Subject: THE WASP FACTORY by Iain Banks

From: [email-masked] (Michael C. Berch)
Date: Sat, 21 May 1994 19:07:05 GMT

THE WASP FACTORY
by Iain Banks

reviewed by Michael C. Berch

Scottish writer Iain M. Banks is perhaps best known to us for his
recent SF novels, notably CONSIDER PHLEBAS and USE OF WEAPONS.  But
minus his middle initial, he has published seven nominally mainstream
novels, the first of which appeared in the UK from Macmillan in 1984.

Banks' "mainstream" fiction would have little difficult qualifying for
a horror publisher's imprint if it came to that -- THE WASP FACTORY is
considerably more disturbing than most work that appears inside the
red-silver-and-black covers of US mass-market paperback horror.  This
novel earned Banks instant (and well-deserved) notice, and this
trade paper reprint edition cheerfully displays some samples of
contemporaneous British critical opinion, ranging from PUNCH, which
called THE WASP FACTORY "a first novel not only of tremendous promise,
but also achievement, a minor masterpiece perhaps," to the IRISH TIMES
which wrote, "It is a sick, sick world when the confidence and
investment of an astute firm of publishers is justified by a work of
unparalleled depravity."  The TIMES OF LONDON merely noted that
"perhaps it is all a joke, meant to fool literary London into respect
for rubbish."

Notwithstanding the above, THE WASP FACTORY held this reviewer's rapt
attention through almost the entirety of a nonstop flight from London
to San Francisco.

THE WASP FACTORY is the story of 16 year-old Frank Cauldhame, who
lives with his father in rural Scotland, and whose world revolves
around a bizarre and intricate set of obsessive-compulsive personal
rituals, most of which take place on a small, windswept private island
or in the loft of the house, a place secure from intrusion by
Frank's half-lame father who cannot climb the loft ladder.
Early on, Frank calmly recounts to us that as a child, he murdered
three young companions, one of whom was his younger brother, but (as
he relates), "I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to
ever again.  It was just a stage I was going through."

Despite this monstrosity, and the cruel details of his mechanical
rituals, many of which involve killing and dissecting animals, Frank
is a likeable character.  We do not understand him, but he is not
difficult to get along with.  Perhaps he has inherited his eccentric
nature from his father, a distant and sardonic man whose own obsessions
include requiring Frank to learn -- and recite upon prompting -- the
dimensions and mass of various household objects.

As the novel begins, Frank learns of a threat to his strangely idyllic
existence -- his older brother Eric has escaped from a mental
institution and is believed to be headed toward Frank and his father.
Eric remains offstage as Frank, in each of the early chapters,
anecdotally describes the three murders in complete detail, and shows
how each has contributed to his precious store of treasured objects
and place-names of his private island.  And through this we learn
obliquely of a "little accident" in Frank's early childhood that has
deformed him in some unstated manner.

By mid-book the complete nature of Frank's "accident" is known, and we
begin to understand the nature of his acts, and feel sympathy for him
as someone who will forever be excluded from mainstream society, and
who has instead constructed an intricate system -- almost a complete
personal religion, with mythology and sacrifice -- that provides an
anchor for him in a world that would otherwise seem unbearable.

But by then the escaped Eric is drawing closer, the auguries of
Frank's insect-driven oracle -- the Wasp Factory of the title -- have
grown dark and threatening, and Banks carries us through the final
third of the novel in a dazzling whirlwind of suspense, violence,
terror, and ultimately personal discovery and confrontation.

This is not a book for the squeamish or easily disturbed, but it is
a fascinating portrait of an intelligent but obsessed mind -- and a
notable beginning to Iain Banks' brilliant writing career.

%A Banks, Iain
%T The Wasp Factory
%I Abacus/Little, Brown
%C London
%D 1990 (original 1984)
%G ISBN 0-349-10177-9
%O GBP5.99
%P 184 pp., trade pb

--
Michael C. Berch
[email-masked] / [email-masked]