answer: moderately fucked up childhoods. Their mother abandoned them when they were young, and the father was generally distant. One could easily say that they acted as absentee parents, and the story wrote them as such as well. Banks does not provide much detail about them. Why Frank’s brother went insane is not clear. I often think explanations just leave more mysteries. Which is okay. But then an authors needs a reason to write something, don’t they? I think it’s the hardest question to answer. Why am I writing this? Most authors who write realist fiction with interior monologues want us to understand the characters. So let’s assume we are intended to understand what drives Frank. In The Wasp Factory, we are lead to believe that a moderately fucked up childhood plus a very specific hidden twist revealed at the end leads to sociopathy. Did I believe it? Honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t truly believe it, but I didn’t disbelieve it either. This is a question for psychologists to answer, in a sense. I thought … okay … sure? In the end, The Wasp Factory was an oblique cautionary tale with a moral lesson. Better not do X or you create sociopaths. All right. Not a bad point but I guess it felt like a long way to go for a ham sandwich. Twist endings can have that effect because suddenly everything in the story hinges on the ending. And that is why I do not think this was a very deep or complex novel.There was also something about the ending that bothered me. There is something about the sense of relief that comes at the end of the book that felt false. It seemed to imply [What follows is a critical spoiler, but it does not give away the twist ending](view spoiler)[that despite the clear insanity of the brother and the sociopathy of Frank that … everything might actually work out in the end. It shows some light at the end of the tunnel, that they could overcome their craziness. I didn’t buy it. People that set dogs on fire and put dynamite in rabbits and kill three children (this is described on the back cover the book) do not turn their lives around with a single epiphany. (hide spoiler)]
WHAATTT?! Never read anything like it! A very dark, macabre, insane, unsettling and disturbing book. How do you rate something like this? It certainly can't be described as enjoyable. Then why couldn't I put the damn thing down?! Why did I allow myself to be drawn in to the violence, even as I'm trying to imagine what could possibly drive someone to do such sick things? If I said I thought this book was simply outstanding, what does that say about me? Ah, damn it! enough with the questions. I'm going to rate it 5* and I'll worry about the state of my mental health later!Iain Banks passed away from cancer in June 2013, aged 59. The Wasp Factory was the Scottish author's first novel and it has become his most famous. A 1997 poll of over 25,000 readers listed The Wasp Factory as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century. It is also included in the 1,001 book challenge. When it was first released, the book was initially greeted with a mixture of acclaim and controversy, due to its gruesome depiction of violence. Banks dealt with the controversy brilliantly however by placing a selection of reviews, good and bad, on the inside cover. The Times Literary Supplement’s verdict, “A literary equivalent of the nastiest brand of juvenile delinquency”, was proudly displayed alongside The Financial Times’ “Macabre, bizarre, and impossible to put down”. A reviewer for the Irish Times wrote "It is incomprehensible that a publisher could have stooped to such levels of depravity".The Wasp Factory is written from a first person perspective, told by sixteen-year-old Frank Cauldhame. Frank is a psychopath. He has a penchant for violence and killing, small animals mostly, but he also killed three younger children before he was ten. As he describes it: "[…] That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years, and I don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.” Frank’s life is dominated by his strict adherence to personal rituals and totems—the wasp factory, built from an old clock face, being the most significant. To Frank, the wasp factory guides him through life. Frank has one surviving half-brother, Eric, whom we are informed is crazy, after experiencing something very unpleasant while working in a hospital. It is Eric’s escape from the asylum that precipitates the action of the novel.This is a brilliant, caustic, breath-taking novel that will not appeal to all. As is evident by critics, this book has scared the bejesus out of some, sickened others and captured fandom of a great many. With respect to the latter, the Wasp factory recently made its debut at the Bregenz Festival in Austria and will be showing at the Royal Opera House in London in October 2013. Yes, you've read right, it has been transformed into gripping music theatre.If you have a tolerance for violence and madness, I urge you to read this book. If for nothing else, the twist in its tail is simply fantastic.
What do You think about The Wasp Factory (1998)?
This is the second book I’ve read that belongs to gothic genre. The first one was Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto , a 1764-first published novel that actually started it. Castle is about mysterious happenings in an old English castle that lead to mistaken identities making the characters killing one another only to find out that they should not. Fast forward to 1984, 220 years after, came The Wasp Factory that tells the story of a family living in a Scottish island. There is still a flurr
—K.D. Absolutely
Rating: 4.95* of fiveThe Publisher Says: Frank--no ordinary sixteen-year-old--lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; & his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return--an event that explodes the mysteries of the past & changes Frank utterly.My Review: Much has been said in disgust and even anger about this polarizing book. Some have called for it to be banned. Others have written the equivalent of a silent finger-down-the-throat mime.You are all entitled to your opinion. Here is mine: This book is brilliant. It will be remembered long long after the pleasant entertainments of the day are more forgotten than Restoration drama. (Hands up anyone who knows who Colley Cibber is. And don't front. Or use Wikipedia.)I'm also an ardent partisan of Lolita, that deeply disturbing and very beautiful book by a pedophile about his pursuit of the perfect lover. I loved Mrs. Dalloway, the chilling, near-perfect narrative of a wealthy woman's desperation and crushing ennui.So here's the deal: Frank, and his brother Eric, aren't role models, aren't people you'd want to be around, aren't amusing compadres for a jaunt along the path to the Banal Canal. They are, like Hum and Lo and Clarissa and Septimus, avatars (in the pre-Internet sense) of the raw, bleeding, agonic (unangled, in this use) purposelessness of life. They are the proof that salvation is a cruel ruse. These characters rip your fears from the base of your brain and move them, puppetlike, eerily masterful withal, into your worst nightmares.And all without resorting to the supernatural.Humanity comes off badly in this book. The truth of what made Frank the person he is will leave you more chilled than any silly evocation of a devil in a religious text. Frank's very being is an ambulatory evil act. But the reason for it, the motivating factor, is the absolute worst horror this book contains. All the animal-torture stuff is unpleasant, I agree. It's not as though it's lovingly and lingeringly described. And it pales in comparison to Frank's raison d'etre.So yes, this book is strong meat. It's got deeply twisted characters enacting their damage before us, the safely removed audience. It's making a serious point about human nature. And it's doing all of that in quite beautifully wrought prose, without so much as one wasted word.But it's essentially a warning to the reader: Don't go there. Don't do the pale, weak-kneed versions of the rage-and-hate fueled horrors inflicted on Frank, and even on Eric. Pay attention, be mindful of the many ways we as lazy moral actors condone the creation of Erics and Franks in our world.Pay attention. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
—Richard Reviles Censorship Always in All Ways
For all the so called controversial works out there, few truly shock. I can honestly say Wasp Factory is in this limited company. I wasn't reading for shock value though, and I was still rewarded,weird characters, great narrator, good satire,pitch black humor, and a tale of bizarre Scottish gothic. Lots of unanswered questions and in many ways resembles the slow unvealing of a nightmare(there are scenes of such horror in this book I had to put it down for a minute after reading them.)My first Banks, but there will be many more.
—Adam
