The Wasp Factory

2 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Frank, genitals mutilated in childhood, and living somewhat isolated on an island with his peculiar father, has grown up to be a low-rent psychopath, torturing animals as a kind of sympathetic magic. His brother Eric, even more violent, has just escaped from the institution where he's long been confined. As Eric's odd, irregular calls come ever nearer home, Frank grows both more frantic and more suspicious of what his father is hiding.

Review
I recently watched a few episodes of the show Dexter, but decided not to continue because it seemed to normalize an animal-killing sociopath. I had a similar reaction to the show The End of the F***ing World. Had I known The Wasp Factory was in the same vein, I'd have skipped it.

I'm a big fan of Banks's literate, slow-paced, sophisticated SF novels. I've been less impressed with his non-SF offerings, but have been working my way through more of them. This time, I figured I'd start at the start, with his first novel (sold, only, apparently when his SF efforts didn't pan out).

I'm frankly at a loss to explain why it was popular. It's ... interesting, but a) goes deep on unapologetic torture of animals, and b) relies heavily on an unconvincing twist ending. I find animal cruelty repulsive, but I can stomach a little if it's important to the plot or if it's recognized as a bad thing. Here, neither is really true; it's a cheap, easy way of showing the narrator to be a psychopath, and there's far too much of it. I found it sickening, and would have given up on the book very early on if it hadn't been for the author. I reluctantly stuck with the reading until the end only because it was Banks, and frankly I wish I hadn't.

This may have been the book that (luckily for us) launched Banks' career, but I can't recommend it to anyone at all, SF fan or not. It's in somewhat the same line as his later book, The Quarry, but far less effective – a sort of solitary Lord of the Flies.

If you're really intent on being a Banks completionist, give this a try. But give yourself time, and don't feel you need to finish the book; it's not worth the effort.