Author: Iain Banks
Publisher: Abacus; New Ed edition (1 April 1992)
Genre: Gothic
Rate: 5/5 - I loved it!
The Wasp Factory
Review
‘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.’ Quote from the book.
'The Wasp Factory' is Iain Bank's debut novel and it is by
all means not for the faint-hearted! The 16-year-old narrator Frank lives on a
remote Scottish island with his father, where he spends his leisure time
torturing animals. The novel is considered an attack on the romanticised
peaceful Scotland as Frank disturbs this peace by flooding and blowing up
animal habitats, murdering people, and engages in perverse, almost religious,
rituals with the ‘wasp factory’. A torture chamber for wasps, that guides him
through life. The novel is a bildungsroman as we follow the events surrounding
Frank.
Mr Banks keeps the readers caught at the very first line, as
quoted above, several things are going on.
Using his wit Banks has created a narration so gruesomely detailed as it
is comically evoking. Creating a thoroughly psychopathic character that the
readers come to like, even sympathise and empathise with him, when he wilfully
murders younger members of his family and tortures animals, is quite the trick.
It is a brilliant page-turner, and we are left fearing what
happens next. With an outstanding unpredictable ending, this book will stay
with you long after the last sentence. I urge you to pick this book up, you
will not regret it.
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