The Wasp Factory
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Review
* 'A Gothic horror story of quite exceptional quality...macabre, bizarre ...quite impossible to put down' - FINANCIAL TIMES * 'A mighty imagination has arrived on the scene' - MAIL ON SUNDAY
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
MAIL ON SUNDAY
* 'A mighty imagination has arrived on the scene'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark and mysterious,
By
This review is from: The Wasp Factory (Paperback)
I first read this book about 8 years ago and have since read it several times as the brilliance and originality of it make it a rewarding read. That's not to say it's a happy book because it most certainly isn't. The Wasp Factory is a darkly twisted first person narrative of Frank, a profoundly disturbed teenager whose principle sources of entertainment are torturing animals and bumping off unwanted cousins. And we're not just talking about incinerating ants with a magnifying glass or a bread knife in the back, we are talking DIY flamethrowers, bombs, kites, snake venom and The Wasp Factory - a device of psychopathic genius.
I've never read another book like this and to be honest I'm not sure I want to. Frank's simple yet warped logic is brilliantly explained by the author and gives the reader a new way of seeing the world and seeing connections between seemingly unconnected events that were never obvious before until you've taken a trip in Frank's mind. Banks isn't renowned for subtlety and that charge could be made here but that would be to miss the subtle way the book builds to a climax as Frank's mentally ill brother makes his way home to an explosive endgame after escaping from the secure hospital where he is detained. The Wasp Factory is darkly comic, truly horrifying and well-paced, but most of all it's expertly written and you'll just want to read more and more. Well, that is if the battle with the rabbits near the beginning doesn't put you off. I'd say read it if you dare but don't say I didn't warn you.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark, depraved brilliance.,
By Some Bloke (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Wasp Factory (Paperback)
It's a horror story but doesn't rely just on the blood and guts to shock. There's a heavy psychological aspect to this book. What amazed me is that it's Banks' first, and shows the difference between a developing skill and sheer writing ability that makes the rest of us puke with jealousy.
Writing in the first person like we're all told never to do, Banks creates this remote world where the central character, clearly rather unhinged, spends his insular life committing brutalities towards animals. It seems important, and the only thing that isn't met with disdain and suspicion. His disjointed life in remote Scotland has centred around this and three successful, pointless murders he's acheived. Banks creats the character excellently and builds their world and their mindset in clear demonstration. Personally I equate deliberate cruelty to animals with perversion, but identified well with Frank despite his actions. Banks makes it a page turner, he brings every expression and event to life, and it's a thoroughly enjoyable tale. A massive twist at the end, I didn't see it coming, some readers do. The sickness runs right through this book. It seems to me the product of a sick and depraved mind, who also happens to be a genius.
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Grotesque and yet compelling,
By
This review is from: The Wasp Factory (Paperback)
Having read some of Banks' SF, and then started reading his fiction as well, I still shied away a little from reading "The Wasp Factory". It says much that the bad reviews as well as the good are included on the sleeve, and while it may sometimes not seem as extreme as you might have been lead to believe that's more through the changes to our society and what is now considered acceptable in a work of fiction. The story focuses on Frank, a 16 year old living with his father on a small Scottish island, part of possibly the ultimate dysfunctional family - all of whom seem to be to varying degrees insane. As Frank's horrific history is revealed, there's the prospect of an even more horrific future as his brother - lately escaped from a secure hospital - makes his way back for a visit.... Much of what you may have heard about this book is true. There are horrors upon horrors, it goes all out to shock at some points, and is definately not for the squeamish. The fact that it doesn't descend to being yet another trashy horror shocker is entirely due to the quality of the writing and Banks' unique way of hooking his readers so that one simply has to carry on and find out exactly what it is that he has planted the seeds of. There is much (very) dark humour in some of Frank's descriptions of the events he has participated in, and throughout there's the blackly comic undercurrent of Frank's assumption that he is in fact the only sane one in his family - despite all the evidence to the contrary. Much is said about "the twist" and the brilliance of it, but I found it not nearly as startling as some others seem to have, and in fact it ends in an almost tame way - albeit, as with many a good yarn, with an open-endedness that allows you to think about what may follow. Not a book for everyone by any means, and maybe not as fulfilling a read as some of his later works (especially Complicity) but nonetheless an absorbing, grotesque, horrifying, captivating novel.
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