The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Read: Dec. 19th 2023
Published: 1984
Country: Scotland
Length: 194 pages
Very strange. Decent ending and twist. Kind of funny. A weird bildungsroman about an affectless sociopath. I didn’t like his brother but I did like his dwarf friend.
Quotes:
- “A death is always exciting, always makes you realise how alive you are, how vulnerable but so-far-lucky; but the death of somebody close gives you a good excuse to go a bit crazy for a while and do things that would otherwise be inexcusable.“
- “Children aren’t real people, in the sense that they are not small males and females but a separate species which will (probably) grow into one or the other in due time.”
- “So, all things considered, I think I have done all right, handled my problem as well as it could have been handled. My enemy is twice dead, and I still have him. I am not a full man, and nothing can ever alter that; but I am me, and I regard that as compensation enough. This burning dogs stuff is just nonsense.”