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The Wasp Factory
Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least:
Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.
That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.
It was just a stage I was going through.
Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.
That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.
It was just a stage I was going through.
194 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 16, 1984
2923 people are currently reading
107607 people want to read
About the author
Iain Banks
39 books4,841 followersThis author also published science fiction under the pseudonym Iain M. Banks.
Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife.
Banks met his wife Annie in London, before the release of his first book. They married in Hawaii in 1982. However, he announced in early 2007 that, after 25 years together, they had separated. He lived most recently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
As with his friend Ken MacLeod (another Scottish writer of technical and social science fiction) a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. He was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence.
In late 2004, Banks was a prominent member of a group of British politicians and media figures who campaigned to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In protest he cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. In an interview in Socialist Review he claimed he did this after he "abandoned the idea of crashing my Land Rover through the gates of Fife dockyard, after spotting the guys armed with machine guns." He related his concerns about the invasion of Iraq in his book Raw Spirit, and the principal protagonist (Alban McGill) in the novel The Steep Approach to Garbadale confronts another character with arguments in a similar vein.
Interviewed on Mark Lawson's BBC Four series, first broadcast in the UK on 14 November 2006, Banks explained why his novels are published under two different names. His parents wished to name him Iain Menzies Banks but his father made a mistake when registering the birth and he was officially registered as Iain Banks. Despite this he continued to use his unofficial middle name and it was as Iain M. Banks that he submitted The Wasp Factory for publication. However, his editor asked if he would mind dropping the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy". The editor was also concerned about possible confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a minor character in some of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels who is a romantic novelist. After his first three mainstream novels his publishers agreed to publish his first SF novel, Consider Phlebas. To distinguish between the mainstream and SF novels, Banks suggested the return of the 'M', although at one stage he considered John B. Macallan as his SF pseudonym, the name deriving from his favourite whiskies: Johnnie Walker Black Label and The Macallan single malt.
His latest book was a science fiction (SF) novel in the Culture series, called The Hydrogen Sonata, published in 2012.
Author Iain M. Banks revealed in April 2013 that he had late-stage cancer. He died the following June.
The Scottish writer posted a message on his official website saying his next novel The Quarry, due to be published later this year*, would be his last.
* The Quarry was published in June 2013.
Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife.
Banks met his wife Annie in London, before the release of his first book. They married in Hawaii in 1982. However, he announced in early 2007 that, after 25 years together, they had separated. He lived most recently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
As with his friend Ken MacLeod (another Scottish writer of technical and social science fiction) a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. He was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence.
In late 2004, Banks was a prominent member of a group of British politicians and media figures who campaigned to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In protest he cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. In an interview in Socialist Review he claimed he did this after he "abandoned the idea of crashing my Land Rover through the gates of Fife dockyard, after spotting the guys armed with machine guns." He related his concerns about the invasion of Iraq in his book Raw Spirit, and the principal protagonist (Alban McGill) in the novel The Steep Approach to Garbadale confronts another character with arguments in a similar vein.
Interviewed on Mark Lawson's BBC Four series, first broadcast in the UK on 14 November 2006, Banks explained why his novels are published under two different names. His parents wished to name him Iain Menzies Banks but his father made a mistake when registering the birth and he was officially registered as Iain Banks. Despite this he continued to use his unofficial middle name and it was as Iain M. Banks that he submitted The Wasp Factory for publication. However, his editor asked if he would mind dropping the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy". The editor was also concerned about possible confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a minor character in some of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels who is a romantic novelist. After his first three mainstream novels his publishers agreed to publish his first SF novel, Consider Phlebas. To distinguish between the mainstream and SF novels, Banks suggested the return of the 'M', although at one stage he considered John B. Macallan as his SF pseudonym, the name deriving from his favourite whiskies: Johnnie Walker Black Label and The Macallan single malt.
His latest book was a science fiction (SF) novel in the Culture series, called The Hydrogen Sonata, published in 2012.
Author Iain M. Banks revealed in April 2013 that he had late-stage cancer. He died the following June.
The Scottish writer posted a message on his official website saying his next novel The Quarry, due to be published later this year*, would be his last.
* The Quarry was published in June 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 7,599 reviews
March 14, 2016
this is some hard stuff, and by "hard" i mean Hard Like the Marquis de Sade Is Hard. do not read this if you cannot stomach depictions of animal torture. do not read this if you cannot stomach the murder of children. this one was hard for me to read at times, and i read some pretty terrible things.
but this is actually not a bleak book. perhaps because of the narrator: young Frank is a sadistic creature but his perspective is often self-deprecatingly wry or amusingly pedantic. he may be an affectless sociopath who channels his monstrous emotions into bizarre rituals and vicious traps, but hey - he is also a sensitively-wrought kid with many problems. what makes the book such a unique affair is the tension between the horrors illustrated and the traditional vehicle in which they are expressed: it is in many ways a kind of Young Adult novel, albeit one chock-full of grotesquerie. one in which the protagonist struggles to move beyond his outsider status, to connect with others, to understand his distant father and his, er, 'problematic' older brother. Frank's cruelties exist side-by-side with a cold-blooded version of typical teenage angst, angst that is built around familial relations, gender, and simply finding a place in the world. the ending resolves some truly dreadful plotlines in a truly dreadful manner, but also parallels the typically transformative Young Adult ending in which the hero comes to understand himself and so is able to move forward with his life. clever, Banks, very clever!
the narrative is designed as a chinese box of layered (and revolting) mysteries, but it is also designed as a more subtle trap for the unsuspecting reader: look at you, you just found some sympathy for a remorseless little psycho! the personal problems that he has to struggle with ARE pretty heavy for a kid to deal with, right? and you felt a bit of happiness at his eventual self-discovery, didn't you? well, you should be ashamed, sicko!
the writing is clean, clear, precise and the tone is surprisingly upbeat. the protagonist's thoughts have a quiet yearning and naiveté to them that makes even his most horrific plans and rationalizations seem almost understated, almost innocent. the deadpan humor also relieves some of the viciousness of the very dark activities portrayed. the dissection of gender was fascinating! and the use of the wasp factory itself moves beyond that of a torture maze, becoming a metaphor and a parallel for the fates of each of the characters. overall, a disturbing but very enriching experience.
this is a pretty unique book. if you like it, you may want to search out jack vance's Bad Ronald, which is also dryly and ironically concerned with the deadly fantasy life of a youthful, psychotic outsider.
July 25, 2019
”Of course, I know how small a piece of land my island is; I’m not a fool. I know the size of the planet and just how minuscule is that part of it I know. I’ve watched too much television and seen too many nature and travel programmes not to appreciate how limited my own knowledge is in terms of first-hand experience of other places; but I don’t want to go farther afield, I don’t need to travel or see foreign climes or know different people. I know who I am and I know my limitation. I restrict my horizons for my own good reasons; fear--oh, yes, I admit it--and a need for reassurance and safety in a world which just so happened to treat me very cruelly at an age before I had any real chance of affecting it.”
Frank is sixteen years old and lives with his father on an island near a small village in Scotland. His father is eccentric, but Frank is something quite different. Before I go any further, I should mention that you should start thinking of Frank as quite mad. You can even think of him as a psychopath/sociopath or whatever term you like to use. I prefer bat shit crazy. It is not a technical term, but it tends to raise the proper red flags in people’s minds.
I don’t know how to put this in any kind of delicate fashion. You might take a sip of your coffee or tea that you hopefully have at your elbow because you might feel a sudden dryness of the mouth.
Frank has done something that most people never do in their lifetimes. In fact, he has done it three times.
He has killed people.
Let me qualify that, he has killed children.
He has not killed them for the standard reasons, like he needed to keep them quiet because he abused them, or that he was jealous of them, or that he hated them passionately. He didn’t really need a reason.
Don’t worry, you’d probably be perfectly safe quaffing down a beer with Frank or hanging out and watching TV with him because…in his own words….
”It was just a stage I was going through.”
Frank is king of his island. He has put in his own defense perimeter against encroachment. He wages war on rabbits and wasps. He has created his own religion. He has one friend, a dwarf named Jamie, who sits on his shoulders when he is drinking beer in the local pub. He has an older brother, whom he misses and worries about. I know this is going to come as a shock, but his brother is incarcerated with the mentally ill.
Yep, it runs in the family.
His father, in his hippy anarchist days, never registered Frank with the government, so he can’t even prove he is alive. If there were a crack in the earth, he’d be in it. If there were a hole in a tree, he’d be in it. If there were a place in anyone’s heart for him, he’d be in it.
If he keeps his world small enough, he becomes... a God.
This is Iain Banks’ first novel, and some refer to this as a minor masterpiece. I’m not sure about the designation of major or minor masterpiece when describing a novel. A book is either a masterpiece or not. Maybe it is a hedge because this is a fine piece of Gothic Horror. Genre fiction always makes reviewers squirm a little bit when it comes to using such expansive language as... masterpiece. This novel creates an unease in the reader, but at the same time the writing compels you to go onward and forward until you hit the tangled web of the first twist only to extract yourself just in time to get gobsmacked by the second twist.
I purchased this book at Armchair Books in Edinburgh, Scotland. The store was jammed to the rafters with books. It was not surprising that they had a good shelf and a half of Iain Banks’ novels, as they should. After all, he is Scottish born and bred. My friend Tiffany McDaniel, who recently released her brilliantly, compelling first novel The Summer that Melted Everything, suggested that if I needed something to read while in Scotland to pick up The Wasp Factory. She knows how much I love Poe and Stevenson and all those Gothic macabre elements of novels where nothing is quite as it seems and the reveals are like silent screams that curl my toes and put a shiver up my spine.
Banks knows how to set the atmosphere of a novel.
”The house was dark. I stood looking at it in the darkness, just aware of its bulk in the feeble light of a broken moon, and I thought it looked even bigger than it really was, like a stone-giant’s head, a huge moonlit skull full of shapes and memories, staring out to sea and attached to a vast, powerful body buried in the rock and sand beneath, ready to shrug itself free and disinter itself on some unknowable command or cue.
The house stared out to sea, out to the night, and I went into it.”
Unfortunately, Iain Banks died too young at age 59, but his books will be read for generations and maybe this one will be read even longer than that.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Frank is sixteen years old and lives with his father on an island near a small village in Scotland. His father is eccentric, but Frank is something quite different. Before I go any further, I should mention that you should start thinking of Frank as quite mad. You can even think of him as a psychopath/sociopath or whatever term you like to use. I prefer bat shit crazy. It is not a technical term, but it tends to raise the proper red flags in people’s minds.
I don’t know how to put this in any kind of delicate fashion. You might take a sip of your coffee or tea that you hopefully have at your elbow because you might feel a sudden dryness of the mouth.
Frank has done something that most people never do in their lifetimes. In fact, he has done it three times.
He has killed people.
Let me qualify that, he has killed children.
He has not killed them for the standard reasons, like he needed to keep them quiet because he abused them, or that he was jealous of them, or that he hated them passionately. He didn’t really need a reason.
Don’t worry, you’d probably be perfectly safe quaffing down a beer with Frank or hanging out and watching TV with him because…in his own words….
”It was just a stage I was going through.”
Frank is king of his island. He has put in his own defense perimeter against encroachment. He wages war on rabbits and wasps. He has created his own religion. He has one friend, a dwarf named Jamie, who sits on his shoulders when he is drinking beer in the local pub. He has an older brother, whom he misses and worries about. I know this is going to come as a shock, but his brother is incarcerated with the mentally ill.
Yep, it runs in the family.
His father, in his hippy anarchist days, never registered Frank with the government, so he can’t even prove he is alive. If there were a crack in the earth, he’d be in it. If there were a hole in a tree, he’d be in it. If there were a place in anyone’s heart for him, he’d be in it.
If he keeps his world small enough, he becomes... a God.
This is Iain Banks’ first novel, and some refer to this as a minor masterpiece. I’m not sure about the designation of major or minor masterpiece when describing a novel. A book is either a masterpiece or not. Maybe it is a hedge because this is a fine piece of Gothic Horror. Genre fiction always makes reviewers squirm a little bit when it comes to using such expansive language as... masterpiece. This novel creates an unease in the reader, but at the same time the writing compels you to go onward and forward until you hit the tangled web of the first twist only to extract yourself just in time to get gobsmacked by the second twist.
I purchased this book at Armchair Books in Edinburgh, Scotland. The store was jammed to the rafters with books. It was not surprising that they had a good shelf and a half of Iain Banks’ novels, as they should. After all, he is Scottish born and bred. My friend Tiffany McDaniel, who recently released her brilliantly, compelling first novel The Summer that Melted Everything, suggested that if I needed something to read while in Scotland to pick up The Wasp Factory. She knows how much I love Poe and Stevenson and all those Gothic macabre elements of novels where nothing is quite as it seems and the reveals are like silent screams that curl my toes and put a shiver up my spine.
Banks knows how to set the atmosphere of a novel.
”The house was dark. I stood looking at it in the darkness, just aware of its bulk in the feeble light of a broken moon, and I thought it looked even bigger than it really was, like a stone-giant’s head, a huge moonlit skull full of shapes and memories, staring out to sea and attached to a vast, powerful body buried in the rock and sand beneath, ready to shrug itself free and disinter itself on some unknowable command or cue.
The house stared out to sea, out to the night, and I went into it.”
Unfortunately, Iain Banks died too young at age 59, but his books will be read for generations and maybe this one will be read even longer than that.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
March 24, 2018
"What are you reading?"
"Ehum, a book I bought at Gatwick airport last week!"
"Do you like it?"
"No."
"What is it about?"
"Psychopaths talking about the microscopic details of their murderous actions, explaining them away with even worse psychopathic deeds that they fell victim to, watered down to banal cause-and-effect psychology!"
"What? Who would read that kind of book? Sounds hard?"
"Well, on the pro side, the language is simplistic, the plot is absurd, and it is short, so I think it caters to young adults with a short attention span and an obsession for violence in different drastic forms!"
"Well, we live in a violent world, that is reality!"
"Yes. True! I doubt we would see a father trying to change the gender of his child, though, and a murderer who proudly announces three completed murders before reaching adolescence, - using bombs, snakes and kites to kill off even younger children in the family - explaining it "with hindsight" at age seventeen as a "phase" he went through because of some very odd Freudian sexual issues and stereotypical misogyny!"
"Eh?"
"Yes, I know!"
"Why do you read that kind of trash?"
"Dunno! Motives are bizarre sometimes? Cheap and easy entertainment? Fascination with vulgarity? I was bored at the airport and paid for it? People like violence, especially against women, children and animals. They like to be confronted with bodily functions and exact descriptions of drunken vomit. They like it in the way they like brutal computer games and stupid television shows."
"It's not funny, though!"
"Isn't it? Isn't it funny when a murderer stops to contemplate the fact that he might look a bit silly, like Mr Spock, when he is working on his sinister plans?"
"You sound sarcastic and angry!"
"I am! Angry that I read this book! The vulgarity of the world makes me angry. We have abolished Ancient Roman gladiator games and Medieval public executions, only to find ourselves being completely absorbed by morbid stories, psychopaths and their victimization. I am angry! I've had enough!"
As I only review what I finish, though, I forced myself to read to the last page. Fully aware that my review will be different from most others' opinion on this novel, I have to voice my anger at the shallow violence voyeurism, exaggerated to the point of becoming bizarre satire without sense or meaning. If you think it is funny to read about a child exploding, please consider this a roller coaster of the most hilarious kind.
Recommended for those who would have enjoyed sitting in the Colosseum watching animals and humans tear each other apart for the entertainment of the bored SPQR. Recommended for those who wouldn't have missed spitting in the face of a condemned witch before watching every detail of her skin burning while she's publicly suffering at the stake in the Middle Ages. Recommended for whoever needs a bit of sexually motivated, absurd, unrealistic violence every page or two to keep reading. Recommended for those who sit in front of brutal computer games and laugh out loud whenever the pressing of a button causes a virtual character to go "BOOOOOM", body parts graphically flying over the whole screen. Recommended for those who like violence for violence's sake, and who do not need (or want) any other raison d'être for so-called literature.
As for me, I'll make a check on my list of "tried and failed to like another hailed mainstream author".
"Ehum, a book I bought at Gatwick airport last week!"
"Do you like it?"
"No."
"What is it about?"
"Psychopaths talking about the microscopic details of their murderous actions, explaining them away with even worse psychopathic deeds that they fell victim to, watered down to banal cause-and-effect psychology!"
"What? Who would read that kind of book? Sounds hard?"
"Well, on the pro side, the language is simplistic, the plot is absurd, and it is short, so I think it caters to young adults with a short attention span and an obsession for violence in different drastic forms!"
"Well, we live in a violent world, that is reality!"
"Yes. True! I doubt we would see a father trying to change the gender of his child, though, and a murderer who proudly announces three completed murders before reaching adolescence, - using bombs, snakes and kites to kill off even younger children in the family - explaining it "with hindsight" at age seventeen as a "phase" he went through because of some very odd Freudian sexual issues and stereotypical misogyny!"
"Eh?"
"Yes, I know!"
"Why do you read that kind of trash?"
"Dunno! Motives are bizarre sometimes? Cheap and easy entertainment? Fascination with vulgarity? I was bored at the airport and paid for it? People like violence, especially against women, children and animals. They like to be confronted with bodily functions and exact descriptions of drunken vomit. They like it in the way they like brutal computer games and stupid television shows."
"It's not funny, though!"
"Isn't it? Isn't it funny when a murderer stops to contemplate the fact that he might look a bit silly, like Mr Spock, when he is working on his sinister plans?"
"You sound sarcastic and angry!"
"I am! Angry that I read this book! The vulgarity of the world makes me angry. We have abolished Ancient Roman gladiator games and Medieval public executions, only to find ourselves being completely absorbed by morbid stories, psychopaths and their victimization. I am angry! I've had enough!"
As I only review what I finish, though, I forced myself to read to the last page. Fully aware that my review will be different from most others' opinion on this novel, I have to voice my anger at the shallow violence voyeurism, exaggerated to the point of becoming bizarre satire without sense or meaning. If you think it is funny to read about a child exploding, please consider this a roller coaster of the most hilarious kind.
Recommended for those who would have enjoyed sitting in the Colosseum watching animals and humans tear each other apart for the entertainment of the bored SPQR. Recommended for those who wouldn't have missed spitting in the face of a condemned witch before watching every detail of her skin burning while she's publicly suffering at the stake in the Middle Ages. Recommended for whoever needs a bit of sexually motivated, absurd, unrealistic violence every page or two to keep reading. Recommended for those who sit in front of brutal computer games and laugh out loud whenever the pressing of a button causes a virtual character to go "BOOOOOM", body parts graphically flying over the whole screen. Recommended for those who like violence for violence's sake, and who do not need (or want) any other raison d'être for so-called literature.
As for me, I'll make a check on my list of "tried and failed to like another hailed mainstream author".
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2023
Rating: 4.95* of five, rounded up because it's really 5 stars but so insalubrious that I had to acknowledge that somehow
The 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.
The 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.
April 20, 2025
Iain Banks tries to turn routine of a day-to-day life into a cool chiller… It’s hardly possible to write a book shittier than The Wasp Factory.
Who doesn’t want to play God from time to time even in such small and idiotic game like this?
But Iain Banks has serious problems with plausibility and his motivation of all the events is pitifully brainless. He wishes to intimidate us so hard that in the end the tale becomes inadvertently ridiculous.
Fools always were in the majority.
Sometimes the wasps will fly, or crawl upside down on the bottom of the circle of glass, sometimes they stay a long time by the closed-off hole in the centre through which they enter, but sooner or later they all choose a hole and a door which work, and their fate is sealed.
Most of the deaths the Factory has to offer are automatic, but some do require my intervention for the coup de grâce, and that, of course, has some bearing on what the Factory might be trying to tell me.
Who doesn’t want to play God from time to time even in such small and idiotic game like this?
But Iain Banks has serious problems with plausibility and his motivation of all the events is pitifully brainless. He wishes to intimidate us so hard that in the end the tale becomes inadvertently ridiculous.
Fools always were in the majority.
December 11, 2012
Huh, what? Oh no – tell him I'm out. It's the guy who rang last week – no, I don't want to speak to him, no---HI IAIN!! Great to hear from you. Yeah, yeah. How's it hanging? Yeah. So. What can we do you for today? Well yes, you told me that last week. You've written a novel, great. Oh yes, ha ha, that's what we do here, we publish books. Yes but – you know, first novels are not that easy to sell. You have to have an angle. What's that? You've got an angle? Great. Great. Listen, er ---- oh what? Your hero does what? He sacrifices animals? Yeah? Cool. Oh, and seagulls? He lives on an island – what, like Robinson Crusoe? Kind of like that? No? His what? His genitals? Eww – I think – and… oh, there's a dwarf? Yeah? Well, impotent, sacrifices animals, dwarf, yeah, that's kind of an angle I guess. The - what? They drown in what? Urine? Urine? The – you know the ad campaign is not really forming in my mind right now I gotta be honest Iain, you know what I mean, I can't see the cover… yes… yes… the brother…mentally ill… drugs… torture --- Iain, wait, wait. Stop, please, just…. Look, I'm really sorry, and all. But you know I just can't really see this as being something we would be interested in just at the ------ oh. Right. He's gone. Wow. Man, I need a drink. Listen, if Iain Banks calls up again, I'm OUT, do you hear? OUT!
October 3, 2021
3 " I completely get if you rated it 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 5" stars !!
For the first time ever (in the history of my reading life) I would understand completely any rating for this book. I thought long and hard and for me it was a strong three star that could have been a four star but wasn't for a number of factors.
First of all the writing is terrific. Vivid and robust and hyper-masculine prose with dialogue and thought patterns that zing and sing. I was able to see in my mind's eye what was occurring in the exterior landscape as well as in the protagonist's consciousness. The material was fairly original and very clever. The protagonist has been described as a teenage psychopath which I think is too simplistic and I think this is a very accurate portrayal of teenager who because of trauma, isolation and benign neglect has developed a very complex schizotypal personality disorder whereas his brother has a very severe case of paranoid schizophrenia.
Whoa Jaidee, you make this sound like a four star read at least. Why the three ?
Well for a number of reasons
1. there is just too much animal cruelty...at times it appears gratuitous rather than allegorical
2. the last ten percent was a complete and ridiculous sell out to me with a dumb and I mean dumb shocker as well as the last few pages were a very limp psychological explanation of why the protagonist behaved as he did
3. I cannot believe reason two happened....really I can't and in some ways makes me want to give the book 2 stars but
I know this would be completely unfair and so I am going to stick to 3 strong stars.
I am very glad I read this book for the vivid brilliance but also am very sore at the author for the ending which was just oh so lame !!
For the first time ever (in the history of my reading life) I would understand completely any rating for this book. I thought long and hard and for me it was a strong three star that could have been a four star but wasn't for a number of factors.
First of all the writing is terrific. Vivid and robust and hyper-masculine prose with dialogue and thought patterns that zing and sing. I was able to see in my mind's eye what was occurring in the exterior landscape as well as in the protagonist's consciousness. The material was fairly original and very clever. The protagonist has been described as a teenage psychopath which I think is too simplistic and I think this is a very accurate portrayal of teenager who because of trauma, isolation and benign neglect has developed a very complex schizotypal personality disorder whereas his brother has a very severe case of paranoid schizophrenia.
Whoa Jaidee, you make this sound like a four star read at least. Why the three ?
Well for a number of reasons
1. there is just too much animal cruelty...at times it appears gratuitous rather than allegorical
2. the last ten percent was a complete and ridiculous sell out to me with a dumb and I mean dumb shocker as well as the last few pages were a very limp psychological explanation of why the protagonist behaved as he did
3. I cannot believe reason two happened....really I can't and in some ways makes me want to give the book 2 stars but
I know this would be completely unfair and so I am going to stick to 3 strong stars.
I am very glad I read this book for the vivid brilliance but also am very sore at the author for the ending which was just oh so lame !!
September 23, 2022
Eric fled the hospital and is on his way back home. It's about his younger brother Frank and their father. What is wrong with Eric? What has he done? When Frank is telling the family story shivers will run down your spine. It's a tale of murders, cruelty against animals, bomb making activities and more. What is the secret of the Wasp Factory? Why is it a perfect metaphor of life and death? What is Frank celebrating on his strange altar in the barn? This is one of the most disturbing books about a horror family I ever came across. Well written, insightful and absolutely terrifying. The smiling child at the hospital is utter repulsive. The twist at the end absolutely surprising. Definitely nothing for the faint hearted. An extremely sick and shocking novel with many disgusting scenes. I couldn't put it down because I wanted to know the end. Only for those into really weird stuff. Hard to recommend but very well written.
March 16, 2023
What a disappointment. A book full of severely exaggerated characters and stereotypes who meander through a "plot" that is clearly a collection of lazy thoughts and drink or drug fuelled "great ideas" aimed purely at producing a feeling of “horror” in us all.
A 16 year old child who lights rabbits on fire, burns wasps, severs heads off of animals and other drivel. It has to be the most asinine book I've ever read.
#sorrynotsorry if you love this book.
I do not recommend.
A 16 year old child who lights rabbits on fire, burns wasps, severs heads off of animals and other drivel. It has to be the most asinine book I've ever read.
#sorrynotsorry if you love this book.
I do not recommend.
March 27, 2011
Now we all know that dating a fictional psychopath or a sociopath can be a lot of fun. While it is true that these individuals rarely make viable candidates for a long term commitment, short term relationships have been shown to have some real upside. For example, dating a psychopath can be a “breath of fresh, adventurous air” following the end of a stale, boring and unsatisfying relationship as they are much more “uninhibited” and willing to experiment than the typical person. In addition, a psychopath or a sociopath is a great choice if your goal is to get back at an overly controlling parent as they make the ideal “I’ll show them” companion.
HOWEVER, despite the positive aspects of casually dating a fictional sociopath or psychopath, it is still important to exercise caution when deciding to court (or allow oneself to be courted by) one of these individuals as there are some very troubled individuals that it is best simply to avoid. Therefore, as a public service I have been maintaining a list of these “DO NOT TOUCH” individuals and now need to make an addition to the list.
Previously the list was comprised of the following:
1. PATRICK BATEMAN....................
2. LOU FORD....................
3. ANTON CHIGURH................
4. ANNIE WILKES...................
5. CLOWNS.......... They are ALL creepy, sadistic and evil and they scare the piss out of me.
6. [This spot reserved for THE JUDGE from [book:Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West|394535] .....I haven't read it yet, but have been told be people I trust that he may actually be #1 on the list.
7. BUFFALO BILL.........................
8. DELBERT "THE BUTLER" GRADY........Seen here talking to Jack Torrance***
*** Jack Torrance did not make the list because Jack Nicholson, who plays him in the movie, is SO COOL that you can’t choose to avoid him even if he does chop you up in the end.
9. THE BURGER "KING"............................................
.
.
.
.
AND NOW, MAKING IT AN EVEN 10, THE NEWEST MEMBER TO JOIN THE “THEY MAKE STEVE SCREAM LIKE A LITTLE KID WHEN THEY LOOK AT ME” CLUB IS.....
FRANK CAULDHAME from The Wasp Factory (who joins the list near the top). Frank is a 16 year old boy living with his "not all there" father in a very secluded (thank God) Island near Scotland. Frank is a smart, imaginative, resourceful, EXTREMELY DISTURBED sociopath. Frank’s entire life is about rituals and ceremonies (hence the title which is explained during the story). Frank spends his days trapping and killing animals on the island and placing there heads on “Sacrifice Poles” set up along the perimeter of his family’s property. While these rituals are bizarre and gruesome, they are not arbitrary and Frank has a detailed, rigid belief system behind his actions which is both fascinating and very unsettling.
Told in the first person by Frank, this short 200 page book is RIVETING from beginning to end as Frank slowly unfolds the history of his life. In one early scene that sets the tone for the novel, Frank very casually mentions having killed 3 children during his young life but doesn’t plan on killing any more saying, “it was just a phase I was going through.”
While Frank is detailing the history of his childhood another plot line involves the escape of Frank’s brother, Eric (another disturbed individual), from a mental hospital in Glasgow. During the course of the novel, Eric is slowly making his way back home for a “family” reunion while trying to evade the authorities.
I don’t think you need to know much more except that this is an absolutely amazing study of a disturbed mind and, for me, ranks up there with American Psycho and The Killer Inside Me as a true "crawl under your skin" classic. The writing is excellent, the characterization is as good as it gets and the plot is captivating. 5.0 stars and my HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!
September 7, 2025
It Was Just a Stage
He Was Going Through...
THE WASP FACTORY
by Iain Banks
5 stars. This is the story of the Cauldhames family, as told from Frank Cauldhames' POV...
Old Angus fathered 3 children...
Eric (the oldest), Frank, and Paul (who was murdered by Frank when Paul was only 5 years old)...
Frank additionally...
... killed two cousins and a host of animals, birds, and insects. This is not a spoiler as you will read these events early on in the book...
To Frank's way of thinking...
He was just going through a stage. No offense was really meant toward any of his victims, and he hoped none was taken when he murdered them...
The Cauldhames lived on a small Scottish island...
Angus...
... was somewhat of a scientist fixated on measurements and healthy food...
Eric...
... was crazy due to the WHAT HAPPENED TO ERIC INCIDENT...
Frank...
... was forever maimed by the TRUTH ABOUT FRANK INCIDENT, which was blamed on their family dog, Old Saul...
Eric...
... was taken away by the authorities for evil deeds done as a result of the WHAT HAPPENED TO ERIC INCIDENT...
So...
Frank and his father, Old Angus, lived together. Just the two of them. Angus home-schooled Frank...
But...
Frank never knew when the old man was educating him or telling him a load of whoppers. For many years, Angus convinced Frank that...
... pathos was one of the 3 musketeers, fellatio was a character in Hamlet... and vitreous was a town in China...
... Old Angus also convinced Frank that Irish peasants had to tread the peat to make Guinness...
And, Frank wonders...
What's up with the old man's private study? Frank sure would like to get a good look in there!...
But...
The old man kept the study under lock and key at all times...
5 Stars, even though I find stories about animal cruelty abhorrent. This is a very different sort of horror story. You'll never see this ending coming!
Warning: Some animal cruelty
Highly recommended!
He Was Going Through...
THE WASP FACTORY
by Iain Banks
5 stars. This is the story of the Cauldhames family, as told from Frank Cauldhames' POV...
Old Angus fathered 3 children...
Eric (the oldest), Frank, and Paul (who was murdered by Frank when Paul was only 5 years old)...
Frank additionally...
... killed two cousins and a host of animals, birds, and insects. This is not a spoiler as you will read these events early on in the book...
To Frank's way of thinking...
He was just going through a stage. No offense was really meant toward any of his victims, and he hoped none was taken when he murdered them...
The Cauldhames lived on a small Scottish island...
Angus...
... was somewhat of a scientist fixated on measurements and healthy food...
Eric...
... was crazy due to the WHAT HAPPENED TO ERIC INCIDENT...
Frank...
... was forever maimed by the TRUTH ABOUT FRANK INCIDENT, which was blamed on their family dog, Old Saul...
Eric...
... was taken away by the authorities for evil deeds done as a result of the WHAT HAPPENED TO ERIC INCIDENT...
So...
Frank and his father, Old Angus, lived together. Just the two of them. Angus home-schooled Frank...
But...
Frank never knew when the old man was educating him or telling him a load of whoppers. For many years, Angus convinced Frank that...
... pathos was one of the 3 musketeers, fellatio was a character in Hamlet... and vitreous was a town in China...
... Old Angus also convinced Frank that Irish peasants had to tread the peat to make Guinness...
And, Frank wonders...
What's up with the old man's private study? Frank sure would like to get a good look in there!...
But...
The old man kept the study under lock and key at all times...
5 Stars, even though I find stories about animal cruelty abhorrent. This is a very different sort of horror story. You'll never see this ending coming!
Warning: Some animal cruelty
Highly recommended!
December 14, 2017
Οι γονείς είναι οι τελευταίοι άνθρωποι που θα έπρεπε να τους επιτρέπεται να έχουν παιδιά.
Σάμουελ Μπάτλερ,
1835-1902,Άγγλος συγγραφέας
Ένα μυθιστόρημα αμφιλεγόμενο που προφανώς γεννάει ριζικά αντιφατικά συναισθήματα και απόψεις μεταξύ των αναγνωστών. Ένα μεγαλοφυές γραπτό ή μια φρικιαστική αποτυχία ;
Όπως πολλά άλλα έργα που έχουν διατηρήσει διαχρονικά την ατομικότητα, το χαράκτηρα τους και την ικανότητα τους να προκαλούν διαμάχες, ομοίως και το «εργοστάσιο σφηκών» οδηγεί στο αναπόφευκτο συμπέρασμα : Δεν συστήνεται ανεπιφύλακτα σε όλους και ασφαλώς, μόλις διαβαστεί δεν θα ξεχαστεί ποτέ. Θα επιστρέφει να σε στοιχειώνει ξανά και ξανά.
Αν θέλετε να διαβάσετε ένα εξαιρετικό μυθιστόρημα για ένα εξαιρετικά διαταραγμένο εφηβικό μυαλό που καταδικάστηκε στην οικογενειακή παράνοια, αυτό το βιβλίο είναι για εσάς.
Σίγουρα πάντως είναι ένα βιβλίο για μένα.
Ο συγγραφέας κατάφερε να με βάλει στο μυαλό και την ψυχολογία του πρωταγωνιστή, σε μια απόλυτα περιστροφική όψη διαταραχής, ψυχολογικής φρίκης, μυστηρίου και αναγκαστικής συνέπειας.
Το «εργοστάσιο σφηκών» είναι ένα σουρεαλιστικό ταξίδι που μας διηγείται ο έφηβος Φράνκ.
Ο συγγραφέας σε βάζει με ανατριχιαστικά συνοπτικές διαδικασίες αναγνωστικής ταύτισης μέσα σε αυτό το μυαλό που στριμώχνεται και κολυμπάει σε θάλασσες ψυχασθένειας, όπως και ολόκληρη η οικογένεια του.
Είναι ένας σκληρός δολοφόνος δεκαεπτά ετών, ζει με τον πατέρα του, μισεί τη μητέρα του, αγαπάει τον παρανοϊκό έγκλειστο σε ίδρυμα αδελφό του, έχει μοναδικό φίλο έναν νάνο και παίρνει οδυνηρά μέτρα για να προστατέψει το νησί που ζει και ονομάζει σπίτι του.
Όταν ο αδελφός του δραπευτεύει απο το ίδρυμα
θέλοντας να επιστρέψει στο σπίτι, καταζητείται ως επικίνδυνος και το εργοστάσιο σφηκών τίθεται σε λειτουργία.
Τότε, αρχίζει και η κόλαση εσωτερικής αναζήτησης και αποκαλύψεων.
Ο Φρανκ έρχεται όλο και πιο κοντά στην ανακάλυψη του πραγματικού του εαυτού ακριβώς όπως ο αδελφός του πλησιάζει όλο και πιο κοντά στο σπίτι τους.
Το εργοστάσιο σφηκών είναι ένα καταπληκτικό κομμάτι λογοτεχνικής δημιουργίας ακόμη και σαν ιδιοφυές εξάρτημα.
Απο μέσα του ξεχύνεται ένα συνονθύλευμα συναισθημάτων και εικόνων που συνοδεύουν τις εμπειρίες των χαρακτήρων.
Είναι μια μελέτη του ανθρώπινου μυαλού που τελεί σε πλήρη αταξία.
Απόλυτα μόνος, αγωνίζεται να επιβιώσει απο τις εχθρικές πραγματικότητες του κόσμου και του εαυτού του.
Καθώς βρισκόμαστε μέσα στο σκεπτικό του Φρανκ - κάτι που δεν είναι ασφαλές - μεταφερόμαστε σε ένα ξένο και εχθρικό περιβάλλον αναγκασμένοι να αντιμετωπίσουμε... να κατανοήσουμε.. να επιβιώσουμε..
Γνωρίζουμε πως ότι σκέφτεται ο Φρανκ είναι απόλυτα ψυχαναγκαστικό και λανθασμένο, όμως, ο τρόπος με τον οποίο καταλήγει σε αποτρόπαια συμπεράσματα έχει μια καθηλωτική συνέπεια ακολουθώντας ως το τέλος τις βασικές του αρχές.
Οι φαντασιώσεις και η αδιανόητη σκληρότητα που καλπάζουν στις ερήμους του μυαλού και του κόσμου του Φρανκ μας οδηγούν ανελέητα στην κορύφωση της ιστορίας που είναι η τεκμηριωμένη λογική του παραλόγου.
Ένα δυνατό έργο που με θραύσματα απο κομμάτια της ψυχικής κόλασης δημιουργεί το φρικιαστικό πορτρέτο της κακοποιημένης και αποξενωμένης νεολαίας.
🐇🐀🐝🐝🐑🐑🐕🐕🐇🐉🦅
Καλή ανάγνωση.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
Σάμουελ Μπάτλερ,
1835-1902,Άγγλος συγγραφέας
Ένα μυθιστόρημα αμφιλεγόμενο που προφανώς γεννάει ριζικά αντιφατικά συναισθήματα και απόψεις μεταξύ των αναγνωστών. Ένα μεγαλοφυές γραπτό ή μια φρικιαστική αποτυχία ;
Όπως πολλά άλλα έργα που έχουν διατηρήσει διαχρονικά την ατομικότητα, το χαράκτηρα τους και την ικανότητα τους να προκαλούν διαμάχες, ομοίως και το «εργοστάσιο σφηκών» οδηγεί στο αναπόφευκτο συμπέρασμα : Δεν συστήνεται ανεπιφύλακτα σε όλους και ασφαλώς, μόλις διαβαστεί δεν θα ξεχαστεί ποτέ. Θα επιστρέφει να σε στοιχειώνει ξανά και ξανά.
Αν θέλετε να διαβάσετε ένα εξαιρετικό μυθιστόρημα για ένα εξαιρετικά διαταραγμένο εφηβικό μυαλό που καταδικάστηκε στην οικογενειακή παράνοια, αυτό το βιβλίο είναι για εσάς.
Σίγουρα πάντως είναι ένα βιβλίο για μένα.
Ο συγγραφέας κατάφερε να με βάλει στο μυαλό και την ψυχολογία του πρωταγωνιστή, σε μια απόλυτα περιστροφική όψη διαταραχής, ψυχολογικής φρίκης, μυστηρίου και αναγκαστικής συνέπειας.
Το «εργοστάσιο σφηκών» είναι ένα σουρεαλιστικό ταξίδι που μας διηγείται ο έφηβος Φράνκ.
Ο συγγραφέας σε βάζει με ανατριχιαστικά συνοπτικές διαδικασίες αναγνωστικής ταύτισης μέσα σε αυτό το μυαλό που στριμώχνεται και κολυμπάει σε θάλασσες ψυχασθένειας, όπως και ολόκληρη η οικογένεια του.
Είναι ένας σκληρός δολοφόνος δεκαεπτά ετών, ζει με τον πατέρα του, μισεί τη μητέρα του, αγαπάει τον παρανοϊκό έγκλειστο σε ίδρυμα αδελφό του, έχει μοναδικό φίλο έναν νάνο και παίρνει οδυνηρά μέτρα για να προστατέψει το νησί που ζει και ονομάζει σπίτι του.
Όταν ο αδελφός του δραπευτεύει απο το ίδρυμα
θέλοντας να επιστρέψει στο σπίτι, καταζητείται ως επικίνδυνος και το εργοστάσιο σφηκών τίθεται σε λειτουργία.
Τότε, αρχίζει και η κόλαση εσωτερικής αναζήτησης και αποκαλύψεων.
Ο Φρανκ έρχεται όλο και πιο κοντά στην ανακάλυψη του πραγματικού του εαυτού ακριβώς όπως ο αδελφός του πλησιάζει όλο και πιο κοντά στο σπίτι τους.
Το εργοστάσιο σφηκών είναι ένα καταπληκτικό κομμάτι λογοτεχνικής δημιουργίας ακόμη και σαν ιδιοφυές εξάρτημα.
Απο μέσα του ξεχύνεται ένα συνονθύλευμα συναισθημάτων και εικόνων που συνοδεύουν τις εμπειρίες των χαρακτήρων.
Είναι μια μελέτη του ανθρώπινου μυαλού που τελεί σε πλήρη αταξία.
Απόλυτα μόνος, αγωνίζεται να επιβιώσει απο τις εχθρικές πραγματικότητες του κόσμου και του εαυτού του.
Καθώς βρισκόμαστε μέσα στο σκεπτικό του Φρανκ - κάτι που δεν είναι ασφαλές - μεταφερόμαστε σε ένα ξένο και εχθρικό περιβάλλον αναγκασμένοι να αντιμετωπίσουμε... να κατανοήσουμε.. να επιβιώσουμε..
Γνωρίζουμε πως ότι σκέφτεται ο Φρανκ είναι απόλυτα ψυχαναγκαστικό και λανθασμένο, όμως, ο τρόπος με τον οποίο καταλήγει σε αποτρόπαια συμπεράσματα έχει μια καθηλωτική συνέπεια ακολουθώντας ως το τέλος τις βασικές του αρχές.
Οι φαντασιώσεις και η αδιανόητη σκληρότητα που καλπάζουν στις ερήμους του μυαλού και του κόσμου του Φρανκ μας οδηγούν ανελέητα στην κορύφωση της ιστορίας που είναι η τεκμηριωμένη λογική του παραλόγου.
Ένα δυνατό έργο που με θραύσματα απο κομμάτια της ψυχικής κόλασης δημιουργεί το φρικιαστικό πορτρέτο της κακοποιημένης και αποξενωμένης νεολαίας.
🐇🐀🐝🐝🐑🐑🐕🐕🐇🐉🦅
Καλή ανάγνωση.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.
August 22, 2019
What if ...
... what if Holden Caulfield was born on a remote Scottish Island into a disfunctional family, with a former anarchist for a father and a flower-power mother who ran away soon after he was born? Banks envisioned his angsty teenager character as a sort of alien living on a deserted planet, a translation of one of his science-fiction ideas. The object of the study is sanity and ethics when the individual is removed from the ordinary social interactions most of us take for granted.
I was never registered. I have no birth certificate, no National Insurance number, nothing to say I'm alive or have ever existed.
Francis Cauldhame is a monster, a sort of teenage Hannibal Lecter. He is also the narrator of this deranged fairytale, casually mentioning to the reader that he became a serial killer before his tenth anniversary...
. . . but he is better now: he only kills rabbits, rats, gulls and other unfortunate small critters that visit his windblown island on the East coast of Scotland. He has a hobby for making totems decorated with the skulls of his kills, for building dams out of sand and then blowing them to create floods and for burning dead wasps on altars build from dead dog skulls. His favorite toys are catapults with steel balls, improvised flamethrowers, air guns and pipe bombs that he builds in his toolshed from fertilizer and acids.
I had a hard time finding redeeming qualities in our boy Frank. I can't even call him an unreliable narrator because he is unrepentant and actually proud of his past deeds. His callousness and lack of remorse made me feel unclean reading about his actions and tainted other aspects of the story, like Frank's obvious intelligence and his dark sense of humour. The fact that I kept reading at all is due to the talent of Mr. Banks, who sneakily introduces several mysteries into what at first glance is a clear-cut case of psychopatic behaviour:
- genetic disorder : everybody in the Cauldhame family seems to have some sort of psychological baggage: father a recluse with a sick sense of humour and a cellar filled with army grade plastic explosive, mother a runaway 'free-love' relic of the sixties, uncles and aunts suicidal in bizarre circumstances, older brother interned in mental hospital after setting dogs on fire and feeding worms to strange children.
- a traumatic early childhood accident that left Frank with an unmentionable disability of his sexual organs
- the always locked door to his father's study
- the Wasp Factory from the title, an artefact built by Frank and imbued with mystical, prophetic powers.
Trying to unravel these puzzles kept me turning the pages after every impulse to throw the book out the window after yet another account of Frank's inventive ways to torture and kill the island's critters. Almost without noticing, the narrative veered into a condemnation of society as a whole and into a discussion of the 'will to power' philosophies of Nietzsche. The ending of this short novel not only gives answer to all the puzzles I mentioned above, but gives credence to the author's claim that his aim in writing the story of Frank Cauldhame was not to shock his audience and to make a name for himself (as some critics ungraciously suggested), but to apply the visionary powers of the speculative fiction genre to a conventional novel structure. SF in the opinion of the author, as exemplified by his "Culture" series, is the tool for asking the big questions about what it means to be human and about where we are heading to as a race.
>><<>><<>><<>><<
I got carried away by the ideas I was trying to put in order about the novel, and I forgot to include my usual quota of citations to support my thesis. Here is an example of the dangers of homeschooling with a father who cannot resist making fun of the credulity of children (the same kind of jokes were played to much better effect by Bill Masterson in his excellent "Calvin and Hobbes" comic):
For years I believed Pathos was one of the three musketeers, Fellation was one of the characters in Hamlet, Vitreous a town in China, and that the Irish peasants had to tread the peat to make Guiness.
- - -
Are you a schizophrenic if you are capable of self-analyzing your emotions, yet feel no impulse to mend your ways?
Often I've thought of myself as a state; a country or, at the very least, a city. It used to seem to me that the different ways I felt sometimes about ideas, courses of action and so on were like the different political moods that countries go through. It has always seemed to me that people vote in a new government not because they actually agree with their politics but just because they want a change. Somehow they think that things will be better under a new lot. Well, people are stupid, but it all seems to have more to do with mood,caprice and atmosphere than carefully thought-out arguments. I can feel the same sort of thing going on inside my head. Sometimes the thoughts and feelings I had didn't really agree with each other, so I decided I must be lots of different people inside my brain.
- - -
A word of warning to teenagers who can't wait to find out about the thrills of drinking : alcohol may seriously impair you muscle coordination:
I feel rather like one of those ancient dinosaurs so huge that they had a virtually separate brain to control their back legs. I seemed to have a separate brain for each limb, but they'd all broken diplomatic relations.
- - -
Revenge is a dish best not served at all, whether it is considered as an individual right or a tool of foreign relations between states:
I think reprisals against people only distantly or circumstantially connected with those who have done others wrong are to make the people doing the avenging feel good. Like the death penalty, you want it because it makes you feel better, not because it's a deterrent or any nonsense like that.
- - -
The 'Ubermensch' principle applied by Frank as he contemplates a flock of sheep, in a sort of Social Darwinism that he uses to justify his misogyny:
... we made them, we moulded them from the wild, smart survivors that were their ancestors so that they would become docile, frightened, stupid, tasty wool-producers. We didn't want them to be smart, and to some extent their aggression and their intelligence went together. Of course, the rams are brighter, but even they are demeaned by the idiotic females they have to associate with and inseminate.
The same principle applies to chickens and cows and almost anything we've been able to get our greedy, hungry hands on for long enough. It occasionally occurs to me that something the same might have happened to women but, attractive though the theory might be, I suspect I'm wrong.
- - -
The same Nietzschean philosophy is applied to explain the true nature of the Wasp Factory:
All our lives are symbols. Everything we do is part of a pattern we have at least some say in. The strong make their own patterns and influence other people's, the weak have their courses mapped out for them. The weak and the unlucky, and the stupid. The Wasp Factory is part of the pattern because it is part of life and - even more so - part of death.
- - -
... what if Holden Caulfield was born on a remote Scottish Island into a disfunctional family, with a former anarchist for a father and a flower-power mother who ran away soon after he was born? Banks envisioned his angsty teenager character as a sort of alien living on a deserted planet, a translation of one of his science-fiction ideas. The object of the study is sanity and ethics when the individual is removed from the ordinary social interactions most of us take for granted.
I was never registered. I have no birth certificate, no National Insurance number, nothing to say I'm alive or have ever existed.
Francis Cauldhame is a monster, a sort of teenage Hannibal Lecter. He is also the narrator of this deranged fairytale, casually mentioning to the reader that he became a serial killer before his tenth anniversary...
. . . but he is better now: he only kills rabbits, rats, gulls and other unfortunate small critters that visit his windblown island on the East coast of Scotland. He has a hobby for making totems decorated with the skulls of his kills, for building dams out of sand and then blowing them to create floods and for burning dead wasps on altars build from dead dog skulls. His favorite toys are catapults with steel balls, improvised flamethrowers, air guns and pipe bombs that he builds in his toolshed from fertilizer and acids.
I had a hard time finding redeeming qualities in our boy Frank. I can't even call him an unreliable narrator because he is unrepentant and actually proud of his past deeds. His callousness and lack of remorse made me feel unclean reading about his actions and tainted other aspects of the story, like Frank's obvious intelligence and his dark sense of humour. The fact that I kept reading at all is due to the talent of Mr. Banks, who sneakily introduces several mysteries into what at first glance is a clear-cut case of psychopatic behaviour:
- genetic disorder : everybody in the Cauldhame family seems to have some sort of psychological baggage: father a recluse with a sick sense of humour and a cellar filled with army grade plastic explosive, mother a runaway 'free-love' relic of the sixties, uncles and aunts suicidal in bizarre circumstances, older brother interned in mental hospital after setting dogs on fire and feeding worms to strange children.
- a traumatic early childhood accident that left Frank with an unmentionable disability of his sexual organs
- the always locked door to his father's study
- the Wasp Factory from the title, an artefact built by Frank and imbued with mystical, prophetic powers.
Trying to unravel these puzzles kept me turning the pages after every impulse to throw the book out the window after yet another account of Frank's inventive ways to torture and kill the island's critters. Almost without noticing, the narrative veered into a condemnation of society as a whole and into a discussion of the 'will to power' philosophies of Nietzsche. The ending of this short novel not only gives answer to all the puzzles I mentioned above, but gives credence to the author's claim that his aim in writing the story of Frank Cauldhame was not to shock his audience and to make a name for himself (as some critics ungraciously suggested), but to apply the visionary powers of the speculative fiction genre to a conventional novel structure. SF in the opinion of the author, as exemplified by his "Culture" series, is the tool for asking the big questions about what it means to be human and about where we are heading to as a race.
>><<>><<>><<>><<
I got carried away by the ideas I was trying to put in order about the novel, and I forgot to include my usual quota of citations to support my thesis. Here is an example of the dangers of homeschooling with a father who cannot resist making fun of the credulity of children (the same kind of jokes were played to much better effect by Bill Masterson in his excellent "Calvin and Hobbes" comic):
For years I believed Pathos was one of the three musketeers, Fellation was one of the characters in Hamlet, Vitreous a town in China, and that the Irish peasants had to tread the peat to make Guiness.
- - -
Are you a schizophrenic if you are capable of self-analyzing your emotions, yet feel no impulse to mend your ways?
Often I've thought of myself as a state; a country or, at the very least, a city. It used to seem to me that the different ways I felt sometimes about ideas, courses of action and so on were like the different political moods that countries go through. It has always seemed to me that people vote in a new government not because they actually agree with their politics but just because they want a change. Somehow they think that things will be better under a new lot. Well, people are stupid, but it all seems to have more to do with mood,caprice and atmosphere than carefully thought-out arguments. I can feel the same sort of thing going on inside my head. Sometimes the thoughts and feelings I had didn't really agree with each other, so I decided I must be lots of different people inside my brain.
- - -
A word of warning to teenagers who can't wait to find out about the thrills of drinking : alcohol may seriously impair you muscle coordination:
I feel rather like one of those ancient dinosaurs so huge that they had a virtually separate brain to control their back legs. I seemed to have a separate brain for each limb, but they'd all broken diplomatic relations.
- - -
Revenge is a dish best not served at all, whether it is considered as an individual right or a tool of foreign relations between states:
I think reprisals against people only distantly or circumstantially connected with those who have done others wrong are to make the people doing the avenging feel good. Like the death penalty, you want it because it makes you feel better, not because it's a deterrent or any nonsense like that.
- - -
The 'Ubermensch' principle applied by Frank as he contemplates a flock of sheep, in a sort of Social Darwinism that he uses to justify his misogyny:
... we made them, we moulded them from the wild, smart survivors that were their ancestors so that they would become docile, frightened, stupid, tasty wool-producers. We didn't want them to be smart, and to some extent their aggression and their intelligence went together. Of course, the rams are brighter, but even they are demeaned by the idiotic females they have to associate with and inseminate.
The same principle applies to chickens and cows and almost anything we've been able to get our greedy, hungry hands on for long enough. It occasionally occurs to me that something the same might have happened to women but, attractive though the theory might be, I suspect I'm wrong.
- - -
The same Nietzschean philosophy is applied to explain the true nature of the Wasp Factory:
All our lives are symbols. Everything we do is part of a pattern we have at least some say in. The strong make their own patterns and influence other people's, the weak have their courses mapped out for them. The weak and the unlucky, and the stupid. The Wasp Factory is part of the pattern because it is part of life and - even more so - part of death.
- - -
April 17, 2022
Let's face it, the 16 year old first-person narrator of this book Frank, is an unadulterated and more essentially unrecognised psychopath! His older half-brother has escaped from a mental institution (for the dangerous) and is on his way to the Scottish island home that Frank and his dad live on. This book lives in Frank's mind as he awaits the destination and fate of his half-brother, and the possibly life shattering events that ensue during that wait. Looking back at his extremely off-kilter childhood and his current life that includes his 'wasp factory' creation which he believes can tell his future depending which ritualised and unpleasant death any wasp he puts into undergoes. So I should mention huge triggers for child and animal cruelty!
I doubt if you will ever read a gothic horror like this one; with Frank's detached narration sharing experiences and feelings that would shock Satan; with so much pre-determined and calculated cruelty, with a complete loss of rational behaviours and yet a seemingly unerring assuredness from a very early age, this truly feels like the mind of a psychopath... one that could live among us!
Not like Frank we don't! Prior to this Iain Banks had had only science fiction work published and the beauty of this book from a literary perspective is that this is so obviously really a sci-fi read, with Frank being the alien and the island him and his father live on their alien planet where humanity is yet to reach! Add to all this a sublime twist at the end, that no matter how hard you try, you won't see coming. 8..5 out of 12
2022 read
I doubt if you will ever read a gothic horror like this one; with Frank's detached narration sharing experiences and feelings that would shock Satan; with so much pre-determined and calculated cruelty, with a complete loss of rational behaviours and yet a seemingly unerring assuredness from a very early age, this truly feels like the mind of a psychopath... one that could live among us!
Not like Frank we don't! Prior to this Iain Banks had had only science fiction work published and the beauty of this book from a literary perspective is that this is so obviously really a sci-fi read, with Frank being the alien and the island him and his father live on their alien planet where humanity is yet to reach! Add to all this a sublime twist at the end, that no matter how hard you try, you won't see coming. 8..5 out of 12
2022 read
March 5, 2020
Nifty freakshow with significantly horrific tableaux which will remain with you somewhat of an eternity...!!
March 24, 2018
Highland Porn
Lord of the Flies meets American Psycho on the Moray Firth. Frank, a teenage lad with no official record of his existence, lives with his father in an isolated dune land cottage. He spends his time killing birds and other small animals. Occasionally he kills people. His principle hobby is bomb-making, at which he excels. Frank’s half-brother Eric is on the run from a psych-ward. While on the lam he kills and eats dogs. Even Frank considers Eric nuts. But blood is blood, even if it’s diluted and most of it has been spilled. Their father, Angus, lives in a lost world of sixties hippiedom with a basement full of decaying, and therefore dangerous, Army surplus cordite. The biker-mother, Agnes, hasn’t been seen for years.
Frank is a narcissist, but he’s honest about it: “At least I admit that it’s all to boost my ego, restore my pride and give me pleasure, not to save the country or uphold justice or honour the dead.” He is also superstitious in the manner of an athlete or a soldier who believes certain ritual behaviors are necessary for success, even survival. He is exceptionally self-aware of his physical and mental states. An initially undisclosed handicap inhibits friendships, except with others equivalently deformed. In America, with the right weapons, Frank would certainly have wiped out half his high school class.
The wasp factory itself is a combination Tarot/Ouija which gives advice in a manner worthy of Poe or Lovecraft. Frank wants to know the best way to defend himself from Eric. In a family like his, tensions go deep. How these tensions get resolved can’t be described as conventional. Except perhaps as conventional ghoul-porn.
Nothing edifying here, folks. Move along briskly. Three hours or so I won’t get back.
Lord of the Flies meets American Psycho on the Moray Firth. Frank, a teenage lad with no official record of his existence, lives with his father in an isolated dune land cottage. He spends his time killing birds and other small animals. Occasionally he kills people. His principle hobby is bomb-making, at which he excels. Frank’s half-brother Eric is on the run from a psych-ward. While on the lam he kills and eats dogs. Even Frank considers Eric nuts. But blood is blood, even if it’s diluted and most of it has been spilled. Their father, Angus, lives in a lost world of sixties hippiedom with a basement full of decaying, and therefore dangerous, Army surplus cordite. The biker-mother, Agnes, hasn’t been seen for years.
Frank is a narcissist, but he’s honest about it: “At least I admit that it’s all to boost my ego, restore my pride and give me pleasure, not to save the country or uphold justice or honour the dead.” He is also superstitious in the manner of an athlete or a soldier who believes certain ritual behaviors are necessary for success, even survival. He is exceptionally self-aware of his physical and mental states. An initially undisclosed handicap inhibits friendships, except with others equivalently deformed. In America, with the right weapons, Frank would certainly have wiped out half his high school class.
The wasp factory itself is a combination Tarot/Ouija which gives advice in a manner worthy of Poe or Lovecraft. Frank wants to know the best way to defend himself from Eric. In a family like his, tensions go deep. How these tensions get resolved can’t be described as conventional. Except perhaps as conventional ghoul-porn.
Nothing edifying here, folks. Move along briskly. Three hours or so I won’t get back.
January 7, 2008
Ooooh, shock me with killing things and not caring. Yes, I get it, the main character is nuts. Ok, the main character does horrible things. Sure, beat me over the head with this same set of ideas for another 190 pages. I'm sure it will be worth it in the end, right?
I read the news every day so I was not the least bit surprised anyone could think like this. The weak plot just pissed me off without enlightening me with a new perspective on the issue or entertaining me. The thing that did shock me was that anyone would write an entire book about this crap, and write it so poorly and without any kind of point, other than "Hey, this kid is CRAZY!" I skipped through the rabbit part when I saw what was coming, and after days of forcing myself to continue reading through the disjointed narrative I finally broke down and skimmed through to the end "twist" everyone talks about. Frankly, I was left saying out loud, "Who the fuck cares?" Dude, I live near San Francisco. Everyone here has gender issues. Big freakin deal. All that garbage for such an insignificant and pointless payout. Sigh.
If you like reading things purely for the sake of shock value or just to be able to say you read it, go ahead and read this. And then go get therapy. Otherwise, skip it.
I read the news every day so I was not the least bit surprised anyone could think like this. The weak plot just pissed me off without enlightening me with a new perspective on the issue or entertaining me. The thing that did shock me was that anyone would write an entire book about this crap, and write it so poorly and without any kind of point, other than "Hey, this kid is CRAZY!" I skipped through the rabbit part when I saw what was coming, and after days of forcing myself to continue reading through the disjointed narrative I finally broke down and skimmed through to the end "twist" everyone talks about. Frankly, I was left saying out loud, "Who the fuck cares?" Dude, I live near San Francisco. Everyone here has gender issues. Big freakin deal. All that garbage for such an insignificant and pointless payout. Sigh.
If you like reading things purely for the sake of shock value or just to be able to say you read it, go ahead and read this. And then go get therapy. Otherwise, skip it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 18, 2023
I was introduced to Iain M. Banks’ writings via his S.F. work (Culture series), but have never read any of his fiction. So, I’ve picked-up his first novel and gave it try: The Wasp factory (published 1984), is a dark and disturbing story about a 16-year-old boy named Frank L. Cauldhame who lives on an isolated Scottish island with his father. Frank is a confused and deeply troubled individual with a twisted and violent imagination. He is unable to empathize with others and has a distorted sense of morality, obsessed with death and the idea of sacrifice (reflected in the rituals he performs on the island).
This is a twisted coming-of-age story, exploring how isolation can affect family dynamics and mental stability. Father-Son relationship on the main stage and how it can shape an individual's identity, psychological state, and behavior. Frank’s constant pursuit of approval and affection from his cruel and manipulative father adds to his confusion about his “self”: “Sometimes the thoughts and feelings I had didn’t really agree with each other, so I decided I must be lots of different people inside my brain.”
Frank’s troubling behavior and emotional issues are deeply rooted to his manhood and sexuality: “ I am not a full man, and nothing can ever alter that; but I am me, and I regard that as a compensation enough”. Masculinity is linked to violence and domination as the only outlet to deal with problems. His deep-seated anger and misogynistic attitude, connected to his childhood traumatic experiences with his father's abuse: “women.. are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compare to them”, and “ both sexes can do one thing specially well; women can give birth and men can kill.”
Bank’s non-linear narrative adds an additional layer of confusion that lingers throughout the novel. His “poetic” raw images and edgy prose create a sense of restlessness: “I stood in the slanting sunlight, warm and yellow around me, the stench of burning flesh and grass on the wind, the smoke rising into the air from borrows and cadavers, grey and black, the sweet smell of leaking unburned petrol coming from the Flamethrower where I’d left it, and I breathed deeply.”
The Factory…is warning: it’s always easier to succeed at death!
A powerful, and “beautifully uncomfortable” read.
4.25/5
This is a twisted coming-of-age story, exploring how isolation can affect family dynamics and mental stability. Father-Son relationship on the main stage and how it can shape an individual's identity, psychological state, and behavior. Frank’s constant pursuit of approval and affection from his cruel and manipulative father adds to his confusion about his “self”: “Sometimes the thoughts and feelings I had didn’t really agree with each other, so I decided I must be lots of different people inside my brain.”
Frank’s troubling behavior and emotional issues are deeply rooted to his manhood and sexuality: “ I am not a full man, and nothing can ever alter that; but I am me, and I regard that as a compensation enough”. Masculinity is linked to violence and domination as the only outlet to deal with problems. His deep-seated anger and misogynistic attitude, connected to his childhood traumatic experiences with his father's abuse: “women.. are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compare to them”, and “ both sexes can do one thing specially well; women can give birth and men can kill.”
Bank’s non-linear narrative adds an additional layer of confusion that lingers throughout the novel. His “poetic” raw images and edgy prose create a sense of restlessness: “I stood in the slanting sunlight, warm and yellow around me, the stench of burning flesh and grass on the wind, the smoke rising into the air from borrows and cadavers, grey and black, the sweet smell of leaking unburned petrol coming from the Flamethrower where I’d left it, and I breathed deeply.”
The Factory…is warning: it’s always easier to succeed at death!
A powerful, and “beautifully uncomfortable” read.
4.25/5
October 1, 2022
A sinister story woven in carefully measured webs and traps; the crisped wasp is the oracle. Reminiscences are revealed like knives; revenge stirred into a bitter broth. Family ties resemble nooses, pulling closer as an enigma is disentangled.
February 7, 2013
I admit it's a narrow demographic. But if this is you, then I promise you're gonna love it.
December 13, 2025
We jump into the macabre world of 16-year-old psychopath Frank, who lives with his father on an island in Scotland. It seems all in Frank's family are a bit... odd.
His father is intelligent but is OCD and likes to know the size and volume of all items in the house. His half-brother Eric was admitted into a psychiatric hospital 2 years earlier and labelled insane for forcing kids to eat worms and maggots and burning dogs; however, the local policeman Diggs has recently made a visit to inform them he has escaped.
Frank himself likes to kill small animals. He also explains to us how he killed 3 people when he was younger, but that was just a phase. Additionally, he makes frequent references to what he calls the 'wasp factory', which he keeps in the attic.
Be aware that it's dark and disturbing. This is telling the tale of a child/teenage psychopath, so there are lots of deranged acts, including animal abuse (sometimes gratuitously so) and child murder. The book itself is over half a century old now—first published in 1984—so there is also some outdated language and attitudes. It won't be for everyone; I'd say it's definitely one for seasoned horror fans.
It was a little meandering and drawn out in parts, but it was like watching a car crash in slow motion; you just couldn't look away. The book was well written with nice lucid prose and is also sprinkled with some dark humour. Furthermore, it is allegory-packed; by the time you get to the reveal at the end, some scenes read very differently, in particular that quite long hare scene.
I had an inkling of the twist about halfway through; the clues were all there, both literally and metaphorically, and it certainly plays with your mind enough to, dare I say it, feel a modicum of sympathy for Frank. You're presented with someone who, whilst inhumane, is at the same time very human.
The good old nature vs nurture debate raises its head. Are psychopaths made, or are they born that way? For Frank, I think it was a mixture of the 2. The other point I did have to question, given there were a lot of allegorical-type references, was, 'Is Frank a reliable narrator?' Is what he was describing, especially regarding the murders, true? I guess it's open to interpretation.
The 'wasp factory', it turns out, also had a little double meaning and was a kind of symbolic representation of fate and how life can alter in an instant:
This is a hard one to rate, but I always try to do so by not just how a book is written but how they resonate. There are parts that were really difficult to read, but at the same time the book as a whole does pack a punch whilst also having a surprisingly philosophical side. A tough read, but as a classic in the horror genre, I'm glad I read it.
His father is intelligent but is OCD and likes to know the size and volume of all items in the house. His half-brother Eric was admitted into a psychiatric hospital 2 years earlier and labelled insane for forcing kids to eat worms and maggots and burning dogs; however, the local policeman Diggs has recently made a visit to inform them he has escaped.
Frank himself likes to kill small animals. He also explains to us how he killed 3 people when he was younger, but that was just a phase. Additionally, he makes frequent references to what he calls the 'wasp factory', which he keeps in the attic.
"Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through."
Be aware that it's dark and disturbing. This is telling the tale of a child/teenage psychopath, so there are lots of deranged acts, including animal abuse (sometimes gratuitously so) and child murder. The book itself is over half a century old now—first published in 1984—so there is also some outdated language and attitudes. It won't be for everyone; I'd say it's definitely one for seasoned horror fans.
It was a little meandering and drawn out in parts, but it was like watching a car crash in slow motion; you just couldn't look away. The book was well written with nice lucid prose and is also sprinkled with some dark humour. Furthermore, it is allegory-packed; by the time you get to the reveal at the end, some scenes read very differently, in particular that quite long hare scene.
I had an inkling of the twist about halfway through; the clues were all there, both literally and metaphorically, and it certainly plays with your mind enough to, dare I say it, feel a modicum of sympathy for Frank. You're presented with someone who, whilst inhumane, is at the same time very human.
The good old nature vs nurture debate raises its head. Are psychopaths made, or are they born that way? For Frank, I think it was a mixture of the 2. The other point I did have to question, given there were a lot of allegorical-type references, was, 'Is Frank a reliable narrator?' Is what he was describing, especially regarding the murders, true? I guess it's open to interpretation.
The 'wasp factory', it turns out, also had a little double meaning and was a kind of symbolic representation of fate and how life can alter in an instant:
"Each of us, in our own personal Factory, may believe we have stumbled down one corridor, and that our fate is sealed and certain (dream or nightmare, humdrum or bizarre, good or bad), but a word, a glance, a slip - anything can change that, alter it entirely, and our marble hall becomes a gutter, or our rat-maze a golden path."
This is a hard one to rate, but I always try to do so by not just how a book is written but how they resonate. There are parts that were really difficult to read, but at the same time the book as a whole does pack a punch whilst also having a surprisingly philosophical side. A tough read, but as a classic in the horror genre, I'm glad I read it.
June 21, 2014
I sat on the terrace and looked down the valley to the backdrop of the Pic d’Anie in the Pyrenean mountain range. As I read the last sentence of The Wasp Factory, I closed my Kindle and smiled and thought about this extraordinary book. If I hadn’t seen Richard’s excellent review the other day, I wouldn’t have purchased it in a million years. But strangely enough I could get the feeling that I would enjoy this book purely from the title. Something drummed in my brain that I had to read this.
This is not my genre at all and I see that it’s referred to as a Gothic horror and yet, I started to read it and couldn’t put it down. I really cannot understand it. I cannot tolerate torture, and cruelty to animals, but strangely through Frank Cauldhame’s eyes, not your normal sixteen year old teenager I hasten to add, I was allowed to enter into his own special world. I warmed to his strange ways and ideas immediately, and even felt sorry for this rather badly adjusted adolescent. I felt he was on the road to discovering himself. Unfortunately, he was also a murderer:
“That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.”
Well that’s comforting to hear, don't you agree?
So considering Frank’s background, how can you possibly blame him for the way he turned out? He lives on a small island outside the remote Scottish village of Porteneil with his father Angus (known to everyone as his uncle), who is decidedly odd, but highly intelligent, has a measurement fetish and puts tags on all the furniture and throughout the house. He takes a sly delight in thrusting unanswerable questions at his son but then he has personally taken over Frank’s education (Angus, a Doctor of Chemistry, who worked in the university for a few years after he graduated and now receives royalties for a patent) and lies dreadfully. Frank soon picked up on this and began going to the local library in Porteneil to check what his father was telling him was actually true.
Then we have the manic telephone calls from Frank’s highly intelligent but also regrettably insane brother Eric, who has escaped from the psychiatric hospital (admitted as he had a partiality for burning dogs) and is heading home. He wants to give his father a surprise and Frank knows that he will make it even though the police are out looking for him. Eric appears to be more insane than ever and so although he wants to see his brother, Frank is rather disturbed about the idea.
Our “hero” is also a loner but he still wishes to be accepted into the local community. His only friend is a dwarf called Jamie. Nevertheless Frank hasn’t had it easy in his relatively short life. Firstly, he has a physical problem, due to a rather unfortunate accident with a dog that happened when he was three. This is also a teenager who feels too fat, he wants:
“…to look dark and menacing... the way I might have looked if I hadn’t had my little accident. Looking at me, you’d never guess I’d killed three people. It isn’t fair”.
My eyes lit up at this. Now what’s going on here?
When one of the three murders is committed by Frank, you can see his deductive reasoning there. But the author’s idea of putting an adder in a child’s prosthesis left me spell-bound and I actually laughed to my shame.
And secondly, he doesn’t legally exist as his father never bothered getting around to registering his birth. So Frank has to pretend that he actually doesn’t live with his father, is an orphan and just visits from time to time. Also, he has to ensure that he’s never around when Diggs the local policeman calls. He’s found to be strange by the locals as his brother Eric went crazy and they wonder whether he will follow in the same direction.
Frank is very intelligent, a thinker and a dreamer but also a plotter. He often thinks of death and how this came about with his relatives. Leviticus Cauldhame, his uncle, had emigrated to South Africa, and he came to a very sticky, unfortunate end “when a crazed homicidal black threw himself, unconscious (How could that be? Admittedly he was at the police headquarters in Johannesburg) from the top storey” and fatally injured his uncle who was passing. His last words in hospital were:
“My God, the buggers’ve learned to fly…”
Admittedly Frank does some bizarre things. Well, he’s a teenager, a hunter, and a murderer amongst other things and he seems to be living in a continual state of war or preparation for war. There’s the Bunker, Frank’s love of slings and catapults, “The Black Destroyer” catapult being his favourite; bombs, an air rifle, killing whatever comes in his way. The wasps though and the Wasp Factory; now I found this section fascinating and what a tour de force. This is the central part of the book and actually the most puzzling as basically apart from being religious in content, it also involves choice. And the different choices for the wasps that enter, admittedly unwillingly into the Wasp Factory, go through some incredible experiences. It took me a while to fathom that out.
As for the Rabbit Grounds, well that’s excellent even though it’s gruesome. Frank sees a buck, but this isn’t your normal every day buck, no this is an avenging rabbit, determined to perhaps kill Frank. Frank is genuinely frightened but… Well this has to be read. The boy’s regret was that his Black Destroyer catapult had been destroyed by this renegade rabbit.
Even though there’s violence and cruelty in the book that I abhor, I felt ensnared as the prose is both chilling and yet enthralling. There are elements of secrecy and deeply unfathomable aspects that slowly come to light. For example, Angus has a study (has chemicals, does experiments) and he always locks the door. Frank is determined to gain access as he’s sure there’s a secret to be found there. Typical teenager though. I can recall when I was sixteen and if I wasn’t allowed do something, I invariably wanted to, but that’s becoming a young adult. It used to be called “growing up”.
Also Frank’s love of water, and making dams, then changing them. The themes of water and fire flow throughout the book. This is also a very energetic, active lad both mentally and physically.
I could also equate to Frank’s liking for bombs. My elder brother Ken made a bomb when he was about fourteen and blew up the pond in our garden. It was a quiet Sunday morning in England and all hell broke loose. My father shot out of bed, threw on his clothes and shoes, and chased Ken down the road. I laughed and laughed at the time. Can you imagine the end result?
I was also intrigued with this statement by Frank:
“My greatest enemies are Women and the Sea. These things I hate. Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them, and the Sea because it has always frustrated me, destroying what I have built, washing away what I have left, wiping clean the marks I have made. And I’m not all that sure the Wind is blameless either”.
Well that’s to be understood, his mother Agnès had left him shortly after he was born; his brother Eric’s mother, Mary, had bled to death in childbirth because his head was too large. Eric suffered from migraine for most of his life, and Frank used to think that the size of his head was the reason he went crazy.
The journeys through life that Angus, Frank and Eric make finally all come together in the most unexpected denouement.
In conclusion, this mind-blowing book is ghoulish, and there are unfortunate descriptions on torture and cruelty, but it must be read. It’s captivating, funny in parts, tongue-in-cheek, full of black humour, philosophical; I could even empathise with the “murderer” at times, and this is such an excellent book by the late Iain Banks. A book that has to be digested in depth…
This is not my genre at all and I see that it’s referred to as a Gothic horror and yet, I started to read it and couldn’t put it down. I really cannot understand it. I cannot tolerate torture, and cruelty to animals, but strangely through Frank Cauldhame’s eyes, not your normal sixteen year old teenager I hasten to add, I was allowed to enter into his own special world. I warmed to his strange ways and ideas immediately, and even felt sorry for this rather badly adjusted adolescent. I felt he was on the road to discovering himself. Unfortunately, he was also a murderer:
“That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.”
Well that’s comforting to hear, don't you agree?
So considering Frank’s background, how can you possibly blame him for the way he turned out? He lives on a small island outside the remote Scottish village of Porteneil with his father Angus (known to everyone as his uncle), who is decidedly odd, but highly intelligent, has a measurement fetish and puts tags on all the furniture and throughout the house. He takes a sly delight in thrusting unanswerable questions at his son but then he has personally taken over Frank’s education (Angus, a Doctor of Chemistry, who worked in the university for a few years after he graduated and now receives royalties for a patent) and lies dreadfully. Frank soon picked up on this and began going to the local library in Porteneil to check what his father was telling him was actually true.
Then we have the manic telephone calls from Frank’s highly intelligent but also regrettably insane brother Eric, who has escaped from the psychiatric hospital (admitted as he had a partiality for burning dogs) and is heading home. He wants to give his father a surprise and Frank knows that he will make it even though the police are out looking for him. Eric appears to be more insane than ever and so although he wants to see his brother, Frank is rather disturbed about the idea.
Our “hero” is also a loner but he still wishes to be accepted into the local community. His only friend is a dwarf called Jamie. Nevertheless Frank hasn’t had it easy in his relatively short life. Firstly, he has a physical problem, due to a rather unfortunate accident with a dog that happened when he was three. This is also a teenager who feels too fat, he wants:
“…to look dark and menacing... the way I might have looked if I hadn’t had my little accident. Looking at me, you’d never guess I’d killed three people. It isn’t fair”.
My eyes lit up at this. Now what’s going on here?
When one of the three murders is committed by Frank, you can see his deductive reasoning there. But the author’s idea of putting an adder in a child’s prosthesis left me spell-bound and I actually laughed to my shame.
And secondly, he doesn’t legally exist as his father never bothered getting around to registering his birth. So Frank has to pretend that he actually doesn’t live with his father, is an orphan and just visits from time to time. Also, he has to ensure that he’s never around when Diggs the local policeman calls. He’s found to be strange by the locals as his brother Eric went crazy and they wonder whether he will follow in the same direction.
Frank is very intelligent, a thinker and a dreamer but also a plotter. He often thinks of death and how this came about with his relatives. Leviticus Cauldhame, his uncle, had emigrated to South Africa, and he came to a very sticky, unfortunate end “when a crazed homicidal black threw himself, unconscious (How could that be? Admittedly he was at the police headquarters in Johannesburg) from the top storey” and fatally injured his uncle who was passing. His last words in hospital were:
“My God, the buggers’ve learned to fly…”
Admittedly Frank does some bizarre things. Well, he’s a teenager, a hunter, and a murderer amongst other things and he seems to be living in a continual state of war or preparation for war. There’s the Bunker, Frank’s love of slings and catapults, “The Black Destroyer” catapult being his favourite; bombs, an air rifle, killing whatever comes in his way. The wasps though and the Wasp Factory; now I found this section fascinating and what a tour de force. This is the central part of the book and actually the most puzzling as basically apart from being religious in content, it also involves choice. And the different choices for the wasps that enter, admittedly unwillingly into the Wasp Factory, go through some incredible experiences. It took me a while to fathom that out.
As for the Rabbit Grounds, well that’s excellent even though it’s gruesome. Frank sees a buck, but this isn’t your normal every day buck, no this is an avenging rabbit, determined to perhaps kill Frank. Frank is genuinely frightened but… Well this has to be read. The boy’s regret was that his Black Destroyer catapult had been destroyed by this renegade rabbit.
Even though there’s violence and cruelty in the book that I abhor, I felt ensnared as the prose is both chilling and yet enthralling. There are elements of secrecy and deeply unfathomable aspects that slowly come to light. For example, Angus has a study (has chemicals, does experiments) and he always locks the door. Frank is determined to gain access as he’s sure there’s a secret to be found there. Typical teenager though. I can recall when I was sixteen and if I wasn’t allowed do something, I invariably wanted to, but that’s becoming a young adult. It used to be called “growing up”.
Also Frank’s love of water, and making dams, then changing them. The themes of water and fire flow throughout the book. This is also a very energetic, active lad both mentally and physically.
I could also equate to Frank’s liking for bombs. My elder brother Ken made a bomb when he was about fourteen and blew up the pond in our garden. It was a quiet Sunday morning in England and all hell broke loose. My father shot out of bed, threw on his clothes and shoes, and chased Ken down the road. I laughed and laughed at the time. Can you imagine the end result?
I was also intrigued with this statement by Frank:
“My greatest enemies are Women and the Sea. These things I hate. Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them, and the Sea because it has always frustrated me, destroying what I have built, washing away what I have left, wiping clean the marks I have made. And I’m not all that sure the Wind is blameless either”.
Well that’s to be understood, his mother Agnès had left him shortly after he was born; his brother Eric’s mother, Mary, had bled to death in childbirth because his head was too large. Eric suffered from migraine for most of his life, and Frank used to think that the size of his head was the reason he went crazy.
The journeys through life that Angus, Frank and Eric make finally all come together in the most unexpected denouement.
In conclusion, this mind-blowing book is ghoulish, and there are unfortunate descriptions on torture and cruelty, but it must be read. It’s captivating, funny in parts, tongue-in-cheek, full of black humour, philosophical; I could even empathise with the “murderer” at times, and this is such an excellent book by the late Iain Banks. A book that has to be digested in depth…
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 25, 2016
I thought this book was wonderful and it's definitely in my top 10 of favourite books.
A story about mental illness and how it affects a family. The main character and narrator Frank is very likable despite his strange and homicidal tendencies. It's written in a lovely style that makes it a pleasure to read.
It's a story about childhood, family, nurture versus nature, secrets, violence, murder, mental illness, adaptability, being different & thriving despite it all. There are unexpected plot twists which keep the story interesting & astounding at times.
I highly recommend it as it's basically a great story.
A story about mental illness and how it affects a family. The main character and narrator Frank is very likable despite his strange and homicidal tendencies. It's written in a lovely style that makes it a pleasure to read.
It's a story about childhood, family, nurture versus nature, secrets, violence, murder, mental illness, adaptability, being different & thriving despite it all. There are unexpected plot twists which keep the story interesting & astounding at times.
I highly recommend it as it's basically a great story.
July 2, 2018
Both sexes can do one thing specially well; women can give birth and men can kill.
Sixteen-year-old obsessive compulsive Frank uses ritual and recreation to make his days fulfilling. Whether he is torturing bugs or killing birds, it all has purpose.
Frank’s violently unstable brother Eric escapes a mental institution and decides to head home. Frank is excited to see his brother again, so he awaits his return and their reunion.
Not for the faint of heart, this book is transgressively delightful. Morality is subjective. Depravity can be powerful. The Wasp Factory is for those that feel like aliens on the wrong world.
Sixteen-year-old obsessive compulsive Frank uses ritual and recreation to make his days fulfilling. Whether he is torturing bugs or killing birds, it all has purpose.
Frank’s violently unstable brother Eric escapes a mental institution and decides to head home. Frank is excited to see his brother again, so he awaits his return and their reunion.
Not for the faint of heart, this book is transgressively delightful. Morality is subjective. Depravity can be powerful. The Wasp Factory is for those that feel like aliens on the wrong world.
June 5, 2017
Dark. Deceptive. Dysfunctional. Disgusting. Devious.
I wanted to read this for so long but the chances of me reading this increased when I saw this in 1001 books to read before you die. I was warned beforehand that this could be yucky at times but would be rewarding if I stick to the end. Since this is a real shorty at 192 pages, I just couldn't DNF it.
After really hating the protagonist for first 30% of the book, I suddenly started to like him. I still can't put my finger on what changed but we managed to became friends. Frank has an elder brother Eric who is in some hospital for his illness, so Frank and his father are the only people who lives in house which is far away from the town. What is more shocking is that Frank has no identity i.e. for town people he was some distant relative. Yeah, so a very dysfunctional family.
Frank started as a disgusting and devious teenager for me with his day to day activities which were very repulsive, a heartless boy. But as the story progressed, he told us about his childhood, and of course, the murders that he had committed before he even turned 15. Those were an indication of how deceptive , patient, well planned, and cruel he could be. As if things couldn't be more dense and bad, story turned really dark once Eric escaped hospital.
On the whole this story gives us an insight into Frank's mind and why he was like that. And then there was also a huge revelation at the end which just left md numb for sometime and I kept repeating to myself, no this can't be true. Frank reminds me of Ronnie from Toy Story 1. As Ronnie got a deep satisfaction by breaking and destroying toys, Frank got high on killing insects, animals, and humans.
Oh boy, this was a wild, wild ride!
I wanted to read this for so long but the chances of me reading this increased when I saw this in 1001 books to read before you die. I was warned beforehand that this could be yucky at times but would be rewarding if I stick to the end. Since this is a real shorty at 192 pages, I just couldn't DNF it.
After really hating the protagonist for first 30% of the book, I suddenly started to like him. I still can't put my finger on what changed but we managed to became friends. Frank has an elder brother Eric who is in some hospital for his illness, so Frank and his father are the only people who lives in house which is far away from the town. What is more shocking is that Frank has no identity i.e. for town people he was some distant relative. Yeah, so a very dysfunctional family.
Frank started as a disgusting and devious teenager for me with his day to day activities which were very repulsive, a heartless boy. But as the story progressed, he told us about his childhood, and of course, the murders that he had committed before he even turned 15. Those were an indication of how deceptive , patient, well planned, and cruel he could be. As if things couldn't be more dense and bad, story turned really dark once Eric escaped hospital.
On the whole this story gives us an insight into Frank's mind and why he was like that. And then there was also a huge revelation at the end which just left md numb for sometime and I kept repeating to myself, no this can't be true. Frank reminds me of Ronnie from Toy Story 1. As Ronnie got a deep satisfaction by breaking and destroying toys, Frank got high on killing insects, animals, and humans.
Oh boy, this was a wild, wild ride!
March 1, 2022
I finally got around to a book that is considered a modern classic by many. Trust me, my 3-star rating was a surprise to even myself.
The Wasp Factory had been on my radar for quite some time, a highly recommended novel from a celebrated writer that I just never seemed to get started on, always jockeying for position in my mile-high TBR pile. I'm often told it's a sure horse to bet on, so I finally made a point of reading it, and my expectations were high. By the end of the book those expectations weren't entirely met. Not by a long shot.
The Wasp Factory is the story of a mostly calm, collected, and vicious little teenager living on a small rural island outside a Scottish town. He lives with only his eccentric father (with which he has an odd relationship indeed) and has a older brother locked away in the nuthouse. When he's not killing/mutilating small animals or engaging in strange sadistic rituals he's conceived of, the lead character recounts his unconventional/tragic childhood and the three murders he committed in the past. Basically it boils down to the early life of a serial killer, although there is much more to it than that. The Wasp Factory deals with themes of isolation, intelligence, nature vs. nurture, insanity, violence, and the damaged minds that can result from broken homes.
For the most part I enjoyed The Wasp Factory. It's a good little story that takes you inside the alienation and thought processes of a young sociopath who does not view the world the way the rest of us do. However, I found huge potholes in the pacing that sidelined my reading of the book far too many times. Despite being an acclaimed writer, Ian Banks has a habit of writing these frequent long-winded passages overly describing some of the most painfully mundane shit (building dams, exploring the island, tinkering with all kinds of things) that prove to seriously hobble the story. There really is no need for them, like they were written merely to increase the final word-count. It's a chore to get through these pages with little to show for it, and any writing that feels like work without reward is something I take issue with. A few times the narrative felt tantamount to torture, so much fat on the prose that it barely lumbered along. As I result, I found myself putting the book down for long periods, disinterested in returning to it.
But I did return and finish it, because at its core this novel is a little gem, though I stress it is rough around the edges (and in need of a polishing). Although I thought it was good, by the time I closed it I was quite happy to be done with The Wasp Factory. At the beginning I was sure I would love this book, but in the end I only ended up somewhat liking it. The novels I enjoy the most are those which I can't put down, and this was one I dropped more than a few times.
The Wasp Factory had been on my radar for quite some time, a highly recommended novel from a celebrated writer that I just never seemed to get started on, always jockeying for position in my mile-high TBR pile. I'm often told it's a sure horse to bet on, so I finally made a point of reading it, and my expectations were high. By the end of the book those expectations weren't entirely met. Not by a long shot.
The Wasp Factory is the story of a mostly calm, collected, and vicious little teenager living on a small rural island outside a Scottish town. He lives with only his eccentric father (with which he has an odd relationship indeed) and has a older brother locked away in the nuthouse. When he's not killing/mutilating small animals or engaging in strange sadistic rituals he's conceived of, the lead character recounts his unconventional/tragic childhood and the three murders he committed in the past. Basically it boils down to the early life of a serial killer, although there is much more to it than that. The Wasp Factory deals with themes of isolation, intelligence, nature vs. nurture, insanity, violence, and the damaged minds that can result from broken homes.
For the most part I enjoyed The Wasp Factory. It's a good little story that takes you inside the alienation and thought processes of a young sociopath who does not view the world the way the rest of us do. However, I found huge potholes in the pacing that sidelined my reading of the book far too many times. Despite being an acclaimed writer, Ian Banks has a habit of writing these frequent long-winded passages overly describing some of the most painfully mundane shit (building dams, exploring the island, tinkering with all kinds of things) that prove to seriously hobble the story. There really is no need for them, like they were written merely to increase the final word-count. It's a chore to get through these pages with little to show for it, and any writing that feels like work without reward is something I take issue with. A few times the narrative felt tantamount to torture, so much fat on the prose that it barely lumbered along. As I result, I found myself putting the book down for long periods, disinterested in returning to it.
But I did return and finish it, because at its core this novel is a little gem, though I stress it is rough around the edges (and in need of a polishing). Although I thought it was good, by the time I closed it I was quite happy to be done with The Wasp Factory. At the beginning I was sure I would love this book, but in the end I only ended up somewhat liking it. The novels I enjoy the most are those which I can't put down, and this was one I dropped more than a few times.
Read
May 6, 2021
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks makes for one hellofa compelling read. I finished it in an evening - once started, I simply couldn't put it down.
Gothic horror isn't my taste but there's something about this ghastly, gruesome, twisted tale told by a sixteen-year-old psychopathic sadist that's so extreme a number of scenes could qualify as dark Monty Python sketches.
Since there's a bushel basket full of surprises after the first pages, I'll avoid spoilers by confining my observations to quotes taken from Chapter One -
"I jumped and slid down the slope of the dune into its shadow, then turned at the bottom to look back up at those small heads and bodies as they watched over the northern approaches to the island."
The small heads and bodies belong to animals such as rats, seagulls, rabbits and they are tied to "Sacrifice Poles" by narrator Frank Cauldhame who lives in isolation with his father on a small island over the bridge from a Scottish town. Recall I said Gothic horror back there.
"It crossed my mind that my father looked worried, but he was good at acting and perhaps that was just what he wanted me to think, so deep down I remained unconvinced."
Frank's father is what we might call titched in the head. Ever since Frank can remember his father has been obsessed with the dimensions - height, length, breadth, area, volume - of the various objects in their large old house. He continually demanded Frank go around room to room, recording all measurements in a book. Also, there was that time Dad even had Frank believe that the earth's shape wasn't a sphere but a Möbius strip.
"Eric has escaped from the hospital. That was what Diggs came to tell us. They think he might head back here."
So Frank's father tells Frank during their evening meal. Eric, Frank's older brother, was sent to a mental hospital some years back. There's mention of Eric setting dogs on fire and stuffing worms in children's mouths. Frank's father goes on to tell Frank that he, Frank, should have been the one sent to be locked up in the hospital. Additionally, he tells Frank to keep out of sight of Diggs (the local police officer) - and for good reason: Frank's presence in this world has never been made official, that is, there are no records of Frank's birth.
"That stick is the symbol of the Factory's security. My father's leg, locked solid, has given me my sanctuary up in the warm space of the big loft, right at the top of the house where the junk and the rubbish are, where the dust moves and the sunlight slants and the Factory sits - silent, living and still."
The stick Frank mentions is the walking stick his Father uses to hobble around with. Due to his bad leg, Frank's father can't climb up to the loft where Frank keeps his Wasp Factory. The exact nature of the Wasp Factory isn't revealed in the beginning.
"The only other remnant of our glorious past is the name of Porteneil's hot-spot, a grubby old pub called the Cauldhame Arms where I go sometimes now, though still under age of course, and watch some of the local youths trying to be punk bands. That was where I met and still meet the only person I'd call a friend: Jamie the dwarf, whom I let sit on my shoulders so he can see the bands."
There is the suggestion Frank's father gets his money somehow, ownership perhaps, from this pub. And that bit about Frank having dwarf Jamie sit on his shoulders brings to mind a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and also, curiously enough, a happening at a psychiatrist's office in the author's novel, The Bridge. This to say, Iain Banks leavens his fiction with the blackest of humors.
"I hate having to sit down on the toilet all the time. With my unfortunate disability I usually have to, as thought I was a bloody woman, but I hate it. Sometimes in the Cauldhame Arms I stand up at the urinal, but most of it ends up running down my hands or legs."
Frank has a mysterious disability serving as yet another reason he's disinclined to venture very far from the island. And speaking of taking a pee, Frank pisses on the Sacrifice Poles during the day, infecting them with his scent and power. For Frank, all this makes perfect sense according to his mutilated logic.
"I'm too fat. It isn't that bad, and it isn't my fault - but, all the same, I don't look the way I'd like to look. Chubby, that's me. Strong and fit, but still too plump. I want to look dark and menacing; the way I ought to look, the way I should look, the way, I might have looked if I hadn't had my little accident. Looking at me, you'd never guess I'd killed three people."
Mystery, mystery - Frank's little accident. There's another lurking mystery in Frank's life: his Father's den. What does his father do in there? Frank knows his Father has a background in chemistry but what exactly goes on in his den? And, yes, Frank did kill three people, thus we have foreshadowing with a vicious vengeance.
Here's what worked for me while reading The Wasp Factory: imagining sixteen-year-old chubby Frank walking around with the enormous head of John Cleese. The grim, gnarly grotesque has never been more completely different.
Scottish novelist Iain Banks, 1954-2013
October 31, 2022
I haven't hauled out the brain bleach in many a moon, but a goodly dose is in order after reading this. The writing is captivating, loved the images created by the author of bloodshot sunrises and the thought of a fierce thunderstorm moving the sky itself. However engaging the words, the thoughts and deeds of Frank take on a skewed bent, for he is a psychotic. He lives with his father, who stretches the label of eccentricity to an uncomfortable level. Oddly enough, it is big brother Eric who is in a psychiatric institution. It is Frank who tells the tale, and it is immediately obvious that his thinking is not normal, and soon you will understand that his insanity is profound. He hums. The word "crispy" is ruined for me now. I've had enough.
November 1, 2022
Let me start first by saying that this book definitely needs to come with trigger warnings, for the vast amount of animal/torture and child abuse it has. I adore all animals and kids, and this was a bit tough to stomach at times, though I carried on, as it is only fiction. Whereas I read a lot of extreme horror/Splatterpunk, and can happily read or watch people being tortured, I fall to pieces and am a complete mess if it happened to an animal or child, but I persevered, and boi, was I glad I did. This is a phenomenal book, which is a cult classic from 1984, and it centres around 16 year old Frank, who is also the narrator. Now Frank is a very disturbed kid, who lives a kinda sheltered life with his father, on an island off the coast of Scotland. He spends his days surveying the land and checking on his ‘Sacrifice Poles’, which he has erected all around the outskirts of the island, which he believes will protect it. These ‘sacrifice poles’ have heads placed on top from animals/birds which Frank has killed, rabbits, crows, etc. He also has an older brother called Eric who has been incarcerated in a sanitarium for a crime which is hinted at throughout but we don’t get to find out until later on in the book. But one day, the police arrive with news that Eric has escaped, and might be headed home...dun, dun, dun!!
It’s quite clear these boys have some serious mental health issues, with Frank being obsessed with ‘The Wasp Factory’ which he has created.
This book does seem a tad drawn out, with long chapters, and the author tends to describe every little thing in minute detail, and which isn’t really relevant to the story. This book is awesome, and I believe it spawned a movie, though I don’t think I could watch it, as it would be a helluva slow burn to the point of being boring. But the book is far from ‘yawn material’ with a complete doozy of a twist at the end.
This was a buddy read with my good friend Luna, who was awesome throughout, with his thoughts and ideas, during our discussions on the book.
I highly recommend this, though beware of the TW if you are easily upset with animal/child abuse, and which would have been a 5 star read, but I deducted a star because of this.
A good solid 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It’s quite clear these boys have some serious mental health issues, with Frank being obsessed with ‘The Wasp Factory’ which he has created.
This book does seem a tad drawn out, with long chapters, and the author tends to describe every little thing in minute detail, and which isn’t really relevant to the story. This book is awesome, and I believe it spawned a movie, though I don’t think I could watch it, as it would be a helluva slow burn to the point of being boring. But the book is far from ‘yawn material’ with a complete doozy of a twist at the end.
This was a buddy read with my good friend Luna, who was awesome throughout, with his thoughts and ideas, during our discussions on the book.
I highly recommend this, though beware of the TW if you are easily upset with animal/child abuse, and which would have been a 5 star read, but I deducted a star because of this.
A good solid 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
July 11, 2011
I've read this too many times to give a straight up reaction review, and I feel like any significant writing I might attempt on this book would necessarily become an essay. It's too late at night for that, so maybe next time. Instead, here is what I was thinking this time through:
• I love Frank. I don't mean I love to hate him. I mean I love to love him. And I think it is one of the greatest achievements of Iain Banks' career that he makes me love Frank. I empathize with him as he maintains his Sacrifice Poles and lies in the Bomb Circle and divines the future through The Wasp Factory. I love him so much that I find it very difficult to get all righteous about his three killings.
• Which is worse? Killing your sibling? Killing your cousins? Burning a dog? Burning a flock of sheep? Experimenting on your child(ren)? Blowing up a colony of rabbits? Torturing insects? Turning an already damaged brain to mush? Is there any difference?
• I need to spend more time on the beach.
• Bone is a marvelous piece of anatomy, and skulls are downright beautiful. I would love to bequeath my bones to my children (if they want them) or a medical school rather than being buried or cremated.
• Do I spend too much time reading books?
• I would give anything for one or both of these: 1. for Banks to retell this story, right now, today, from Eric's perspective; 2. for Banks to return to the sparing style of his debut. I want short and powerful all over again.
• I am so glad they've never tried to make this into a movie.
• Water. Fire. Earth. Air. Frank is an elemental being. It's all here, and it's all important.
• I want to see some crazy European company start making Banks toys. A lifesize model of The Wasp Factory. Azad. Damage. Black River. Not to mention the action figures. The potential is amazing.
• I wish I could write like Banks. Next time I read this I am going to buy the audiobook, narrated by the author, and listen to it instead. I want to hear it with the accents intact.
• I love Frank. I don't mean I love to hate him. I mean I love to love him. And I think it is one of the greatest achievements of Iain Banks' career that he makes me love Frank. I empathize with him as he maintains his Sacrifice Poles and lies in the Bomb Circle and divines the future through The Wasp Factory. I love him so much that I find it very difficult to get all righteous about his three killings.
• Which is worse? Killing your sibling? Killing your cousins? Burning a dog? Burning a flock of sheep? Experimenting on your child(ren)? Blowing up a colony of rabbits? Torturing insects? Turning an already damaged brain to mush? Is there any difference?
• I need to spend more time on the beach.
• Bone is a marvelous piece of anatomy, and skulls are downright beautiful. I would love to bequeath my bones to my children (if they want them) or a medical school rather than being buried or cremated.
• Do I spend too much time reading books?
• I would give anything for one or both of these: 1. for Banks to retell this story, right now, today, from Eric's perspective; 2. for Banks to return to the sparing style of his debut. I want short and powerful all over again.
• I am so glad they've never tried to make this into a movie.
• Water. Fire. Earth. Air. Frank is an elemental being. It's all here, and it's all important.
• I want to see some crazy European company start making Banks toys. A lifesize model of The Wasp Factory. Azad. Damage. Black River. Not to mention the action figures. The potential is amazing.
• I wish I could write like Banks. Next time I read this I am going to buy the audiobook, narrated by the author, and listen to it instead. I want to hear it with the accents intact.
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