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A review by wuthering_cephalopod
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
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/