The Wasp Factory: Ian Banks

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Author Iain M. Banks revealed in April 2013 that he had late-stage cancer. He died the following June. Honorary Graduates1988-1997". University of Stirling (Development and External Affairs). Archived from the original on 3 September 2013 . Retrieved 27 June 2013. A word of warning to teenagers who can't wait to find out about the thrills of drinking : alcohol may seriously impair you muscle coordination: What Happened to Me" is the title of the last chapter. We were always heading towards this explanation, designed to surprise and therefore to satisfy the reader. All this is engineered. Yet the explanation will only be accepted if it "makes sense" of previously irrelevant details of the narrative. The real clues to Frank's history are, it turns out, ones we have passed and hardly noticed. Frank has occasionally cast adolescent aspersion on the female sex. "Women like to see men helpless." Female inferiority is natural law: rams are "demeaned by the idiotic females they have to associate with and inseminate". Women, Frank knows from watching television, "cannot withstand really major things happening to them". We should have attended to these remarks, we now see. It should not spoil the dénouement of The Wasp Factory to say that it gives a new meaning to the old saw: cherchez la femme! His latest book was a science fiction (SF) novel in the Culture series, called The Hydrogen Sonata, published in 2012.

As with his friend Ken MacLeod (another Scottish writer of technical and social science fiction) a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. He was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence. Frank has done something that most people never do in their lifetimes. In fact, he has done it three times. Morelle, Rebecca (13 May 2019). "Mariana Trench: Deepest-ever sub dive finds plastic bag". BBC News . Retrieved 13 May 2019. The asteroid 5099 Iainbanks was named after him shortly after his death. [61] On 23 January 2015, SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk named two of the firm's autonomous spaceport drone ships Just Read The Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You, after ships in Banks's novel The Player of Games. [62] Another, A Shortfall of Gravitas, began construction in 2018. This refers to the ship Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall, first mentioned in Look to Windward. [63] The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia, the 2016 graphic biography of Louise Michel by Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot, is "Dedicated to the memory of Iain (M) Banks, friend and sorely missed creator of socialist utopias." [64]An extract from Banks's contribution to the written collection Generation Palestine: Voices from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, entitled "Our People", appeared in The Guardian in the wake of the author's cancer revelation. The extract conveys the author's support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign issued by a Palestinian civil society against Israel until the country complies with what it holds are international law and Palestinian rights. This commenced in 2005 and applies lessons from Banks's experience with South Africa's apartheid era. The continuation of Banks's boycott of Israeli publishers for the sale of rights to his novels was confirmed in the extract and Banks further explained, "I don't buy Israeli-sourced products or food, and my partner and I try to support Palestinian-sourced products wherever possible." [42] Personal life [ edit ]

In 1997 Craig Warner adapted the novel into a 10 part serial (15 minute episodes) for BBC Radio 4. [6] It was followed by Walking on Glass (1985), composed of three separate narratives whose connections are deliberately made obscure until near the end of the novel. One of these seems to be a science fiction narrative and points the way to Banks's strong interest in this genre. Equally, multiple narration would continue to feature in his work. A 16 year old child who lights rabbits on fire, burns wasps, severs heads off of animals and other drivel. It has to be the most asinine book I've ever read. Banks' political stance has been termed "left of centre" [35] and in 2002 endorsed the Scottish Socialist Party. [36]

The wasp factory itself is a combination Tarot/Ouija which gives advice in a manner worthy of Poe or Lovecraft. Frank wants to know the best way to defend himself from Eric. In a family like his, tensions go deep. How these tensions get resolved can’t be described as conventional. Except perhaps as conventional ghoul-porn. Raw Spirit (2003). London: Century. ISBN 1-84413-195-5 – a travelogue of Scotland and its whisky distilleries. Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Iain Banks was educated at the University of Stirling where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife. While he worked he was writing. In the late 1970s he completed three science fiction novels that failed to find publishers, though all three would later be reworked and published successfully. Then followed one of the more remarkable literary debuts.

but he is better now: he only kills rabbits, rats, gulls and other unfortunate small critters that visit his windblown island on the East coast of Scotland. He has a hobby for making totems decorated with the skulls of his kills, for building dams out of sand and then blowing them to create floods and for burning dead wasps on altars build from dead dog skulls. His favorite toys are catapults with steel balls, improvised flamethrowers, air guns and pipe bombs that he builds in his toolshed from fertilizer and acids. FRANK CAULDHAME from The Wasp Factory (who joins the list near the top). Frank is a 16 year old boy living with his "not all there" father in a very secluded (thank God) Island near Scotland. Frank is a smart, imaginative, resourceful, EXTREMELY DISTURBED sociopath. Frank’s entire life is about rituals and ceremonies (hence the title which is explained during the story). Frank spends his days trapping and killing animals on the island and placing there heads on “Sacrifice Poles” set up along the perimeter of his family’s property. While these rituals are bizarre and gruesome, they are not arbitrary and Frank has a detailed, rigid belief system behind his actions which is both fascinating and very unsettling. Iain Banks (16 February 1954 – 9 June 2013) was a Scottish author, writing mainstream fiction as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks, adding the initial of his adopted middle name Menzies ( / ˈ m ɪ ŋ ɪ z/ ⓘ). After the success of The Wasp Factory (1984), he began to write full time. His first science fiction book, Consider Phlebas, appeared in 1987, marking the start of the Culture series. His books have been adapted for theatre, radio, and television. In 2008, The Times named Banks in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". [5] a traumatic early childhood accident that left Frank with an unmentionable disability of his sexual organsHumanity comes off badly in this book. The truth of what made Frank the person he is will leave you more chilled than any silly evocation of a devil in a religious text. Frank's very being is an ambulatory evil act. But the reason for it, the motivating factor, is the absolute worst horror this book contains. All the animal-torture stuff is unpleasant, I agree. It's not as though it's lovingly and lingeringly described. And it pales in comparison to Frank's raison d'etre. Dunno! Motives are bizarre sometimes? Cheap and easy entertainment? Fascination with vulgarity? I was bored at the airport and paid for it? People like violence, especially against women, children and animals. They like to be confronted with bodily functions and exact descriptions of drunken vomit. They like it in the way they like brutal computer games and stupid television shows."

The latter task requires Frank to kill small animals. His brother, Eric, had a similar pastime. Eric felt the need to set dogs on fire. The law caught up with Eric and placed him in a mental institution. Now, Eric has escaped. He calls Frank and informs his brother that he is on his way home. A 1997 poll of over 25,000 readers of The Independent listed The Wasp Factory as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century. [5] Adaptations [ edit ] 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. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.” Mark Macaskill and Robert Booth (25 February 2007). "Bye-bye Porsches, says green convert Iain Banks". Times. London. Archived from the original on 27 February 2007.MacLeod, Ken (14 February 2015). " 'Readers of Iain Banks's prose will find in his poems much that is familiar' ". The Guardian . Retrieved 9 December 2015. I think reprisals against people only distantly or circumstantially connected with those who have done others wrong are to make the people doing the avenging feel good. Like the death penalty, you want it because it makes you feel better, not because it's a deterrent or any nonsense like that. My greatest enemies are Women and the Sea. These things I hate. Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them, and the Sea because it has always frustrated me, destroying what I have built, washing away what I have left, wiping clean the marks I have made.”