The Wasp Factory: Ian Banks
£8.70£9.50 (-8%)
Review At last, a reader who does it justice . . . Peter Kenny is the one reader (I’ve heard five) who brings out Banks’s glorious sardonic wit. Good things are worth waiting for (Sue Arnold, GUARDIAN) A Gothic horror story of quite exceptional quality…macabre, bizarre and…quite impossible to put down (FINANCIAL TIMES) A mighty imagination has arrived on the scene (MAIL on Sunday) Book Description Iain Banks’ momentous first novel, published in 1984. From the Back Cover Enter if you can bear it – the extraordinary world of Frank, just sixteen and unconventional to say the least ‘Two years after I killed Blyth, I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons and more fundamental reasons than I’d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did my young cousin Esmeralda, 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.’ About the Author Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. He gained enormous popular and critical acclaim for both his mainstream and his science fiction novels. Iain Banks died in June 2013. Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles _the day we heard my brother had escaped. I already knew something was going to happen; the Factory told me. At the north end of the island, near the tumbled remains of the slip where the handle of the rusty winch still creaks in an easterly wind, I had two Poles on the far face of the last dune. One of the Poles held a rat head with two dragonflies, the other a seagull and two mice. I was just sticking one of the mouse heads back on when the birds went up into the evening air, kaw-calling and screaming, wheeling over the path through the dunes where it went near their nests. I made sure the head was secure, then clambered to the top of the dune to watch with my binoculars. Diggs, the policeman from the town, was coming down the path on his bike, pedalling hard, his head down as the wheels sank part way into the sandy surface. He got off the bike at the bridge and left it propped against the suspension cables, then walked to the middle of the swaying bridge, where the gate is. I could see him press the button on the phone. He stood for a while, looking round about at the quiet dunes and the settling birds. He didn’t see me, because I was too well hidden. Then my father must have answered the buzzer in the house, because Diggs stooped slightly and talked into the grille beside the button, and then pushed the gate open and walked over the bridge, on to the island and down the path towards the house. When he disappeared behind the dunes I sat for a while, scratching my crotch as the wind played with my hair and the birds returned to their nests. I took my catapult from my belt, selected a half-inch steelie, sighted carefully, then sent the big ball-bearing arcing out over the river, the telephone poles and the little suspension bridge to the mainland. The shot hit the ‘Keep Out – Private Property’ sign with a thud I could just hear, and I smiled. It was a good omen. The Factory hadn’t been specific (it rarely is), but I had the feeling that whatever it was warning me about was important, and I also suspected it would be bad, but I had been wise enough to take the hint and check my Poles, and now I knew my aim was still good; things were still with me. I decided not to go straight back to the house. Father didn’t like me to be there when Diggs came and, anyway, I still had a couple of Poles to check before the sun went down. I jumped and slid down the slope of the dune into its shadow, then turned at the bottom to look back up at those small heads and bodies as they watched over the northern approaches to the island. They looked fine, those husks on their gnarled branches. Black ribbons tied to the wooden limbs blew softly in the breeze, waving at me. I decided nothing would be too bad, and that tomorrow I would ask the Factory for more information. If I was lucky, my father might tell me something and, if I was luckier still, it might even be the truth. I left the sack of heads and bodies in the Bunker just as the light was going completely and the stars were starting to come out. The birds had told me Diggs had left a few minutes earlier, so I ran back the quick way to the house, where the lights all burned as usual. My father met me in the kitchen. ‘Diggs was just here. I suppose you know.’ He put the stub of the fat cigar he had been smoking under the cold tap, turned the water on for a second while the brown stump sizzled and died, then threw the sodden remnant in the bin. I put my things down on the big table and sat down, shrugging. My father turned up the ring on the cooker under the soup-pan, looking beneath the lid into the warming mixture and then turning back to look at me. There was a layer of grey-blue smoke in the room at about shoulder level, and a big wave in it, probably produced by me as I came in through the double doors of the back porch. The wave rose slowly between us while my father stared at me. I fidgeted, then looked down, toying with the wrist-rest of the black catapult. It crossed my mind that my father looked worried, but he was good at acting and perhaps that was just what he wanted me to think, so deep down I remained unconvinced. ‘I suppose I’d better tell you,’ he said, then turned away again, taking up a wooden spoon and stirring the soup. I waited. ‘It’s Eric.’ Then I knew what had happened. He didn’t have to tell me the rest. I suppose I could have thought from the little he’d said up until then that my half-brother was dead, or ill, or that something had happened to him, but I knew then it was something Eric had done, and there was only one thing he could have done which would make my father look worried. He had escaped. I didn’t say anything, though.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Abacus, 1st edition (27 Jun. 2013) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 256 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 9780349139180 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0349139180 |
| Dimensions | 19.6 x 1.7 x 12.7 cm |
by Lesley Mc
I had heard great things about this ‘classic’, but found it banal and disappointing and that it was trying way too hard to be ‘edgy’.
by Nick Archer
I first read this book many years ago, and enjoyed it at the time as something unique and important, in the same way as American Psycho or The Third Policeman. The Wasp Factory, in some ways is a little like an amalgam of those two books, and carries you into the protagonists mind and the small kingdom of his home island. I won’t go into details of the story, if you haven’t read it i don’t want to ruin the experience, if you have you already know, but there is a plotline throughout, with its final chapter revelations that seems more relevant in today’s society than ever before, the exploration of identity. Iain Banks first novel has stood the test of time and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone
by Michael Payne
An incredibly inventive tale, told in the finest detail, in what I can only describe as a surreal horror story. Explosive periods are intermingled with quietly contemplative sessions. A disquieting but worthwhile read.
by S. Meadows
Before reading, I knew nothing about the plot, only that the book was described to me by others as being not only brilliant, but also weird and rather disturbing. It was said to be unlike anything that I would likely have read before.
Upon reading, I would say that is partly true. The story is told in the first person by Frank, a teenager verging on becoming an adult, though he recalls incidents from earlier in life, which help us to get a view on a very twisted individual. The reason I say ‘partly’ is because if one imagines a child half way between the protagonists of Catcher In The Rye and American Psycho then you might not be too far off. As it’s written on the back cover, it is no great spoiler to say that he has murdered 3 people, all while he was under the age of criminal responsibility.
But Frank’s not the mad one in the family. Oh no, that title belongs to Eric. After all, he was the one who set fire to the dogs and who has just escaped from an institution. It is this escape that provides the impetus for the book’s narrative. Mostly, it is told in flashback, with Frank recalling the details of how he killed his three victims and of how Eric got to be how he was.
In so doing, what Banks presents us with is a work of a hugely twisted imagination. One wonders about someone’s mental well-being if they had such an imagination to think this all up. In truth, though, I think it takes someone who recognises the potential of the depths of darkness that can dwell within in the human soul and who can handle that to be able to dissect it as Banks does. Because while this appears a novel about a disturbed teen, there is more than meets the eye. The Wasp Factory of the title is hinted at early on, but remains quite enigmatic for most of the novel, but when we see what it is, we get an excoriating critique of what Banks sees in religion.
There are other critiques and layers that Banks piles on. All throughout the novel, in addition to the disturbing episodes (and there was one scene where I put the book down it was so disturbing) there was something else amiss. I tried to put my finger on it, but missed the clues that in retrospect were there, but which only fully revealed at the end. But for the sake of those who’ve not yet read it, I will leave that for you to discover. It is by no means an enjoyable book to read, that’s the wrong word to use. But it is certainly a fine work of twisted fiction.
by Leeanne W
Let me start first by saying that this book definitely needs to come with trigger warnings, for the vast amount of animal/torture and child abuse it has. I adore all animals and kids, and this was a bit tough to stomach at times, though I carried on, as it is only fiction. Whereas I read a lot of extreme horror/Splatterpunk, and can happily read or watch people being tortured, I fall to pieces and am a complete mess if it happened to an animal or child, but I persevered, and boi, was I glad I did. This is a phenomenal book, which is a cult classic from 1984, and it centres around 16 year old Frank, who is also the narrator. Now Frank is a very disturbed kid, who lives a kinda sheltered life with his father, on an island off the coast of Scotland. He spends his days surveying the land and checking on his ‘Sacrifice Poles’, which he has erected all around the outskirts of the island, which he believes will protect it. These ‘sacrifice poles’ have heads placed on top from animals/birds which Frank has killed, rabbits, crows, etc. He also has an older brother called Eric who has been incarcerated in a sanitarium for a crime which is hinted at throughout but we don’t get to find out until later on in the book. But one day, the police arrive with news that Eric has escaped, and might be headed home…dun, dun, dun!!
It’s quite clear these boys have some serious mental health issues, with Frank being obsessed with ‘The Wasp Factory’ which he has created.
This book does seem a tad drawn out, with long chapters, and the author tends to describe every little thing in minute detail, and which isn’t really relevant to the story. This book is awesome, and I believe it spawned a movie, though I don’t think I could watch it, as it would be a helluva slow burn to the point of being boring. But the book is far from ‘yawn material’ with a complete doozy of a twist at the end.
I highly recommend this, though beware of the TW if you are easily upset with animal/child abuse, and which would have been a 5 star read, but I deducted a star because of this.
A good solid 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
by Tricky
Love Banksy’s sci-fi stuff so thought I’d try this. Not bad for a first published novel… but definitely a bit odd. There were quite a few bits that tickled me, but I won’t spoil it for you.