The Question and Answer section for The Wasp Factory is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.. Stop, please, just…. But a cleverly written book does not necessarily make for an enjoyable book. Macmillan. The wave rose slowly between us while my father stared at me. Iain’s writing style is quite his own. [ And, finally, the counter-argument to the cult of power through death, as Frank decides to leave the island and to try to live in the real world: Huh, what? Iain Banks died in June 2013. The – you know the ad campaign is not really forming in my mind right now I gotta be honest Iain, you know what I mean, I can't see the cover… yes… yes… the brother…mentally ill… drugs… torture --- Iain, wait, wait. It's the guy who rang last week – no, I don't want to speak to him, no---HI IAIN!! This book was selected by the book group I attend, it's not something I would have chosen. He has no birth certificate and no national insurance card. Then my father must have answered the buzzer in the house, because Diggs stooped slightly and talked into the grille beside the button, and then pushed the gate open and walked over the bridge, on to the island and down the path towards the house. He got off the bike at the bridge and left it propped against the suspension cables, then walked to the middle of the swaying bridge, where the gate is. To some, Banks is a visionary crafting a tale of the macabre. The Wasp Factory: An opera with murder in its heart and a sting in its tale. Arifa Akbar @arifa_akbar. The birds had told me Diggs had left a few minutes earlier, so I ran back the quick way to the house, where the lights all burned as usual. Having previously read and enjoyed The Crow Road and Raw Spirit, and having watched and read tributes to him at the time of his death, I wanted to read his first novel. Then I knew what had happened. I decided nothing would be too bad, and that tomorrow I would ask the Factory for more information. The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks, is told from the point-of-view of the protagonist, Frank Cauldhame. What can we do you for today? Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2019. OUT! Frank is no ordinary sixteen-year-old. It was just a stage I was going through.’ About the Author Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. The Wasp Factory is an extremely dark novel about 16-year-old Frank. To create our... Frank, no ordinary sixteen-year-old, lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. 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. Ok he did have a fairly alarming body count unde. 3 " I completely get if you rated it 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 5" stars !!! Read in 90's it's a book about a girl who lives with her dad. Good things are worth waiting for (Sue Arnold, GUARDIAN) A Gothic horror story of quite exceptional quality...macabre, bizarre and...quite impossible to put down (FINANCIAL TIMES) A mighty imagination has arrived on the scene (MAIL on Sunday) Book Description Iain Banks' momentous first novel, published in 1984. Written by Aleksei Marchyn Frank Cauldhame has built in the attic of his house a Wasp Factory - a device consisted of the dial and traps where he launches a wasp, and from where she goes depends how she will die. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Oh, and seagulls? Listen, er ---- oh what? The Wasp Factory Questions and Answers. I didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't that! Oh yes, ha ha, that's what we do here, we publish books. Glad this was not an evening encounter, and should I now be scared of. It's the guy who rang last week – no, I don't want to speak to him, no---HI IAIN!! Far-fetched and fanciful? Maggots do not eat healthy tissue. Essentially, for me, there was no story. To see what your friends thought of this book. The Wasp Factory was written almost 30 years ago by Iain Banks, who sadly died in 2013. One of the most brilliant first novels I have come across. If you haven't yet read any Iain Banks I can only warn: handle with care. Iain Banks died in June 2013. The weak and the unlucky, and the stupid.”, “Often I've thought of myself as a state; a country or, at the very least, a city. I took my catapult from my belt, selected a half-inch steelie, sighted carefully, then sent the big ball-bearing arcing out over the river, the telephone poles and the little suspension bridge to the mainland. Criticisms of the Thatcher regime belong elsewhere. Holy Shit! This socialisation process is clearly shown through Frank’s keen interest in “War” (Banks, 1990, p23), and his knowledge of what makes “a good War” (Banks, 1990, p23), which is a result of his watching television programmes on wars. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Damn this book. You have to have an angle. The black boards have very minor bumping to the spine edges. My father turned up the ring on the cooker under the soup-pan, looking beneath the lid into the warming mixture and then turning back to look at me. But you know I just can't really see this as being something we would be interested in just at the ------ oh. After being committed to an asylum. I first read this excellent book over a year ago, following several others by Iain Banks, all of which I enjoyed, if that's the right word for some of them. E-mail after purchase. I suppose I could have thought from the little he'd said up until then that my half-brother was dead, or ill, or that something had happened to him, but I knew then it was something Eric had done, and there was only one thing he could have done which would make my father look worried. [s]. Yes, I get it, the main character is nuts. Peter Kenny is the one reader (I've heard five) who brings out Banks's glorious sardonic wit. From the Back Cover Enter if you can bear it – the extraordinary world of Frank, just sixteen and unconventional to say the least ‘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. I decided to give it a go because it's good to try the unfamiliar sometimes. He put the stub of the fat cigar he had been smoking under the cold tap, turned the water on for a second while the brown stump sizzled and died, then threw the sodden remnant in the bin. 1998 Like life it is complicated, so all the components are there. Iain Banks was born in Scotland, where he lived for the majority of his life. It's hard not to get caught up in his boyish excitement and child-like inner world. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in. His first science fiction novel, Consider Phlebas, came out in 1987. Review At last, a reader who does it justice . He wanted to be a writer from an early age, and after a series of unpublished attempts at science fiction in the late 1970s, he published his first novel, The Wasp Factory, at the age of thirty. We’d love your help. This can be seen in The Wasp Factory, as Frank’s brutality is blatantly a result of what he is exposed to. An interesting and clever ending that I ruined for myself by trying to see how many pages the book has - don’t do that yourself, it’s 244! The dust jacket is in very good condition, with minor bumping to the edges/corners. If I was lucky, my father might tell me something and, if I was luckier still, it might even be the truth. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. What a story this was. This teenager has some serious issues, unconventionality being the least disturbing. American Psycho meets Lord of the flies with a little bit of Countryfile thrown in! He lives on an island – what, like Robinson Crusoe? Father didn't like me to be there when Diggs came and, anyway, I still had a couple of Poles to check before the sun went down. But strangely enough I could get the feeling that I would enjoy this book purely from the title. So, no, the smiling child's brain was not being eaten. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. 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