The Wasp Factory: Gripping or just plain gross?

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Sometimes I can’t finish books I start. I’m either bored with the story from the get-go or I’m not in the proper mood. Rarely do I throw aside a book simply because I can’t stomach what’s going on. That’s what happened this past weekend with Iian Banks’ The Wasp Factory.

(The last thing I couldn’t get all the through was the Preacher series. I made it through the first two trade paperbacks before I felt I had to return them to my comic book seller. He and everyone else in the shop were severely disappointed in me.)

Did people enjoy this book? Did they finish it as “hilarious” as the person who sent it to me as a gift? [Anyone thing I should take this gift as a sign that the giver wants to murder me?] I like reading happy books, thought provoking books, sci-fi, story-telling, romantic books. I don’t like reading about pets set on fire and blown up.

To be fair, I really want to finish these books. I’ll set them aside when I start to feel nauseous and go back to read more later. After this happens a few times and reading it becomes a sick chore, then I’ll put it aside.

Are there any books where you’ve have the same reaction?

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Monday, 15 March 2004 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

The Wasp Factory is one of those books that could sit on several other threads; Books to read in hell, Teenage embarassments etc. I re-read it recently for a bookclub. I didn't like it first time round and it revolted me second time.

I can live with the character murdering other humans (OK, I don't practice it myself, but at least you start from a level playing field), but killing animals? No, no, no.

The only thing I found appealing (in the edition I have) is the book jacket is full of quotes slagging it off.

People who like this book are those to be wary of. And they're probably goths too.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

well, i remember liking it when i read it years ago and i'm not all that scary. Or a goth. I do remember it being pretty gross. But i also remember liking it for normal bookish reasons. I liked the setting and the whole world of that book was just so strange. I don't think I would read it again though. I remember being kinda impressed by how screwy the whole thing was. But i was probably also reading dennis cooper and stuff like that at the time, so maybe that was my transgressive faze. Anyone ever read Big Girl!! About a huge, hulking woman with the brain and vocabulary of a child who kills people with the help of her little doll? I think that's the kind of thing i was reading when i read the Wasp Factory. That book was kinda gross too. But funnier.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, I think that should be Big "Gurl".(by Thom Metzger and some other guy)

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, I've given up on a few books, but they're invariably been ones that were just too boring, or, I felt, too badly written to go on reading, as I usually try to finish anything I start. There are a few bits in books that have revolted me*, but they haven't pushed me away. I used to have a fascination with the obscene when I was younger though, which has made me a bit blasé; even desensitized to violence in art.

I didn't find The Wasp Factory to be gross, despite the main protagonist's antisocial and downright evil behavior - I wouldn't call it hilarious either, but disturbing, sad, and yes, sometimes even funny too, and just different enough to keep me intrigued the whole way.

*For the curious, the scenes that have actually made me feel sick are as follows:
The kids making and forcing someone to drink a soup consisting of ingredients that would make a fairy-tale witch run away in horror, in Gunther Grass' "The tin drum."
Ignatius fantasizing about his deceased dog while masturbating in "Confederacy of dunces."

xpost: despite all this, I'm not at all gothy. I can even draw you a happy little man. Look! :)

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I quite like a few of Banks' other books; The Bridge, Whit and Complicity are all palatable but the Wasp Factory is like listening to Bauhaus. Any book that deals with violence to animals makes me feel the same way.

Now, Wind in the Willows, that's better.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:47 (twenty-two years ago)

How about animals VS animals? Watership Down, for instance?

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Fine, level playing fields as I said earlier.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 15 March 2004 14:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I loved The Bridge too. Didn't care too much for Complicity. Vermont Girl, you should try The Bridge, it's really cool. And not at all gross. I guess the last book i read that had gross-out moments was Lullaby by Paluhnik. But they were pretty ingenious gross-out moments. The model house extraction scene being a prime example. I won't elaborate for anyone who hasn't read it or anyone eating lunch.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 15 March 2004 15:06 (twenty-two years ago)

The UK newspaper, The Guardian, printed an extract of his (Paluhnik's) new book at the weekend. It's called Guts and is full of revolting images. Pieces of bamboo shoved up your knob? Intestines sucked out your backside from sitting on an extraction pump? Yep and yep again.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 15 March 2004 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

You know, it's funny, I'm actually reading this book right now. I do find it gross and disturbing, but not hard to read. Maybe I'm desensitized...I don't know. Actually, I think I manage to separate the actions from the character, and I'm more interested in the characters psychology, which is why I can read it in spite of all the torturing and killing of animals. I keep reading because I keep trying to figure out why the protagonist would do such things. It's kind of like rubbernecking, I suppose.

― Caenis (Caenis), Monday, 15 March 2004 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

The problem with a re-read is knowing the twist. You read it differently second time around because you know what's coming. I won't take this further as I assume Caenis is reading this for the first time and don't wish to spoil.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 15 March 2004 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

The Wasp Factory is like listening to Bauhaus

Maybe this should be for some other thread, but there was a band around called the Wasp Factory at one stage. I guess they did have a slightly gothy edge, but they were more a part of the whole post-Buttholes London noise scene of the early nineties.

As far as the book goes, I just found it a bit too silly to be properly disturbing.

― NickB (NickB), Monday, 15 March 2004 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I think this should sit in the teenage embarassments section. I think it's a good book but you probably need to be 15 to enjoy it.

The scene with the flies is one of the few times i have genuinely been shocked by a book. I think it takes a good writer to be able to do that. I have never been shocked by anything in a 'horror novel'.

Generally I think Iain Banks' mainstream books are fairly forgettable though I really like The Bridge. However, he is an absolutely fantastic Science Fiction author (even though it is a genre I'm not generally a fan of). I strongly recommend checking out his Sci-Fi novels, he has a staggering imagination and is a writer of some strengths.

Much under-rated is Iain M. Banks

― holojames (holojames), Monday, 15 March 2004 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't read Wasp Factory, but a book that made me feel put off by the action was American Psycho. I still have issues defining the "redeeming" points of that book. Maybe the Hall and Oats discography.

― Phastbuck, Monday, 15 March 2004 17:06 (twenty-two years ago)

In england you have to study it at college so count yourselves lucky. Try writing an essay about his father's greasy cock and balls.

― sally (sally), Thursday, 18 March 2004 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

this book was insultingly stupid. I hated it. In the great skyscraper of murderous children novels where Lord of the Flies is the penthouse and the HIstory of Luminous Motion and Spider live somewhere below that, the Wasp Factory is deep somewhere in the core of the earth. I have a first edition of this up for sale used on amazon, some idiot please buy it.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Thursday, 18 March 2004 23:10 (twenty-two years ago)

oh yeah the Preacher was stupid too. I think Vermont Girl and I share similar hates in graphic novels (Frank Miller = boo!).

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Thursday, 18 March 2004 23:11 (twenty-two years ago)

the writing in this book is so flat for long stretches at a time but when it kicks, banks writes his weird arcana with a weaver's hand and an archer's eye. which is an OK combination.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 19 March 2004 01:29 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

I found the book to be rather tame. I also find it VERY disturbing that most people get sick from the animals getting killed rather than the children. Coming from an agriculture background ive experienced what its like to be a producer of products rather than a consumer. Animals are killed every day for our consumption, and not just for meat. The scene where Frank places explosives in the burrows and waits for the rabbits to pop up is how many farmers eliminate gophers. Ian Banks is not some monster, but merely showing us how the world can be outside of suburbia U.S.A.

― jamie kaiser, Friday, 2 April 2004 02:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"Iain Banks is not some monster, but merely showing us how the world can be outside of suburbia U.S.A. "

I don't think the Wasp Factory paints a realistic picture of everyday Scottish life, Jamie! An unknown author trying to create publicity by shocking the public with his first novel? Yeah, he's guilty of that.

Burning a wasp alive is not a civilised way to stem the population flow, whatever your point about goghers.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 2 April 2004 07:59 (twenty-one years ago)

three weeks pass...

Well your right Mikey G, it was never my intention to assume that Frank’s actions represents Scotland. But it was my intention to make a point about his “Shocking” writing, and how odd it is that we have more sympathy for the burning animals than the murdered children.

― jamie kaiser, Saturday, 24 April 2004 01:55 (twenty-one years ago)

three months pass...

haha 'a weaver's hand and an archer's eye'?! anyway, I'm re-reading this book, now. I predict I'll like it this time.

― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 13 August 2004 16:38 (twenty-one years ago)

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