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Jul 13, 2011

mark rated it:

a gentle coming-of-age tale set in rustic scotland, depicting the charming misadventures of a precocious lad and his idiosyncratic older brother as they struggle to understand themselves and each other.

this is some hard stuff, and by "hard" i mean Hard Like the Marquis de Sade Is Hard. do not read this if you cannot stomach graphic depictions of animal torture. do not read this if you cannot stomach the murder of children. this one was hard for me to read at times, and i re More...

52 comments like (42 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Chilly rated it:

Previously having reviewed some of Banks sci-fi, I was eager to delve into the “straight fiction”, and this was his first novel. It is certainly stunning, sort of the Columbine version of Holden Caufield, were the reader is given entry into the first person mind of a kid who’s not all there, at war, and doesn’t mind if the world knows it. Frank has murdered three of his siblings, and currently his older brother is on the lamb from a mental institution. He has a unique existence, having grown up More...

1 comment like (13 people liked it)

May 10, 2011

K.D. rated it:

This is the second book I’ve read that belongs to gothic genre. The first one was Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto , a 1764-first published novel that actually started it. Castle is about mysterious happenings in an old English castle that lead to mistaken identities making the characters killing one another only to find out that they should not. Fast forward to 1984, 220 years after, came The Wasp Factory that tells the story of a family living in a Scottish island. There is still a flurr More...

19 comments like (15 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2010

Shedim rated it:

The Wasp Factory, Bank's clever and unwinding thesis on nature versus nurture, is often accused of sensationalism through shock. While one might consider the events and actions of the characters disturbing (despite their spartan descriptions), the author's attempt to mirror the brutality of the real world builds the foundation to the paradox and paradigms exposed in the story (the brutality which also serves as inspiration for Frank's creation of the Factory).

This is a story about t More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2011

Brad rated it:

I've read this too many times to give a straight up reaction review, and I feel like any significant writing I might attempt on this book would necessarily become an essay. It's too late at night for that, so maybe next time. Instead, here is what I was thinking this time through:

• I love Frank. I don't mean I love to hate him. I mean I love to love him. And I think it is one of the greatest achievements of Iain Banks' career that he makes me love Frank. I empathize with him as he m More...

12 comments like (16 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2007

Stefan rated it:

Reads like one long aristocrats joke. It's what some 15 year old would come up with to shock everyone who doesn't understand how he feels about being bullied. Graphic descriptions of small animals being slaughtered, blown up etc. and not much else to it.
Sure there's a twist of sorts somewhere, but that only managed to get a 'So what?' from me. If the author makes any point about religion or insanity, it's lost in the puberal theatrics. Does give a good feel to the awkwardness of the chara More...

0 comments like (18 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Adam rated it:

For all the so called controversial works out there, few truly shock. I can honestly say Wasp Factory is in this limited company. I wasn't reading for shock value though, and I was still rewarded,weird characters, great narrator, good satire,pitch black humor, and a tale of bizarre Scottish gothic. Lots of unanswered questions and in many ways resembles the slow unvealing of a nightmare(there are scenes of such horror in this book I had to put it down for a minute after reading them.)My first Ba More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

Gloria rated it:

Things I learned from this book:

- there are vicious killer rabbits out there, so watch out;

- you can make a bomb out of pretty much anything, even a five year old can do it;

- if you let a psychotic hippy with a penchant for psychological experiments bring up kids on an isolated island, the kids will invariably turn out to be looneys (well, duh).

This was good overall. I enjoy Banks' writing style and the characterisation was superb. The demented wor More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2008

Maggie rated it:

Ooooh, shock me with killing things and not caring. Yes, I get it, the main character is nuts. Ok, the main character does horrible things. Sure, beat me over the head with this same set of ideas for another 190 pages. I'm sure it will be worth it in the end, right?

I read the news every day so I was not the least bit surprised anyone could think like this. The weak plot just pissed me off without enlightening me with a new perspective on the issue or entertaining me. The thing More...

1 comment like (15 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Hannah rated it:

Grotesque, sick and twisted, I did not enjoy this book at all. I had been expecting horror and macabre after hearing various reviews and recommendations, but instead of being entertained by the gruesome content I was purely disgusted that anyone could find this a pleasureable read. I couldn't get much further than the half way mark after being particularly horrified by a disturbing incident involving an old War bomb. This is perhaps the first novel I've ever been able to leave unfinished without More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2011

Ian rated it:

Six thoughts on The Wasp Factory:

1. Yes, The Wasp Factory has a lot of disturbing images of a psychotic youth committing violence on people and animals.

2. Yes, it's worth it. Everything has a reason, a purpose. The book is full of physical and emotional violence, but it's decidedly not gratuitous.

3. Iain Banks is once again inside my head, but this time it disturbs me rather deeply. I'm mildly OCD. (A good tax lawyer has to be OCD to some extent.) I say More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2008

Kurt rated it:

I'm regret losing my copy of this book , as I would love to read it again. It ranks as one of the most bizarre novels I've ever read, It's never short of grotesque imagery and surreal situations, all underlined by a ratcheting tension.

It's about a brutal sixteen year old boy named Frank, a murderer of both people and animals, who has formed a personal mythology based on the strange totems and contraptions he's build on his father's property. He's just received word that his brother More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Nov 24, 2007

Banzai rated it:

Yikes! This book is a veritable mire of bunny-abusing misanthropes! It turned from bleak to black in a couple of pages and I didn't bother finishing it for fear of slitting my wrists in the interim.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Shovelmonkey1 rated it:

Holy Shit! American Psycho meets Lord of the flies with a little bit of Countryfile thrown in! It took me one commute to read this book and it may be telling of my own psyche that I didn't actually consider Frank to be that crazy. Eric the dog burner was blatantly bat shit crazy but Frank, despite his slightly odd proclivities relating to the collection of animal heads on sticks and wasps in "future telling" mazes appeared to be eccentric at best. Ok he did have a fairly alarming body More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2007

Andy rated it:

I struggle to see why so many people find the book's content so disturbing. Much as the killing off of relatives and torturing of various creatures for pleasure are not images I priorotise as ones I like to have conjured up in my mind, I felt Banks could have been far more graphic. You should not let the disturbing nature of the content overshadow Banks' obscure creativity and captivating writing style. I felt the storyline could have been more engrossing and therefore the book misses out on th More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2011

Lisa rated it:

WHAATTT?!

‘Perhaps it’s all a joke, meant to fool literary London into respect for rubbish’ - The Times

‘A silly, gloatingly sadistic and grisly yarn… bit better written than most horror hokum but really just the lurid literary equivalent of a video nasty’ - Sunday Express

‘No masterpiece and one of the most disagreeable pieces of reading that has come my way in quite a while… Enjoy it I did not’ - Sunday Telegraph

‘A repulsive piece of work and will t
More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2011

Space rated it:

I enjoyed this book well. It was far different than anything I've ever read - which I'm sure most people who've read it will agree with - but not bad at all. If you've read any other reviews of this book, you know how violent and gruesome it is with animal cruelty and murder. Some people have said it makes them physically ill and they're not able to finish it. I didn't have that problem. I guess I'm desensitized from all my years of working on computers. Anyway, if you can fight through it, just More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2007

Brittany rated it:

For some reason, I was never able to get into this book. I never felt connected to any of the characters, nor did I ever care about any of them at all.

It also includes gory details of the torture and killing of animals and people, which I'm just not into. If you are a fan of gory macabre writing, this is right up your alley.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

eric rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2008

Capitu rated it:

I found this book extremely disturbing. Ian Banks’ narrator so candidly tells about murdering 3 children and killing animals that as a reader one is almost drawn into feeling sorry for him in a Humbert Humbert kind of way. But Ian Banks is not Nabokov and even if this book successfully got under my skin – it contains some of the most disturbing scenes I have ever read - I never quite believed in the characters. Can a 5 year old commit murder? For most of the book I kept wondering that I was More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 01, 2008

Greg rated it:

One of the most bizarre, yet compelling books that I have ever read. It was an assigned reading for an advanced seminar that I took while in college. Specifically, the seminar was on the post-punk British culture, so that might give you a sense of what the book is like. If not, the seminar was based on how the punk culture of the early to mid 80's was a rebellion against the British authority. In so doing, the punk movement made its statement by taking everything that was normal and excepted More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 18, 2008

Andy rated it:

Written in the early 80's, The Wasp Factory reveals the first person narrative of a teen-aged serial killer, Frank Cauldhame, who never gets caught (that's not a spoiler; the reader is aware from the start that the teenager's murders have never been traced back to him).

Using bizarre religious ceremony and imaginative contraptions, Frank has an insatiable appetite for killing rodents and insects. He sees nothing wrong with blowing up rabbits or incinerating wasps, yet is appalled when More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2007

Malcolm rated it:

The first Banks novel I read, and still my favorite. It's not SF, as much of his other work is. Rather, it's a story about a young person, who within the first few pages of the book, has already informed us that they are a multiple murderer.

It gets far stranger after that. The writing is powerful, well-crafted, and presents some remarkably creepy things from the perspective of this young person, living with their father on a remote island near Scotland. The very plainness of th More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2008

Doogyjim rated it:

This is still resonating with me a few days after finishing despite the fact that a work colleague spoiled the twist for me! The apocalyptic ending is especially powerful after the creepy calm that pervades the book.

With all the warnings on the cover you'd think it was a macabre rollercoaster but the reflections upon nature and the landscape provide a wonderfully pastoral foil to the deranged goings on. I guess it depends how upset you get about small animals dying at the hands of More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2007

Isabella rated it:

This book is disturbing, twisted and sick....which makes it my kind of book.

My first brush with Iain Banks, whom I previously only knew of as a sci-fi writer, which was the actual reason I never tried one of his books before. I'm just not that into science fiction.

Guess I could try some of his non-science-fiction-fiction since I have very much enjoyed this one.

Well, up until the last chapter. Not happy with the conclusion. Like, at all. I don't recall any indi More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 22, 2008

Justin rated it:

My dad gave me a packet of books for X-Mas, and this was one. I brought it with me to Hawaii, and was stuck reading it on the way home because the Maui airport doesn't have a newsstand. I say "stuck reading it" because this book is a reprehensible piece of crap. The characters are all mentally, psychologically, and morally deficient, and not in the amusing/poignant way that they are in "Trainspotting." Don't bother with this novel, unless for some reason you happen to be Mic More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 17, 2012

A rated it:

Twisted. That's one of many words to describe Iain Banks debut novel, the Wasp Factory. When it was first published in the 80's critics didn't know what to think. Some saw it as nothing but depraved, while others thought it was a work of genius. They were both right. This is a depraved work of genius that explores human nature and deception with skill. With a matter of fact voice, his narrator introduces himself as Frank, a eunich who has killed three family members - but it was only a phase. He More...

0 comments like

Jan 17, 2012

Sannie rated it:

‘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 F More...

0 comments like

Oct 25, 2011

Gaurav rated it:

Maybe not THE MOST SURPRISING plot twist I’ve ever read but pretty damn close was Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory.

‘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.

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0 comments like

Sep 29, 2011

Sam rated it:

Frank Cauldhame is a troubled teenager leading an isolated like on an island with his father. He is, in fact, *very* troubled. He loves torturing animals, including decapitating mice, birds, wasps, etc. He is highly adept at making home made bombs, and revels in building miniature dams and models of villages downstream, and then blowing up the dams to flood the villages and kill their (imaginary) inhabitants. His father is very controlling, and also distant. And, as we learn, Frank has comm More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)