The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (9780349101774)

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; and 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 and changes Frank utterly. Iain Banks' celebrated first novel is a work of extraordinary originality, imagination and horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; and compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all.

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The Wasp Factory

If you want to read something dark & disturbing you won’t do much better than this. With murders that could have come from the pen of Edward Gory and what has to be the greatest description of alcohol induced vomiting in literature, this book will stay with you long after the last twist. Fantastic

Review by Laura J of the Brighton Borders on 2009-01-22 11:27:32
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Review by Pete of the Leeds Borders on 2009-01-27 13:51:21
Bookseller review

The Wasp Factory-Iain Banks

eye opening debut

Review by Ian Newlove of the Bicester Books Etc on 2009-01-30 11:57:07
Bookseller review

Banks Magic..

Ian Banks launched his mega author career status with this genre defining book. If you havent read this and you call yourself a reader...then your not.

Review by Callum M of the Edinburgh - Fort Kinnaird Borders on 2009-02-01 11:24:10
Fantastic novel - with a sting in the tale

If you want to read something dark and disturbing you won’t do much better than this. With murders that could have come from the pen of Edward Gory and what has to be the greatest description of alcohol induced vomiting in literature, this book will stay with you long after the last twist. Fantastic.

Review by DeadGoodBooks on 14:04, 04 Apr 2008

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The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

I’m not sure who told me about this book, Iain Banks’s debut, but the freshness of the writing hit me straight away. It was like nothing I’d ever read before. A story of isolation and ritual. Banks loves his Scotland and he depicts a rugged lonely place that’s both a blessing and a curse for a child to grow, develop and play in. The story unfolds and becomes darker but still retaining a humourous edge. Banks also writes sci-fi and I think that brings a certain imagination into his storytelling while still remaining fully realistic.

Review by David Hopkins on 14:04, 04 Apr 2008

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Scottish Friction

It is difficult to generically pigeonhole Iain Banks’ debut ‘The Wasp Factory’. Such labels as ‘horror’, ‘satire’ or ‘bildungsroman’ are inadequate and fail to appreciate the full extent of the novel’s dark aesthetic. It has even been slapped with the blanket identifier ‘Edinburgh Gothic’; a wholly naive and facile attempt to describe a disparate collection of Scottish writings. However, the less specific term ‘modern gothic’ falls somewhat close to the mark in describing this violent, gruesome and darkly comic story.
‘The Wasp Factory’ seems to be a blatant and total attack upon a romanticised artistic vision of Scotland (as might be found, for example, in the work of Walter Scott). The novel’s narrator is Frank, a sixteen-year-old serial killer who lives alone with his father on a remote island off the Scottish coast. Perhaps in an attempt to extricate himself from a national cliché, Banks has Frank construct, in miniature, tranquil scenes representing an idealised, peaceful Scotland, and then destroy them with controlled floods and explosions. Frank is king on his island and, without remorse, tortures animals, murders children and engages in quasi-religious, perversely ritualistic activities with the ‘wasp factory’; a torturous contraption he has constructed to guide him through life.
Frank’s naivety and dependency upon a ritualistic lifestyle contrasts severely with his acts of violence and mutilation; hence why he perfectly fits the Gothic characterology, in which perilous innocence and demonic power are drawn together. Frank is a murderer, but dismisses his horrific acts with adolescent indifference.
The novel lacks any traditional ‘plot’ and is difficult to describe without giving something away; suffice to say it’s a story of a twisted and perverse boy whose narration is as gruesomely detailed as it is comically evoking. Yet Frank is an imperfect protagonist; he is frequently too self-aware to protect himself with pleas of naivety, and the manner in which he describes his schemes demonstrates a level of contrivance not conducive to the presentation of a confused individual.
Overall this is clearly a first novel; violent and attention-grabbing: it’s an exercise in ‘look what I can do’ shock, and is not without its flaws. Frank’s final act of self-discovery is symbolically externalised by the very clichéd image of a locked room that, once gained access to, reveals all. The heavy-handed final turn lacks any of the subtlety that Banks has developed later in his career. Worth reading, and morally intriguing, ‘The Wasp Factory’ is a good if imperfect first effort.

Review by na on 00:12, 16 Jul 2008

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