The Wasp Factory
Ratings174
Average rating3.6
This is the first horror book I've read, so I started with zero expectations. The writing grew on me quickly: Our teenager hero Frank lives in a Scottish countryside on a small island with his Father. He is a ruthless, troubled kid, but with a weird air of playful innocence around him. I also loved the dark humor that goes along with the deceptions of violence and ‘eccentricities'. I am looking forward to read more such books!
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.
This author is known for writing sci-fi mostly. And even tho this book it is not sci-fi it they manage to write a great book.The book is quite short, has a fast pace and is not written with difficult wording. yet it feels it takes a while to read it. It is full of moments where you get shocked by what you yourself are reading and have to reread it just to see if you read that correctly. In this story there is a boy, this boy has some... flaws. He himself seems to not notise any of this almost, he has no problem with what himself is doing. It is a dark, twisty and creepy book. It is not a horror book tho. It just feels uneasy and weird to read. Almost like I was a mix between a grown up adult trying to reach a child but also this child at the same time.This book has in no way a happy ending. While that often is a good thing for me it was just... not it for me. I am not really sure why it was diffrent this time honestly. I really liked reading it in general so it is a3.25/5
A disturbing read. A sort of coming of age story set amongst a backdrop of individuals with unusual pasts that have profoundly affected them. A compelling read with a surprising (for me) ending.
Inversions begins with an introduction to Iain Banks where the claim was that he came to “controversial public notice” with this book. I was curious, and well yep, I get it, The Wasp Factory is macabre and gruesome. I wasn't sure if I hated or loved this book until I got to the very end, and I am glad I made it the entire way. This novel is brilliantly self aware, and the violence (gruesome and excessive) that made this book controversial is ultimately the lingua franca by which this book discusses trauma and identity. This book knows it is ridiculous and the gruesome violence is couched in humor, (Iain Bank clearly revels in the absurdity and horror) but for all the absurdity it is very much a controlled burn.
This is a story of a self obsessed 16(17?) year old homicidal maniac living his days quietly torturing the animals of the Scottish Island that he and his father have made their home. Frank kills animals in odd rituals and false wars as he operates his grand death machine, the Wasp Factory, a mechanism that Frank uses as his metaphysical guide. Along the way we learn about the factory, the relatives Frank murdered in his childhood, and the disability that consumes Frank's life. Frank's eldest brother, institutionalized after setting the town's dogs on fire, escapes, and makes his way home down the Scottish coast leaving behind a trail of ashes and half eaten remains.
My approach to this novel was largely blind and I think any potential reader should stop here and pick the book up because it is worth reading. If you enjoyed Choke by Chuck Palahniuk I think this will be right up your alley.
As I have read through Banks' work I have consistently picked up on his inability to write a female character, and generally the way his stories tend to shove the ladies into the background. This consistent loose thread in his writing made the ending of this novel a monster of a surprise to me. Frank turns out to be Frances, born a girl and experimented on by their father after a severe genital mauling by the family dog. Banks loves his platitudes and his Freud and I disappointedly noted the dogma present in the subtext, alongside Frank's patent hatred of women (attributed to his mother's abandonment). It seemed to me that the book was taking any chance it got to take shots at women, and alongside the essentially all-male cast I was starting to draw conclusions from this first work about why women seemed absent and muted in the world of The Culture.But wow that ending. I loved Frank's closing thoughts concerning the trajectory of his life, the Freudian reading of penis envy and the realization of his replacement of sex with violence; his all too clear and simple exaggeration of "Man as Death" and his violent tendencies as an expression of masculine identity. The absence of women in this novel serves only to highlight these character deficiencies, their exclusion becomes a central plot element. The contrast between egalitarian ideals concerning gender and Frank's excoriation of women only made the ending all the more absurd. In a way everything becomes a moot point, Frank's plight upending the foundations of all the (now shown to be ridiculous) notions they once had.
Oh well. It was a very disturbing read, with sick (& very delusional) characters and a meh ending.
It was fascinating though to get a look the MC's deeply deranged mind, especially how he thought of himself as the sanest individual in a wicked world (very delusional like i said).
Overall not the best book I read but not horrible either. And once again the ending was quite empty, I needed something more.
Oh well. It was a very disturbing read, with sick (& very delusional) characters and a meh ending.
It was fascinating though to get a look the MC's deeply deranged mind, especially how he thought of himself as the sanest individual in a wicked world (very delusional like i said).
Overall not the best book I read but not horrible either. And once again the ending was quite empty, I needed something more.
Dark, violent, and disturbing story, told in a first-person point of view, like a diary.
This reminded me a lot of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Like in that book, the family has mostly died off due to tragedy and are able to maintain an existence away from most people thanks to property owned (in this case a small island) and an independent income. Both stories have a psychopathic, murderous teenager at their center and in both books the main characters are ostracized from the rest of the town due to the actions of a family member. Heck, there's even a fire in the climax of both books.
There's a twist in Wasp Factory as well and it still has me thinking. I can't quite figure out the point of it, but I will admit I didn't see it coming. Terrible things happen to Frank, and he does terrible things. I'm not convinced that the tragic "maiming" that happened to Frank justifies him being the monster he is. Once we find out the truth, it doesn't really matter that it was child abuse instead of a random accident. Unclear if there is a statement being made here about gender or the assumption of gender. That's okay. I don't like messages and morals in my stories.
I do wonder why it is that Franks's brother Eric tortures dogs when Frank is the one with reason to hate them. Frank certainly tortures other creatures but objects to Eric's chosen victims.
So yes, there are a lot of things unanswered here. I'm not looking for a book to answer all questions posed. I'm fine with leaving things ambiguous and open to interpretation. Definitely an interesting book to read if you like psychological horror stuff.
This is a very different book on re-reading. The first time around I was gripped by a desperate desire to understand the mysteries; the deaths, the ‘accident', the Factory, and of course what was in the study. I enjoyed it, the ending was suitably climatic, and the twist suitably satisfying.
I can still appreciate the clever touches, the call backs to Frankenstein et al. and the slightly demented humour of it all, but a second read shows how much is dependent on that mystery. Without the suspense, the meandering summer days and repetitive descriptions of violence quickly start to feel redundant. I still think it's a good book and well constructed, but it isn't one that rewards re-reading.
A death is always exciting, always makes you realise how alive you are, how vulnerable but so-far-lucky; but the death of somebody close gives you a good excuse to go a bit crazy for a while and do things that would otherwise be inexcusable. What delight to behave really badly and still get loads of sympathy!
The Sea is a sort of mythological enemy, and I make what you might call sacrifices to it in my soul, fearing it a little, respecting it as you're supposed to, but in many ways treating it as an equal. It does things to the world, and so do I; we should both be feared.
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.
If we're really so bad and so thick that we'd actually use all those wonderful H-bombs and Neutron bombs on each other, then maybe it's just as well we do wipe ourselves out before we can get into space and start doing horrible things to other races.
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.
...it can be unsettling to hear yourself described as you have thought of yourself in your most honest and abject moods, just as it is humbling to hear what you have thought about in your most hopeful and unrealistic moments.
I know who I am and I know my limitations. 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.
Inside this greater machine, things are not quite so cut and dried (or cut and pickled) as they have appeared in my experience. 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. Our destination is the same in the end, but our journey - part chosen, part determined - is different for us all, and changes even as we live and grow. I thought one door had snicked shut behind me years ago; in fact I was still crawling about the face. Now the door closes, and my journey begins.
Это тот случай, когда ты думаешь: если такое написано, то это писатель просто талантливый или он сам реальный псих? Если человек способен такое придумать, то он нормальный или если он псих, но написал книгу, то писатель? Может, он где-то на грани? Но, как говорится, миллиарды мух не могут ошибаться, так что скорее второе :-) В любом случае, это интересная книга.
My first Scottish book. Sadly, not good. The setting and characters definitely worked. However, the entire story is dull and worthless. Another one of those “waiting” stories. The main character does a bunch of similar random tasks all day, but nothing happens. The last third of the book clarifies that the only thing that is really important is that the brother is coming. Is that sufficient for the story? Absolutely not. I would recommend someone abridging the book down to a very short, 20-page story. It still would not be very good, but short stories generally do not have that requirement.
Will still read an Iain Banks science-fiction book, because they are highly recommend.
Crudo. Crudísimo. Hasta repulsivo por momentos, el libro se desenvuelve en un halo de misterios lúgubres y perversos que poco a poco revelan la horrible verdad del personaje principal. Realmente bueno, pero no recomendable para todo el mundo.
A good book, very well written. The character Frank, is very calculated and deliberate with his words and actions, at times gruesome, macabre is definitely a good word to describe it.
I enjoyed reading this book, it's different to a lot of other books I have read before!