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January 2011: Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory

Just finished it. Not sure what to think right away. Definitely a good story and very unique, but it was sort of a chore to read mainly because it was in first person and there seemed to be way too much unnecessary description of things which came off as filler. Not a whole lot happened during the book and while not much was happening, I was reading tiresome descriptions of the landscape and other insights of things around him.

I literally just put the book down and these are my initial thoughts, so I might come to think differently after a while. I just think that books written in first-person have to be done almost perfectly or they can really put me off. Since the main character is in every scene and talking to you the entire time, that character needs to be incredibly interesting or have a lot going on around him/her or the book just falls flat. I don't think the Frank character had either going for him.
 
OKaaaaay I can see the literary merits of this book. I can see that it's written well, the plot keeps you going and of course there's a twist at the end. However, the violence was too off-putting for me and I ended up doing my speed-reading, skipping and jumping kind of reading that I reserve for books I can't get into. I of course wanted to see how it ended. That poor poor protagonist.

If I was in a different phase of life I probably would have read this book properly. When you have young children around you all day laughing and playing and then at night you get into bed to read this...... Well it just wasn't happening. The violence was too unbearable. So in that light I'm rating it fairly low, but of course that's completely subjectible.
 
No? ok then,from what I understood,he felt he lowered himself as a writer and that writing science fiction he felt a better aportunity to use his imagination.
 
I finally finished this one.Loved it.
I was asking myself why I loved it,so much violence,gruesome,sad.
The description and detail of all the scenes,especially the baby,was very difficult to read through and by the end I was shocked.

I haven't read any of his other work and I am not one to compare his writing but one thing is for sure,it's not a book that is forgotten easily.
 
Libra said:
I finally finished this one.Loved it.
I was asking myself why I loved it,so much violence,gruesome,sad.
The description and detail of all the scenes,especially the baby,was very difficult to read through and by the end I was shocked.

I haven't read any of his other work and I am not one to compare his writing but one thing is for sure,it's not a book that is forgotten easily.
Click to expand...

So true. Definitely recommend his other books, from the contemp lit to sci-fi.

It's the tongue-in-cheek humour with The Wasp Factory that gets me. The grins through the grim. Much of his other work is peppered with the darkly comic too, but otherwise great reads also. His other books aren't really like Wasp Factory however.
 
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