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kleonora's review against another edition
2.0
Verdict: A twisted and deeply uncomfortable postmodern gothic horror that, though not without literary merit, I just couldn't stomach.
Let it be stated that I am a sensitive soul. As a child I was known to cry when the wind was mean to Piglet on blustery days. As an adult I've gotten over it, but just barely. Needless to say when I turned to page 1 of The Wasp Factory and saw the first chapter entitled 'Sacrifice Poles' I had an inkling I was in for a bumpy ride. I wasn't wrong. A review snippet on the cover refers to this book as a gothic horror but I think a much fairer representation was the back blurb quoting our protagonist as he ticks off the three family members he murdered while still under the age of 8 (victims and killer alike).
To be fair, its the animals that get the worst of it. Used in a flippantly background manner as decoration and target practice, the true highlights include tying gulls together as observing as a leisure activity, castration via dog and fire. Fire is it's own topic because there are many things set alight. Batches of bunnies are incinerated on two occasions, and then there's sheep, wasps and, of course, dogs. Many many dogs. Frank, our protagonist, draws the line at dogs. For my own part I consider it a thin line between dogs and bunnies, but was grateful nonetheless. I read this book quickly because I wanted it to end. It was upsetting. Go to bed at night I would cover it with my tome of the Complete Cases of Sherlock Holmes so that, on the off chance that a character got out 'Sophie's World' style Sherlock could deal with them. Hopefully.
In terms of synopsis there's not much I can say without saying too much. The story centres on Frank who lives with his Dad on an island outside the town of Port Neil Scotland which I shall henceforth imagine precisely as the village from League of Gentlemen. The plot is driven by Frank's brother who escapes from his asylum and starts making his way home on a journey littered with flaming canines and phone calls worthy of The Joker. While we wait for Steven to arrive we get to learn about Frank, his likes (dams, fratricide) dislikes (women, the sea) and hobbies (inventing wasp-killing death machines).
If it sounds horrible it's because it starts that way, but, in the interest of full disclosure I found the book improved as you went on. I'm not sure if this is due to a quantifiable drop in horrible or if I just acclimated. I do, however, recall at one point appreciating the poetry of a child murder via kite, so I rather suspect the latter. Nevertheless at three quarters in I was beginning to warm (ok thaw) towards The Wasp Factory. The writing is good, I admitted as much right at the start, evocative but straight-forward, even when jumping in time and, against all odds of subject matter, dryly humorous. The story, also was beginning to grip and I could no longer pretend to be reading quickly just to be done with it. In fact I was reading it on the train home when I inexorably got to the dead baby.
In my heart of hearts I knew it would come to Dead Baby (well, either Dead Baby or Creepy Sex Stuff) but it was still worse than I could have imagined. Mostly because I am not a descendant of Mengele. I skimmed as best I could, while making a noise like a tiny stream of air being let out of a balloon. It spent the next few hours festering in my soul and I'm afraid I can't encourage the rot by elaborating any further. Go read the GD book yourself. As far as I was concerned this was a shut case. The Dead Baby rule is one of my oldest and simplest; if the baby dies I do not like the book. (see Faust and Grapes of Wrath)
My glimmer of the hope of literary merit extinguished I once again put my head down and ploughed through the remaining pages. As it turns out, the blip on the cover was perfectly correct in labelling this a gothic novel. Gothic novels are always identifiable by their endings which involve a clash of secrets revealed, a great big fire and (invariably) a woman hidden in a secret room. You read a gothic novel for the ending, they are the pay-off, the best part, nay, reason for the preceding story. It was to my irritation that this held true for The Wasp Factory.
The ending was excellent. It has all the right ingredients but deconstructed postmodern-like. You (or at least I) didn't see it coming once it happened the whole book made sense while becoming entirely different. The Wasp Factory is, I must admit, a good book. That is why it gets 2 stars instead of 1. This might seem a bit of a low score from an admittedly worthy work of literature, but that's The Dead Baby rule for you. I simply cannot bring myself to like, recommend or revisit this novel. If it sounds like your cup of tea however, go for it. I won't judge you. That's God's job.
Let it be stated that I am a sensitive soul. As a child I was known to cry when the wind was mean to Piglet on blustery days. As an adult I've gotten over it, but just barely. Needless to say when I turned to page 1 of The Wasp Factory and saw the first chapter entitled 'Sacrifice Poles' I had an inkling I was in for a bumpy ride. I wasn't wrong. A review snippet on the cover refers to this book as a gothic horror but I think a much fairer representation was the back blurb quoting our protagonist as he ticks off the three family members he murdered while still under the age of 8 (victims and killer alike).
To be fair, its the animals that get the worst of it. Used in a flippantly background manner as decoration and target practice, the true highlights include tying gulls together as observing as a leisure activity, castration via dog and fire. Fire is it's own topic because there are many things set alight. Batches of bunnies are incinerated on two occasions, and then there's sheep, wasps and, of course, dogs. Many many dogs. Frank, our protagonist, draws the line at dogs. For my own part I consider it a thin line between dogs and bunnies, but was grateful nonetheless. I read this book quickly because I wanted it to end. It was upsetting. Go to bed at night I would cover it with my tome of the Complete Cases of Sherlock Holmes so that, on the off chance that a character got out 'Sophie's World' style Sherlock could deal with them. Hopefully.
In terms of synopsis there's not much I can say without saying too much. The story centres on Frank who lives with his Dad on an island outside the town of Port Neil Scotland which I shall henceforth imagine precisely as the village from League of Gentlemen. The plot is driven by Frank's brother who escapes from his asylum and starts making his way home on a journey littered with flaming canines and phone calls worthy of The Joker. While we wait for Steven to arrive we get to learn about Frank, his likes (dams, fratricide) dislikes (women, the sea) and hobbies (inventing wasp-killing death machines).
If it sounds horrible it's because it starts that way, but, in the interest of full disclosure I found the book improved as you went on. I'm not sure if this is due to a quantifiable drop in horrible or if I just acclimated. I do, however, recall at one point appreciating the poetry of a child murder via kite, so I rather suspect the latter. Nevertheless at three quarters in I was beginning to warm (ok thaw) towards The Wasp Factory. The writing is good, I admitted as much right at the start, evocative but straight-forward, even when jumping in time and, against all odds of subject matter, dryly humorous. The story, also was beginning to grip and I could no longer pretend to be reading quickly just to be done with it. In fact I was reading it on the train home when I inexorably got to the dead baby.
In my heart of hearts I knew it would come to Dead Baby (well, either Dead Baby or Creepy Sex Stuff) but it was still worse than I could have imagined. Mostly because I am not a descendant of Mengele. I skimmed as best I could, while making a noise like a tiny stream of air being let out of a balloon. It spent the next few hours festering in my soul and I'm afraid I can't encourage the rot by elaborating any further. Go read the GD book yourself. As far as I was concerned this was a shut case. The Dead Baby rule is one of my oldest and simplest; if the baby dies I do not like the book. (see Faust and Grapes of Wrath)
My glimmer of the hope of literary merit extinguished I once again put my head down and ploughed through the remaining pages. As it turns out, the blip on the cover was perfectly correct in labelling this a gothic novel. Gothic novels are always identifiable by their endings which involve a clash of secrets revealed, a great big fire and (invariably) a woman hidden in a secret room. You read a gothic novel for the ending, they are the pay-off, the best part, nay, reason for the preceding story. It was to my irritation that this held true for The Wasp Factory.
The ending was excellent. It has all the right ingredients but deconstructed postmodern-like. You (or at least I) didn't see it coming once it happened the whole book made sense while becoming entirely different. The Wasp Factory is, I must admit, a good book. That is why it gets 2 stars instead of 1. This might seem a bit of a low score from an admittedly worthy work of literature, but that's The Dead Baby rule for you. I simply cannot bring myself to like, recommend or revisit this novel. If it sounds like your cup of tea however, go for it. I won't judge you. That's God's job.
summerjade's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
iainp's review against another edition
3.0
Not badly-written and did hold my interest in the main, but most definitely not the stomach-wrenching mindfuck I'd been led to believe it to be. Maybe this is to do with the fact that it's aged a bit, and stuff like this just isn't as shocking as it was when it was published. Or maybe it's that I've known people who's been about as messed up as the central character. Or maybe all the Laymon books have desensitised me.
Either way, not a bad book but let down by the expectations heaped upon it. Were it not for them, I might have given it four stars.
Either way, not a bad book but let down by the expectations heaped upon it. Were it not for them, I might have given it four stars.
michael_myett369's review against another edition
2.0
I was expecting a lot more from one of the "most disturbing books ever written". It was a bit boring and very contrived.
colormist's review against another edition
4.0
About a quarter-way into this novel, the author sets up some not-so-subtle hints about how the novel will end. That made the ending, although extremely abrupt, a bit of a peter out.
This book has been referred to me as a horror novel. The only thing horrific about this novel is the complete lack of compassion, empathy, and sympathy that the characters have for anything and everything. I was hoping for more suspense and struggle for survival.
I would liken this more to American Psycho, which would categorize it more closely to transgressive fiction than horror.
This book has been referred to me as a horror novel. The only thing horrific about this novel is the complete lack of compassion, empathy, and sympathy that the characters have for anything and everything. I was hoping for more suspense and struggle for survival.
I would liken this more to American Psycho, which would categorize it more closely to transgressive fiction than horror.
wuthering_cephalopod's review against another edition
4.0
Frank is a psychopath, in only that his mind has compartmentalized his behavior, removing him completely from human nature. Abandoned by his mother and left with a father who hates anything that seems to remind him of women, he grows up on a small island in Scotland with only a dwarf as a friend. Frank isolates himself from the most basic of relationships, as he was savaged by a dog as a very young child and sees his lack of genitalia as another thing that makes him other.
Frank’s life is full of ritual and signs. He kills animals with abandon, using their skulls, viscera, and other parts to create totems, tools, and ritual components to protect himself and help him decipher the future. His favorite creation is the wasp factory, a clock he tinkered with, creating 12 modes of death for the wasps he captures and seals in the clock. The death the wasp chooses from the twelve— including fire, poison, crushing, drowning, etc— influences what Frank sees as signs. And he’s been looking for them more often because his brother Eric has escaped from the mental institution and keeps making cryptic calls to the house about coming home.
This book is brutal. Frank describes their life, their actions, and their routines in a way that feels almost mundane, leaving the reader to suss out just how deranged his behavior is. There’s a tragedy at the center of this book, numerous ones actually, and they are made all the more horrifying by how Frank sees them as an everyday part of his alien mindscape. There’s no supernatural influence at work here, just people, and it loses none of its scariness despite that. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who is squeamish, as cruelty to animals and body horror abounds.
Would I Read it Again?: Like Requiem for a Dream (a great film), this is a one and done book. It’s just too much, not from a critical standpoint, but from a mental one. I felt like I gained something from this book, but it’s not something I want to revisit.
Rating: 4. Man, it’s really hard to write something and someone so very repulsive at their cores. This book does that, while making it something you compulsively keep reading to find out what happens. I had to put it down a time or two just to digest the material, but I still kept picking it back up to see what was next.
https://wutheringceph.com/2023/04/20/iain-banks-the-wasp-factory/
Frank’s life is full of ritual and signs. He kills animals with abandon, using their skulls, viscera, and other parts to create totems, tools, and ritual components to protect himself and help him decipher the future. His favorite creation is the wasp factory, a clock he tinkered with, creating 12 modes of death for the wasps he captures and seals in the clock. The death the wasp chooses from the twelve— including fire, poison, crushing, drowning, etc— influences what Frank sees as signs. And he’s been looking for them more often because his brother Eric has escaped from the mental institution and keeps making cryptic calls to the house about coming home.
This book is brutal. Frank describes their life, their actions, and their routines in a way that feels almost mundane, leaving the reader to suss out just how deranged his behavior is. There’s a tragedy at the center of this book, numerous ones actually, and they are made all the more horrifying by how Frank sees them as an everyday part of his alien mindscape. There’s no supernatural influence at work here, just people, and it loses none of its scariness despite that. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who is squeamish, as cruelty to animals and body horror abounds.
Would I Read it Again?: Like Requiem for a Dream (a great film), this is a one and done book. It’s just too much, not from a critical standpoint, but from a mental one. I felt like I gained something from this book, but it’s not something I want to revisit.
Rating: 4. Man, it’s really hard to write something and someone so very repulsive at their cores. This book does that, while making it something you compulsively keep reading to find out what happens. I had to put it down a time or two just to digest the material, but I still kept picking it back up to see what was next.
https://wutheringceph.com/2023/04/20/iain-banks-the-wasp-factory/
t3rminus3st's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lisa_d9's review against another edition
4.0
WHAATTT?!
The plot of this book can be pretty much summarized by a quote from the book, which was on the back cover of my copy:
It is about a sixteen year old boy named Frank. He is f*cked up. He killed three children when he was a child and now that he's sixteen, he has weird routines and rituals he does every day.
He has a brother named Eric who is possibly even more f*cked up than he is. His brother has been institutionalized for setting fire to dogs and doing other crazy things such as trying to feed maggots and worms to children.
Then there is his father, who has a room that he keeps locked at all times. Frank wonders about the room and at the end, he gets to discover what's in there and it's a bit f*cked up.
This book is good at getting under your skin. It provokes people, I think. It might cause anger or disbelief at times. I know there were a couple of parts that made me feel uneasy and others where I was like "WHAT?!"
The writing is very well done, considering this was his debut. Also, the pacing was really good. It felt like I got through it very quickly. Actually, at the end, I was left kind of wanting to throw the book at the wall for what I thought was an incomplete ending.
It was like "BAM! Huge revelation! And that's it! The ENdddddd trololololololol"
The weird thing about this is book is that it's so darkly humorous at times. So darkly humorous that you feel awful for finding it funny. Like Frank's phone conversations with his brother Eric. His brother Eric is SO MASSIVELY F*CKED UP yet I found him so funny at times. And then I felt awful because he is obviously completely f*cked in the head.
Also, the part where you find out why Eric has become so f*cked up is totally horrifying and made me want to vomit tears. It was honestly one of the most chilling things I've ever read. Maybe I've had a sheltered life, but still...WOAH.
The ending felt completely out of the blue. Not only was I not expecting it but I just didn't quite understand WHY that was in any way connected with the rest of the story.
But it did carry on with the weird, grotesque theme of the book. I guess.
Read it. Don't read it. It's your choice. It's creepy, weird, full of f*cked up characters and just delightful.
It was interesting. I don't know if I would recommend it but I thought it was worth a read.
If there is an ending you won't see coming, I think it would be this one. Unless you've read spoilers. Which you shouldn't because that would be lame.
Four stars just for having three characters fighting for the "Most F*cking Insane Award".
‘Perhaps it’s all a joke, meant to fool literary London into respect for rubbish’ - The Times
‘A silly, gloatingly sadistic and grisly yarn… bit better written than most horror hokum but really just the lurid literary equivalent of a video nasty’ - Sunday Express
‘No masterpiece and one of the most disagreeable pieces of reading that has come my way in quite a while… Enjoy it I did not’ - Sunday Telegraph
‘A repulsive piece of work and will therefore be widely admired. Piles horror upon horror in a way that is certain to satisfy those readers who subscribe to the currently fashionable notion that Man is vile’ - Evening Standard
‘Read if you dare’ - Daily Express
The plot of this book can be pretty much summarized by a quote from the book, which was on the back cover of my copy:
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.
It is about a sixteen year old boy named Frank. He is f*cked up. He killed three children when he was a child and now that he's sixteen, he has weird routines and rituals he does every day.
He has a brother named Eric who is possibly even more f*cked up than he is. His brother has been institutionalized for setting fire to dogs and doing other crazy things such as trying to feed maggots and worms to children.
Then there is his father, who has a room that he keeps locked at all times. Frank wonders about the room and at the end, he gets to discover what's in there and it's a bit f*cked up.
This book is good at getting under your skin. It provokes people, I think. It might cause anger or disbelief at times. I know there were a couple of parts that made me feel uneasy and others where I was like "WHAT?!"
The writing is very well done, considering this was his debut. Also, the pacing was really good. It felt like I got through it very quickly. Actually, at the end, I was left kind of wanting to throw the book at the wall for what I thought was an incomplete ending.
It was like "BAM! Huge revelation! And that's it! The ENdddddd trololololololol"
The weird thing about this is book is that it's so darkly humorous at times. So darkly humorous that you feel awful for finding it funny. Like Frank's phone conversations with his brother Eric. His brother Eric is SO MASSIVELY F*CKED UP yet I found him so funny at times. And then I felt awful because he is obviously completely f*cked in the head.
Also, the part where you find out why Eric has become so f*cked up is totally horrifying and made me want to vomit tears. It was honestly one of the most chilling things I've ever read. Maybe I've had a sheltered life, but still...WOAH.
The ending felt completely out of the blue. Not only was I not expecting it but I just didn't quite understand WHY that was in any way connected with the rest of the story.
But it did carry on with the weird, grotesque theme of the book. I guess.
Read it. Don't read it. It's your choice. It's creepy, weird, full of f*cked up characters and just delightful.
It was interesting. I don't know if I would recommend it but I thought it was worth a read.
If there is an ending you won't see coming, I think it would be this one. Unless you've read spoilers. Which you shouldn't because that would be lame.
Four stars just for having three characters fighting for the "Most F*cking Insane Award".
"Rubbish!"- The Times(London)
timpurches's review against another edition
4.0
Even if you hadn't already been warned, the first page of this novel leaves no doubt that you're venturing into a strange world. That's not the only thing that leaps out at you - the quality of the writing is also quickly obvious and draws you, more or less reluctantly, into the disturbed mind of the young Frank Cauldhame
As you learn more of Frank's past, the full horror of what he has done - and just how seriously unhinged he is - is slowly revealed. But you can't help but be caught up in his life, how he passes his time, and the geography and rituals he has created for himself, which frame his small island world.
When you learn of the tragic accident that left him so scared, you start to question the cause of his madness. Was it fate that led him down that path, was it just a contributing factor, or a just mere excuse for his violence and cruelty? That his father and mother are at least a little eccentric, and his brother, the dog burning Eric, is completely insane, leads you to wonder whether there was at least something in the genes that helps account for Frank's strangeness.
It's the inexorable return home of that brother, escaped from incarceration, that preoccupies Frank in the present. And it's Eric's final arrival that triggers drama and denouement of the story's end.
In the end you find that Eric and Frank are not the only members of the Cauldhame household who dish out unthinking cruelty and, for Frank at least, you're left wondering just how much someone should be held responsible for his actions when fate has dealt them a cruel hand.
Though a powerful, engaging and challenging book, there are a couple of unsatisfactory points. First, Bank's depiction of madness - especially Eric's - seems caricatured and exploitative of the real nature of mental illness. Second, the final twist in the tale seemed a little cliched, but to be fair I guess that's largely down to reading it the best part of twenty years after the book was written, when similar twists have become more familiar. That said, I would still recommend The Wasp Factory without hesitation.
As you learn more of Frank's past, the full horror of what he has done - and just how seriously unhinged he is - is slowly revealed. But you can't help but be caught up in his life, how he passes his time, and the geography and rituals he has created for himself, which frame his small island world.
When you learn of the tragic accident that left him so scared, you start to question the cause of his madness. Was it fate that led him down that path, was it just a contributing factor, or a just mere excuse for his violence and cruelty? That his father and mother are at least a little eccentric, and his brother, the dog burning Eric, is completely insane, leads you to wonder whether there was at least something in the genes that helps account for Frank's strangeness.
It's the inexorable return home of that brother, escaped from incarceration, that preoccupies Frank in the present. And it's Eric's final arrival that triggers drama and denouement of the story's end.
In the end you find that Eric and Frank are not the only members of the Cauldhame household who dish out unthinking cruelty and, for Frank at least, you're left wondering just how much someone should be held responsible for his actions when fate has dealt them a cruel hand.
Though a powerful, engaging and challenging book, there are a couple of unsatisfactory points. First, Bank's depiction of madness - especially Eric's - seems caricatured and exploitative of the real nature of mental illness. Second, the final twist in the tale seemed a little cliched, but to be fair I guess that's largely down to reading it the best part of twenty years after the book was written, when similar twists have become more familiar. That said, I would still recommend The Wasp Factory without hesitation.
kriff08's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5