The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

...an eccentric man to say the least - on a remote Scottish island. Frank is not your run-of-the mill adolescent; he announces from the outset that he is a three times familial murderer with the throwaway line, "it was just a stage I was going through". Frank's distasteful personal habits and strange, obsessive daily routines are gruesome yet hilarious in the darkest kind of way. As his father hides away in his study, up to no good, Frank embarks upon ...
...warped version of the Delphi Oracle, The Wasp Factory. Tension rises as Frank waits for Eric, his older brother. Eric is a charming chap who has taken to setting fire to dogs. He has escaped from a secure mental hospital and is on his way home. Given Frank's own weird, fetishistic existence, this is an extremely worrying prospect… The Wasp Factory is a sort of whodunnit, howdunnit, whydunnit, all wrapped up in a thick coating of outrageous black ...

jillmurphy 09.04.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

...those readers who subscribe to the currently fashionable notion that man is vile." So read a review in the Evening Standard of Banks' debut novel, first published in 1984. And I agree completely. If you're willing to read of horrific torture and what is probably the world's most dysfunctional family, then this could well be the book for you. Meet Frank, the novel's narrator. Living with his father on a small Scottish island, he does not actually ...
...that this was wrong on the part of his father, but he has been educated at home, so he is content. However, the family's home life is not a simple one: at only sixteen years old, Frank already has the murders of three younger family members under his belt. He thinks about these murders all the time, but nobody else has realised yet that it was him - they all think the deaths were bizarre coincidences... Add to this equation Frank's brother Eric, ...

emmorticia 14.05.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

This is the first book op I’ve done, so be gentle with me!! It’s 7 years since I did English A Level, so the ability to write critical essays on literature is lost in the mists of time…. I recently finished reading ‘The Wasp Factory’, which was recommended to me by a friend. I bought it quite cheaply on Amazon, which has all of Iain Banks’ work. I hadn’t read any of his work before, and to honest I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect I had heard ...
...taste in fiction, I read the book with a fairly open mind. The Wasp Factory tells the story of Frank; Frank is 16 years old and lives in a remote part of Scotland with his Dad, an ageing hippie, who lets Frank pretty much do what he likes. Frank’s brother Eric has been committed to a mental institution because of his severe psychological problems, which involves doing nasty things to animals, dogs in particular. Frank’s favourite pastime is performing ...

e_rees3 06.02.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

...a full deck either. The Wasp Factory is a strange book. The plot, such as it is, follows Frank on his isolated Scottish Island as he prepares for the imminent arrival of his half-brother Eric, who has escaped from a secure mental institution. However, that's not really the main point of this rather short novel (I read it in around a day). The book is narrated by Frank, who is a deeply unreliable narrator. Indeed, every 'fact' we learn should be treated ...
...event is filtered first through the character the event has happened to, and then through Frank. Because the book is written in the first person always in Frank's voice, the language is at times rough (I don't mean swearing, though there is a bit of that) - it is, after all, the voice of an adolescent, and a disturbed one at that. "I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. I already knew something ...

mattygroves 31.08.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

Three murders and the boy is only 16 - that is quite a tally for one so young. The book is written in the first person by Frank, our 'hero'. Frank lives with his father but has never been registered with the authorities and so doesn't really exist as a legal entity. He is left to his own devices each day by his old ex-hippy father, and what he does each day would certainly win him a prize for imagination, if not for kindness to animals or respect ...
...as that would detract from the reading of the novel. But let me just put two words together and let your imaginations run riot: rabbits, flamethrower. Frank also describes the three murders he has committed. He describes the method, his feelings at the time and his methods of avoiding discovery. His reasons, to a rational person, may not seem fathomable; his cousin, Esmerelda, was only murdered to even up the balance (his first two victims were male)! ...

Ophelia 28.11.2002 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

The Wasp Factory. ********************* I spotted Iain Bank's the Wasp Factory on a friend's bookshelf at the end of last year. It was the title that intrigued me more than anything. The book is described on the front as a 'gothic horror novel' and the back page reads: Enter - if you can bear it - the extraordinary private world of Frank, just sixteen, and unconventional, to say the least. 'Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother ...
...through.' I borrowed the book and I just finished it last week. Here's what I thought. The Story-Line. **************** The book is told from the perspective of Frank Cauldhame, a sixteen year old who lives on a tiny and remote Scottish island owned by his reclusive father. Frank does not officially exist. His birth was never registered and he does not attend school. His father lets him run wild in return for his silence about his official non-existence. ...

nickyturnill 16.01.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

...Just glancing through some of the other reviews of Iain Banks's debut novel, The Wasp Factory, these seem to be the most commonly used words. But I think they've missed out the most important one: FUNNY. The Wasp Factory is described on the front cover as "a gothic horror", and sure, it does contain a lot of gore, violence and killing. However, when I read this book I found it funny more than anything. It's black humour, certainly, probably as black ...
...I'm just a freak… The story is written from the perspective of Frank Cauldhame, a 16 year old boy who lives on a remote Scottish island with his dad. Frank doesn't officially exist. His older brother, Eric, has just escaped from a mental hospital and is on the rampage. And his dad likes to ask him the capacity of their dessert spoons. Oh, and Frank has already killed three children. Quite an eccentric family, don't you think? However, Frank is ...

l-m-n-o-p 20.06.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

...of his own invention. As the novel develops, his brother's escape from a mental hospital and impending return lead on to a violent ending and a twist that undermines all that Frank believed about himself. The eponymous Wasp Factory is a clock face salvaged from the local dump. Behind each numeral is a trap, which leads to a different ritual death (for example burning, crushing, or drowning in Frank's own urine) for the wasp that Frank puts into ...
...by the wasp to divine the future. There are also the Sacrifice Poles, upon which hang the bodies and heads of larger animals Frank has killed, and other sacred items, are placed. They define and 'protect' the borders of his territory. Frank occupies himself using his religion and an array of weapons (from his catapult, to home-made flame throwers and pipe bombs) to control the island. He goes for long walks, and occasionally gets drunk with his ...

damob123 15.08.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

...read it. Obviously, tell the general public that a book is downright disgusting and shouldn’t be praised makes people like me look towards it cult status and want to read it more - even bad publicity is publicity – so when I saw it for three pounds in Music Zone, It no more than a check to see if I had the three pounds before I bought it. Iain Banks’ books have black and white covers and so are quite easy to spot (they have just ...
...very little artwork on the cover, just name and title with a few small apparently irrelevant pictures, whose meanings become clear as you read the book. The first thing that struck me about this book is the first section, which has reviews of the book from various newspapers and magazines. Whereas most books would only have the good reviews, The Wasp Factory has all the bad reviews as well, showing how strong the publicity worked for them, regardless ...

Heidavey 06.04.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

...when I was introduced to the Wasp Factory by a friend. Since then I have read all of his output, including the Science Fiction novels written under the name Iain M Banks. All of Iain Banks' books feature strange and interesting ideas. Many of them explore unconventional narrative ideas - such as stories intermingled chapter by chapter but apparently unrelated until the final chapters. He enjoys taking the reader on a voyage of discovery. Above all, ...
...this is usually to cause the reader to question their feelings or ideas. FOr example, in a good guy vs bad guy situation, which is which? Could both be good, just looking at different perspectives? Why should a story begin before the end? Why not write backwards? He has strong political and social views which are often espoused in his novels, and much of his writing is based in Scotland, his home. He creates very beliveable and human characters. ...

iainc 26.02.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

The Wasp Factory is about a 16 year old boy called Frank, who lives outside a remote Scottish village with his father. And we soon realise that this is no ordinary family. Frank takes up his time by torturing animals and insects, under the disillusionment that he's receiving orders from the 'The Factory' and recalling his murder streak of three, that he's over with now, seeing as that was just a phase he went through. When Franks' brother Eric ...
...your hounds!), and so leads the events of the story and the dramatic ending of the book in tow. Written in 1984, this is Iain Bank's first novel, a gothic story of insanity, experimentation, violence, torture, dark comedy, murder and Scotland. For a first time novel its short, being around 184 pages depending on your hard/paperback your reading but it certainly give's plenty of food for thought. It's difficult, where to start with this novel, it ...

Jonny5sk 11.10.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

How do you describe the novels of Iain Banks?. Dark? disturbing? unpleasant? acerbic?, yet at the same time incredibly funny. Think of the League of Gentleman 2nd series, it was sometimes nasty, but still made you laugh out loud - that's how you would describe Banks. Where to start?. If you are new to Banks, you must start with the authors 1st book "The Wasp Factory". It's a book I'm sure some of your friends have read and called "a bit weird" ...
...a few years ago. Still the dark humour, but a little more conventional storyline and characters. Recommendations? I've read 6-7 now, if you were to ask me to choose my favourite, I'd go for "Walking on Glass" - a very clever book which alternates 3 seemingly unconnected stories chapter by chapter. Of the more conventional, I'd choose "Espedair Street", the story of a fallen rock idol living in his converted Scottish church and his somewhat strange ...

Jonny_Narcissus 12.12.2000 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

The Wasp Factory is only for those who enjoy a bit of gore, insanity and weirdness. I discovered it when for my A-level English class I was told to chose from a variety of books that came under the horror genre. The Wasp Factory was one of the books we were given and I automatically felt it would be a good read because the title sounded quite bizarre and little did I know how amazing, yet tragic, this novel would be. As you read through you may get ...
...reading it within a day. The way he acts so crazily in his everyday life and the way he addresses you as a reader makes you really want to know why he is so different. As the story unfolds it reveals to you why he has turned out the way he is, but from what you see from his past, with his mother leaving him from such an early age, you realise that all Frank needed was to be in a stable, normal family but, alas, he was not given such a wondrous thing. ...

bornlippy15 25.01.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

The only bad publicity is no publicity. So if you want a book to sell or a film to be seen, don't worry about negative reviews. In fact, be pleased about them. In fact, *encourage* them. If someone hears that a book 1) is sick; 2) is corrupting; 3) is misogynistic; 4) shouldn't be read, they will naturally want to read it. And if they discover that the book indeed shouldn't be read, but not because it was sick, corrupting, or misogynistic, because ...
...too late: they've already bought the book and helped an author to set off on a lengthy career producing more badly written and boring books. But of course, I'm not talking just in general, I'm talking in particular too. I'm not just talking about "a book", I'm talking about The Wasp Factory, and I'm not just talking about "an author", I'm talking about Iain Banks (with and without the middle "M"). When it was first published The Wasp Factory was ...

rose_of_sharon 12.08.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

...of Banks genre and to the wider literary world. It is not only an award winner and creative masterpiece but also a superb read for almost every person. Banks wit and remorseless treatment of his fictional characters opens them up to the reader in a way that only the most talented masters of the writen word are capable of producing. The visual imagery of the book is staggering and its ability to make you feel the emotions of Frank, a Scottish teenager ...
...On the surface the book appears to be almost too small to be of any substance. Do not let this put you off! Those of you who struggle with the likes of Bova will also love this book. I have owned this book for 5 years now and I must confess to having read it at least 1 every year, probably 10 times in total. It is granted a new lease of life every read as you catch subtle meanings, jokes and microscopic character development. A book for the novice ...

the.lynx 24.03.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks