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35th out of 934 books
—
3,312 voters
The Wasp Factory
by
Iain Banks
Frank - no ordinary sixteen-year-old - lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his f...more
Paperback, 184 pages
Published
September 10th 1998
by Simon & Schuster
(first published 1984)
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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 read some pretty terribl...more
Now we all know that dating a fictional psychopath or a sociopath can be a lot of fun. While it is true that these individuals rarely make viable candidates for a long term commitment, short term relationships have been shown to have some real upside. For example, dating a psychopath can be a “breath of fresh, adventurous air” following the end of a stale, boring and unsatisfying relationship as they are much more “uninhibited” and willing to experiment than the typical person. In addition, a p...more
Jan 09, 2013
K.D. Oliveros
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to K.D. by:
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010); 100 Best English Novels in the 20th Century
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Question: Are violence and cruelty innate to human nature – or is man inherently civilised?
This is the question posed by that most controversial and loved/ hated novel, The Lord of the Flies. The same question is posed in this book too. However, whereas the canvas was a huge one there, in The Wasp Factory, the reader is viewing things under a microscope. Rather like watching bugs.
From chapter one onwards, Iain Banks invites us into the head of Frank Cauldhame, who is one seriously disturbed teen...more
This is the question posed by that most controversial and loved/ hated novel, The Lord of the Flies. The same question is posed in this book too. However, whereas the canvas was a huge one there, in The Wasp Factory, the reader is viewing things under a microscope. Rather like watching bugs.
From chapter one onwards, Iain Banks invites us into the head of Frank Cauldhame, who is one seriously disturbed teen...more
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
The wasp factory paints a violent world. It’s a grotesque, sick and twisted world. It’s a world in which people and animals come to violent ends. The protagonist, 16 year old Frank, paints his own picture of adolescence.
He lives with his reclusive and eccentric father in a large house on a Scottish island. Frank is obsessive; he's weird; he’s lonely, but he’s fascinatingly inventive and he creates his own mythology and a physical environment for himself that includes such weird contraptions as...more
He lives with his reclusive and eccentric father in a large house on a Scottish island. Frank is obsessive; he's weird; he’s lonely, but he’s fascinatingly inventive and he creates his own mythology and a physical environment for himself that includes such weird contraptions as...more
Jan 18, 2011
smetchie
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommended to smetchie by:
Hugh Foster
Shelves:
bbc-ideas,
fucked-up-in-a-good-way
I've read stories sort of like this before - stories where you really get inside a character's head and the character is a self-centered murderer and crazier than a shithouse rat to boot. But I didn't like any of those characters! I hated them. I spent the whole story disgusted with them.
I actually like Frank. Jesus, I might even kind of understand him. That's really scary! So this book gets 5 stars from me because it got in my head and twisted up my perception and turned things around on me. N...more
I actually like Frank. Jesus, I might even kind of understand him. That's really scary! So this book gets 5 stars from me because it got in my head and twisted up my perception and turned things around on me. N...more
This is an unabridged version, 85MB, running for 5.2 hours.SCREEN INTERPRETATION OF A NOVEL BY IAN BANKS CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS: http://cloudkukuland.com/31871/320559...
If Eric calls, grab your dog and run!BLURB - Frank, no ordinary sixteen-year-old, lives with his father outsIde a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his father measures out his eccentr...more
That ending!? Could have done without that twist.
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 the power of m...more
This is a story about the power of m...more
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 maintains his...more
• 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 maintains his...more
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 character's...more
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 character's...more
Aug 08, 2007
Adam
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
not the feint hearted
Shelves:
horror-disguised-as-literature
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
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 world of a teenage psychopath is delightfully reali...more
- 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 world of a teenage psychopath is delightfully reali...more
Jan 06, 2008
Maggie Galvin
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
posers and sociopaths
Recommended to Maggie by:
someone currently in therapy
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 that did shock me...more
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 that did shock me...more
Jun 27, 2007
Hannah
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Psychopaths
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
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 "mildly" because my OCD doesn't interfere...more
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 "mildly" because my OCD doesn't interfere...more
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 is coming ho...more
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 is coming ho...more
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.
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
Apr 12, 2011
Shovelmonkey1
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
dog haters and budding psychos everywhere
Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by:
1001 books list
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 count unde...more
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 the...more
WHAATTT?!
‘Perhaps it’s all a joke, meant to fool literary London into respect for rubbish’ - The Times...more
‘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 therefore be widely admired. Piles horror upon h
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.
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.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
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 read...more
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 and...more
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 his brother...more
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 his brother...more
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 a sixteen yea...more
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 a sixteen yea...more
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 indication in that ultimate direction. M...more
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 indication in that ultimate direction. M...more
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 Michael Vick and you get...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chaos Reading: * Discussion OPEN!! - *SPOILERS* The Wasp Factory | 19 | 53 | May 11, 2013 08:41pm | |
| The WTF? Book Club: The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks (November Book Selection) | 11 | 41 | Mar 06, 2013 11:30pm | |
| The Ultimate Teen...: The Wasp Factory - Ian Banks | 3 | 9 | Mar 06, 2013 09:59pm | |
| Iain Banks / Iain...: The Wasp Factory | 1 | 16 | Aug 14, 2012 12:47am | |
| Goodreads Librari...: with or without "M" :) - Iain Banks | 4 | 40 | Aug 08, 2011 03:30pm |
This author also publishes science fiction under the pseudonym Iain M. Banks.
Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edi...more
More about Iain Banks...
Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edi...more
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“I'm too drunk to recall much of what I've said. Which, come to think of it, is probably just as well, judging by the way people who are normally quite sensible dissolve into gibbering, rude, opinionated and bombastic idiots once the alcohol molecules in their bloom-stream outnumber the neutrons, or whatever. Luckily, one only notices this if one stays sober oneself, so the solution is as pleasant (at the time, at least) as it is obvious.”
—
8 people liked it
“I held my crotch, closed my eyes and repeated my secret catechism.”
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7 people liked it
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