Books - The Wasp Factory

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	Books - The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory was the first novel by Scottish writer Iain Banks, published in 1984.

Summary

Written from the first person perspective, it is a narrative told by 16-year-old Frank Cauldhame, describing his childhood and all that remains of it. Frank observes many religious rituals of his own invention. As the novel develops, his brother's escape from a mental hospital and impending return lead on to a violent ending and a twist that undermines all that Frank believed about himself.

Description

The eponymous Wasp Factory is a clock face salvaged from the local dump. Behind each numeral is a trap, which leads to a different ritual death for the wasp that Frank puts into the hole at the centre. He uses the death "chosen" by the wasp to divine the future.

There are also the Sacrifice Poles, where the bodies of larger animals Frank has killed, and other sacred items are placed. They define the borders of his territory.

Frank occupies himself using his religion and an array of weapons (from his catapult, to home-made flame throwers and pipe bombs) to control the island. He goes for long walks, and occasionally gets drunk with his friend in the local pub. Other than that, he and his father have almost no contact with the outside world.

After a long buildup, which comes to define the book, we meet Frank's psychopathic brother, Eric, and discover what happened to him to drive him insane. He is described all the way through as a darker and nastier version of Frank, and the reader is not disappointed.

Analysis

The novel works largely from the position of grand guignol, and can also be seen as a 'Bildungsroman'.

It also deals with Banks' sceptical attitudes towards organised religion. Frank is obsessive about ritual and the form of things; the Wasp Factory and the Sacrifice Poles are talismanically protective, and divinatory in intent.

The novel is also about power and its abuse. Frank's father's deception of his son (one of Banks' central themes, which appears again in The Crow Road
), and the propensity of people to self-deception, are accentuated in the final chapters of the book when new facts force the reader to re-assess completely the opinions formed about the narrator.

The father is the least-developed character, remaining as a cypher to the reader, seen through the eyes of his son. He thus appears a shifty and evasive man.

As a first novel by an unknown author, The Wasp Factory was greeted with a mixture of acclaim (The Independent later listed it as one of its top 100 books of the 20th century) and controversy, due to its gruesome depiction of violence. While this is mostly against animals, Frank also recollects killing three younger children when a child himself. In a post-Tarantino world, critics find it hard now to see what the fuss was about. These scenes seem no less fitting in the context of the book than the death of Piggy in Lord of the Flies. The murders are described in a frank and matter of fact way, and with grotesque humour; what may be more disturbing is the depth and intensity with which Frank is portrayed.

Bibliography

The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks, London : Macmillan, 1984, ISBN 0349101779

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