47. Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory

On the cover of Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory it says that this is a Gothic horror story. Since my MA was mostly about Gothic horror I was very surprised to see that most of the book is about torturing animals. However, halfway through the book Banks uses the word uncanny, and we all know that when that word is used it can't be anything but a Gothic novel:

"(..) I saw in the gathering night strange lights, shifting in the air over and far beyond the island. They wavered and moved uncannily, glinting and shifting and burning in a heavy, solid way no thing should in the air. I stood and watched them for a while, training my binoculars on them and seeming, now and again in the shifting images of light, to discern structures around them. A chill passed through me then and my mind raced to reason out what I was seeing." (Banks 109)

This is about as Gothic a passage as one would write and that's when I suddenly understood that this book can indeed be seen as a Gothic horror novel.

It's about Frank and his father on a small island in Scotland. Frank has not been registered and does not have any financial documentation, therefore he has to keep himself to himself. That's what he does. He collects animal skeletons and he has a wasp factory, which in an incongruous way dictates his decisions. However, Frank has already killed three people, but he managed to hide this fact very well. Frank's brother Eric has escaped from the asylum and he is making his way back to the island to Frank and his father's fears because Eric tends to leave a trail of burnt dogs behind him.

It's a good story and the ending is very unique. I was happily surprised by the way the story is told, it kind of reminds me of Lord of the Flies. I have never read Iain Banks SciFi novels, but his first normal fiction novel is really good. Uncannily good even...