Book Review: The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Iain Banks's first published novel foreshadows the dark, outlandish and eerie properties of his subsequent novels. The literary reviews of The Wasp Factory were not all positive and, in an unusual move, the publishers printed some of the most scathing remarks on the back cover. Banks discussed The Wasp Factory in a 2008 podcast on The Guardian. He believes that perhaps the bad reviews helped his initial book sales. "Anything that got people in literary London that annoyed had to be somehow good."

Frank Cauldhame is being raised by his eccentric, single father on an island just off the coast of Scotland. Frank's father never registered his birth so his education has been at home and the town folk think Frank belongs to a distant cousin. Frank is educated but isolated and invents his own world. His religion is primitive, skull-topped totems surround the island, the wasp factory is his divination, he has invented his own catechisms for success. Early in the story, and even on the back cover, we learn that Frank has killed three other children. "It was just a stage I was going through." Even so, Frank is somehow not unsympathetic. Maimed by an early accident, isolated, his only friend a dwarf, he never feels sorry for himself or places blame elsewhere. He is, at least, an honest narrator.

The father, Angus, is as inscrutable as Frank himself. He's a "hippy", a doctor, a recluse and an intellectual kook.. His has a basement full of cordite, a study that is always locked, a son that is in a mental hospital and a son who doesn't legally exist. His house is spotted with scribbled bits of paper with measurements of doorways, chair heights, cord lengths, and he quizzes Frank on those dimensions .

Frank's older brother Eric is in a mental hospital for setting dogs on fire and forcing town children to eat maggots. "What Happened to Eric" is the chapter in The Wasp Factory that describes the incident that sent an already fragile young man over the edge. In the podcast with Iain Banks stated that the incident in the nursing home is based on a real incident that happened to an acquaintance. Surely enough to make anyone a bit bonkers. Now he's escaped and is coming home. He calls Frank as he travels, taunting him.

The homecoming finally lets us learn what the wasp factory really is. It's a testament to Frank's meticulous and creative willingness to leave his future to his proper fate. We also learn a great deal more about Angus and, in a signature twist, a great deal more about Frank. Eric is the unfortunate but insanely dangerous catalyst for the tumbling of all Frank has ever believed.

The Wasp Factory isn't quite horror. Frank's almost impassive narrative keeps the story on track. It is entertaining and thought provoking. It has been described as Gothic, and perhaps it is. I recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys hard-twisting fiction. It may be difficult to find any Banks's books in local stores but most are available on Amazon.com.

The book:

The Wasp Factory

Published in USA by Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1998. Original publication in Great Britain, 1984 by Macmillan London Limited.

The Podcast:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2008/jul/16/guardian.bookclub.podcast