Don't play with wasps (The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Date:	20/04/09 (120 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A gripping and gut wrenching tale of mental illness, well written

Disadvantages: May disturb you to the point that you may well not want to continue reading

I won a copy of The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks on a local radio station recently, I remembered the book caused a bit of a furore when it was first published in the 80's but it's not the kind of book that would have ever appealed to me so the controversy went in one ear and out of the other.

I was drawn in by the words 'Gothic Horror' which is emblazoned on the front cover and while I found the novel quite difficult to get into at first I quickly became enthralled and couldn't devour the words quickly enough! It's hard to tell you much about the story as this is a book of secrets and the paced way in which these secrets are revealed to the reader makes the novel an extremely intense read.

Frank is a 17 year old boy living with his father in a rural Scottish community. He narrates the entire novel and it's obvious from the opening paragraphs that he is a deeply disturbed young man, he admits murdering three children when he was just a child himself. The reasons and aftermath are given for these killings at various points through the book and reading them gave me a cold feeling as the author has written these terrible acts with a child's voice, this is chilling and made all the more so by the matter of fact attitude Frank had towards his appalling crimes.

Part of the reason Frank has such an awful personality is down to a terrible childhood accident, the accident was alluded to right from the start of the book and I must admit I had vaguely guessed the injuries he suffered to some extent but the descriptive scenes were very harrowing nonetheless.

Frank has built himself a life with his father on a scrap of land they own just outside of town, he rarely leaves the 'island' and spends his time building totem poles from real dried animal heads (of course, he kills the animals himself in terrible sadistic ways) and illicitly communicating over the telephone with his brother, Eric, who has recently escaped from a mental institution where he was being detained for setting fire to dogs.

Do those three paragraphs seem strange enough? Dark, creepy, cold enough? Well, interweave Franks wasp factory into the story and the level of revulsion you feel for the boy cranks up a notch. Considering the book was named for the Factory it doesn't get very much print space but the undercurrent and threat of this clever but fatal device of Frank's own creation is clear throughout the story.

The novel is very well written, it's intentionally sloppy in places but the plot and characters are razor sharp. I knew the author was steering me towards certain emotions in the story, which isn't always a good thing, but this was done in a way that I felt more drawn into the story than ever and any hatred or the very few moments that I smiled while reading was from the heart as I felt I knew Frank and his family personally. It's strange, I can't think of a person I'd rather hate but as the story wore on I began to feel the stirrings of sympathy for Frank and felt his pain as he slowly pieced together his shocking family secrets.

The novel is extremely dark and there are vivid visuals of animal cruelty which I found hard to digest at times. They are always, however, integral to the story, as upsetting to read as they may be. In The Wasp Factory you are glimpsing the mind of someone with a savage mental illness, Frank is a clever and sly young man but his brain is horrifically disturbed and this comes across well in the words of Iain Banks. I felt I read it in a very detached manner, I couldn't seem to delve too deeply into some parts of the plot as I felt strangely unclean after particular sections of Franks inner ruminations.

It's quite a short novel by today's standards, I read it in three or four sittings and the fact that it's so fast paced and bizarre made the story fly along. I wished it was longer when I was within 20 pages of the ending, which incidentally was a solid finale which tied up most loose ends (if such a novel can ever be neatly wrapped up!) and left the reader with a hunger to find out what happens in an unwritten sequel.

Do I recommend it? Well, yes and no. I thoroughly enjoyed it in a strange sort of way, I'm not easily offended and this book didn't offend me. It's certainly a heavier subject matter than the historical novels and crime fiction I usually read but there was something terribly interesting and voyeuristic about The Wasp Factory. It had me hooked almost from the start, but I can quite understand why some people would choose not to read it due to the intense hatred and revulsion you may feel towards Frank and his vile brother.

If you want to read it you can buy a copy from Amazon for £3.99, which is excellent value for such a gripping and intense look into the mind of a deranged murderer.

Summary: A look into the mind of a boy suffering with mental illness and the actions it causes.