Wednesday, April 15, 2015

"The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks

Considering how grotesque and ugly some of the scenes in the novel were, I guess it's kind of amazing that I was so riveted by it. Its protagonist and 1st person voice is a 16 year old 'boy' who murdered 3 children when he was young, lives on a Scottish Island with his eccentric father, and has an insane brother who has broken out of the hospital and is heading home.

The amazing thing about the book is that as it progresses, you discover more and more rational reasons for the murders and the "boy's" behaviour. I have recently discovered the goodreads web sites, which contains other people's reviews of books that interest me.  That's where I found out that some people listed this as one of the top books of the 20th century.

Some people were horrified by the book,mor horrified that they liked Frank, the protagonist. To me, they're being childish. To me, Frank just "is" and I attach no judgement to him.

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