A review of 'The Wasp Factory' by Iain Banks
Note: The following review was originally published at Amazon.co.uk on 11th. October 2013.
Link to original review: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R3EW2QL2UQSEUV?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
The blurb gives the game away somewhat:
'Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.'
At the centre of 'The Wasp Factory' are two brothers - `Frank' and `Eric', and their father, `Angus'. 16-year old `Frank' lives in a fictitious Scottish town, `Porteneil', with Angus, an academic. `Eric' has just escaped from a psychiatric hospital and is heading back home, regularly contacting `Frank' along the way in what turn out to be a series of bizarre telephone exchanges. It is never clear whether, in the author's mind, `Eric' is in fact `Frank's' schizoid alter ego, but that must be a strong possibility. The telephone conversations might be `Frank' talking to himself. `Frank' does appear to be psychotic as well as psychopathic. He displays the gamut of human emotions but they do not find expression in normal ways. He is generally cold around others, but seems to care about `Eric' and shows some warmth for his friend `Jamie'. He visits the pub regularly to socialise with `Jamie', but he seems distant from the women there. His only other contact with the outside world is the telephone, through which he speaks only to `Eric'. There is an ephemeral sense in which `Porteneil' itself is also distant, that is, from the rest of civilisation. As if to compound the picture of psychological isolation, `Frank' seems to spend most of his time on a desolate, near-island, which seems like an entire world unto itself, where he has created his own murderous kingdom abutting the wild sea. There, he inflicts pain, torture and murder on living things - including, occasionally, human beings.
`The Wasp Factory' is a good novel. The influence of William Golding is obvious, but Banks brings his own unique style. I enjoyed the writing immensely, the way it ebbs and flows and how Banks somehow manages to pitch each scene at just the right tempo. Some of it seems almost Buchanesque to me, but maybe that is just the subtle Scottish environment at work, which Banks paints vividly. Even so, there is the Buchan hallmark use of unusual words: this is the first time I have heard of birds "kaw-calling" or rain "glummuttering" against the window. Wonderful stuff. Looking for a deeper meaning in this novel is difficult because much of the author's `agenda' or `message' is rendered overtly, especially towards the novel's conclusion. I think Banks, regrettably now no longer with us, must have been a leftist, pro-peace and a feminist, as his writing has strong overtones in those directions. Despite his murderous activities, as I see it `Frank' is very much the hero of this novel. I think it is common ground that `Angus' is its villain. While I cannot be certain, I would say that `Eric' does not exist as a separate person in the author's mind and is in fact an alter ego of `Frank'. The author seems to have intended the novel to represent `Frank' as a `blank slate' proposition. The father, some kind of academic who seems to live like a hermit, is representative of authority, with his locked study door behind which he keeps all kinds of `official secrets' hidden from view. These concern the family and are matters that he does not want `Frank' to know about.
The relationship between `Frank' and `Angus' is rich with analogy and allegory concerning politics, science and religion. `Frank' is the innocent experiment, abused by `Angus', who appears to embody scientific authority. Our present scientific, medical and social science community are in the thrall of abusive and dangerous nonsense, much of it subtly influenced by egalitarian political ideology. I suspect the author's intention was to have the reader think of circumcision allegories and some such, but whether or not intended, the conflict between `Angus' and `Frank' highlights something deeper: the cruelties and dangers of ideological tendencies that assume `sameness' among human beings. Angus's evident Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ('OCD') - he keeps asking Frank about the volume or length of various household items - is a simple and obvious an allegory of power. How much of what we learn in our society is, essentially, useless or non-productive and in fact is designed to keep us all in line? However, the eponymous Wasp Factory is the central metaphor of the author's social, political and religious critique. The Factory is not on the island but in the loft of the house where `Angus' and `Frank' live, mirroring the `secret study' except that `Angus' evidently does not know of the Factory's existence and would no doubt be appalled if he did. `The Factory' is a mystical guide for `Frank'. Almost Taoist in its amoral conception, The Factory relies for its operation on natural signals rather than strict randomness or chance. In each cycle of the Factory, a wasp is retrieved from a "ceremonial jam-jar" and placed into the "deadly and perfect" contraption built from an old clock that "used to hang over the door of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Porteneil." On the face of the clock are traps and each wasp must decide through which trap to enter and meet its fate.
Like the murderous island rituals, the Factory is a useless excursion but also reflective of the banality and futility of social ritual in our own society, including religion. It is not surprising that `Frank' should be in thrall to such meaninglessness, however. He begins this novel as a character stripped of his vitality and power, deprived of his essentialist self-identity in a cruel fashion as a result of what we learn was some random and pre-cognitive incident without rational explanation. It is significant both for the characters in this story, and for us, that only once Frank knows the `official secrets' can he then understand the uselessness and futility of his pet `island ideology'. Thus the author cleverly takes the reader on a journey of enlightenment. We move from a primitivist state in which we are in thrall to a kind of clerical pseudo-scientific authority and in which our lives seem wrapped-up in Fate. We discover that the `official secrets' are both mundane - there are no interesting academic chemical experiments in the study, just old bills and other sundry items - but also shocking in that 'Frank' is to make a discovery in the study that seems to explain his entire life. `Frank' is not just of a loserific or `male lesbian' tendency, wishing to inflict pain, torture and suffering on others using the same dice of Fate that struck him; a kind of justice in which the Factory door 'shuts' on others as it did on `Frank'. He is something very different and more, and he ends the novel empowered.
Far from being a `villain' of some kind, `Frank' is in fact an innocent, just as we are; and a hero, just as, in the end, we might be. The rest of the world perhaps sees `Frank', in so far as he is known at all, as cruel and nihilistic, while overlooking the same qualities in itself, which are embodied by `Angus'. The modern world also requires submission and `femininity' among the masses: we are the `Franks', dwelling in a prolonged twilit, like sheep with a need to be led. We are `savage' and must be subdued and pacified for this reason, so that we can never experience Frank's sanguine enlightenment and recognise who we really are and become conscious of our own interests. In the novel, Frank's `resistance violence' - the murders - prove to be futile. The answer for 'Frank' was not really to be found in the study either. There was no 'secret knowledge' or esoteric path. In fact, the key to Frank's life was in his head all along, just as it is for us. Yet Frank's circuitous journey through this novel is not entirely in vain, just as our own learning and experience always points somewhere eventually, even if it might not seem that way at the time. In unconsciously and aimlessly pursuing his own negation, `Frank' is eventually re-born, and the mental daemon, `Eric', is obliterated.
Bank's first novel is not a crude exercise in mere literary nihilism, as some have suggested. One newspaper reviewer called this novel "repulsive", but what in fact is `repulsive' is neither Banks nor his imagination, but the world he fictionalises, which is nothing more than a mirror he holds up to our own - a fitting grotesquerie. Banks ably explores the uneasy juxtapose of the Gothic (Romantic) of much classic literary fiction versus the rationality of the modern world and in a sense he mocks both the critics and the cynics. We can call something `repulsive' and continue to dwell in ignorance in our own desolate little kingdoms, or we can labour to understand. We can wax lyrical about all kinds of avant garde and esotericism, or we can understand the truth: that the central character in this novel is just mad, and so are we.
'Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.'
At the centre of 'The Wasp Factory' are two brothers - `Frank' and `Eric', and their father, `Angus'. 16-year old `Frank' lives in a fictitious Scottish town, `Porteneil', with Angus, an academic. `Eric' has just escaped from a psychiatric hospital and is heading back home, regularly contacting `Frank' along the way in what turn out to be a series of bizarre telephone exchanges. It is never clear whether, in the author's mind, `Eric' is in fact `Frank's' schizoid alter ego, but that must be a strong possibility. The telephone conversations might be `Frank' talking to himself. `Frank' does appear to be psychotic as well as psychopathic. He displays the gamut of human emotions but they do not find expression in normal ways. He is generally cold around others, but seems to care about `Eric' and shows some warmth for his friend `Jamie'. He visits the pub regularly to socialise with `Jamie', but he seems distant from the women there. His only other contact with the outside world is the telephone, through which he speaks only to `Eric'. There is an ephemeral sense in which `Porteneil' itself is also distant, that is, from the rest of civilisation. As if to compound the picture of psychological isolation, `Frank' seems to spend most of his time on a desolate, near-island, which seems like an entire world unto itself, where he has created his own murderous kingdom abutting the wild sea. There, he inflicts pain, torture and murder on living things - including, occasionally, human beings.
`The Wasp Factory' is a good novel. The influence of William Golding is obvious, but Banks brings his own unique style. I enjoyed the writing immensely, the way it ebbs and flows and how Banks somehow manages to pitch each scene at just the right tempo. Some of it seems almost Buchanesque to me, but maybe that is just the subtle Scottish environment at work, which Banks paints vividly. Even so, there is the Buchan hallmark use of unusual words: this is the first time I have heard of birds "kaw-calling" or rain "glummuttering" against the window. Wonderful stuff. Looking for a deeper meaning in this novel is difficult because much of the author's `agenda' or `message' is rendered overtly, especially towards the novel's conclusion. I think Banks, regrettably now no longer with us, must have been a leftist, pro-peace and a feminist, as his writing has strong overtones in those directions. Despite his murderous activities, as I see it `Frank' is very much the hero of this novel. I think it is common ground that `Angus' is its villain. While I cannot be certain, I would say that `Eric' does not exist as a separate person in the author's mind and is in fact an alter ego of `Frank'. The author seems to have intended the novel to represent `Frank' as a `blank slate' proposition. The father, some kind of academic who seems to live like a hermit, is representative of authority, with his locked study door behind which he keeps all kinds of `official secrets' hidden from view. These concern the family and are matters that he does not want `Frank' to know about.
The relationship between `Frank' and `Angus' is rich with analogy and allegory concerning politics, science and religion. `Frank' is the innocent experiment, abused by `Angus', who appears to embody scientific authority. Our present scientific, medical and social science community are in the thrall of abusive and dangerous nonsense, much of it subtly influenced by egalitarian political ideology. I suspect the author's intention was to have the reader think of circumcision allegories and some such, but whether or not intended, the conflict between `Angus' and `Frank' highlights something deeper: the cruelties and dangers of ideological tendencies that assume `sameness' among human beings. Angus's evident Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ('OCD') - he keeps asking Frank about the volume or length of various household items - is a simple and obvious an allegory of power. How much of what we learn in our society is, essentially, useless or non-productive and in fact is designed to keep us all in line? However, the eponymous Wasp Factory is the central metaphor of the author's social, political and religious critique. The Factory is not on the island but in the loft of the house where `Angus' and `Frank' live, mirroring the `secret study' except that `Angus' evidently does not know of the Factory's existence and would no doubt be appalled if he did. `The Factory' is a mystical guide for `Frank'. Almost Taoist in its amoral conception, The Factory relies for its operation on natural signals rather than strict randomness or chance. In each cycle of the Factory, a wasp is retrieved from a "ceremonial jam-jar" and placed into the "deadly and perfect" contraption built from an old clock that "used to hang over the door of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Porteneil." On the face of the clock are traps and each wasp must decide through which trap to enter and meet its fate.
Like the murderous island rituals, the Factory is a useless excursion but also reflective of the banality and futility of social ritual in our own society, including religion. It is not surprising that `Frank' should be in thrall to such meaninglessness, however. He begins this novel as a character stripped of his vitality and power, deprived of his essentialist self-identity in a cruel fashion as a result of what we learn was some random and pre-cognitive incident without rational explanation. It is significant both for the characters in this story, and for us, that only once Frank knows the `official secrets' can he then understand the uselessness and futility of his pet `island ideology'. Thus the author cleverly takes the reader on a journey of enlightenment. We move from a primitivist state in which we are in thrall to a kind of clerical pseudo-scientific authority and in which our lives seem wrapped-up in Fate. We discover that the `official secrets' are both mundane - there are no interesting academic chemical experiments in the study, just old bills and other sundry items - but also shocking in that 'Frank' is to make a discovery in the study that seems to explain his entire life. `Frank' is not just of a loserific or `male lesbian' tendency, wishing to inflict pain, torture and suffering on others using the same dice of Fate that struck him; a kind of justice in which the Factory door 'shuts' on others as it did on `Frank'. He is something very different and more, and he ends the novel empowered.
Far from being a `villain' of some kind, `Frank' is in fact an innocent, just as we are; and a hero, just as, in the end, we might be. The rest of the world perhaps sees `Frank', in so far as he is known at all, as cruel and nihilistic, while overlooking the same qualities in itself, which are embodied by `Angus'. The modern world also requires submission and `femininity' among the masses: we are the `Franks', dwelling in a prolonged twilit, like sheep with a need to be led. We are `savage' and must be subdued and pacified for this reason, so that we can never experience Frank's sanguine enlightenment and recognise who we really are and become conscious of our own interests. In the novel, Frank's `resistance violence' - the murders - prove to be futile. The answer for 'Frank' was not really to be found in the study either. There was no 'secret knowledge' or esoteric path. In fact, the key to Frank's life was in his head all along, just as it is for us. Yet Frank's circuitous journey through this novel is not entirely in vain, just as our own learning and experience always points somewhere eventually, even if it might not seem that way at the time. In unconsciously and aimlessly pursuing his own negation, `Frank' is eventually re-born, and the mental daemon, `Eric', is obliterated.
Bank's first novel is not a crude exercise in mere literary nihilism, as some have suggested. One newspaper reviewer called this novel "repulsive", but what in fact is `repulsive' is neither Banks nor his imagination, but the world he fictionalises, which is nothing more than a mirror he holds up to our own - a fitting grotesquerie. Banks ably explores the uneasy juxtapose of the Gothic (Romantic) of much classic literary fiction versus the rationality of the modern world and in a sense he mocks both the critics and the cynics. We can call something `repulsive' and continue to dwell in ignorance in our own desolate little kingdoms, or we can labour to understand. We can wax lyrical about all kinds of avant garde and esotericism, or we can understand the truth: that the central character in this novel is just mad, and so are we.
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