The Wasp Factory: Ian Banks

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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. Frank’s troubling behavior and emotional issues are deeply rooted to his manhood and sexuality: “ I am not a full man, and nothing can ever alter that; but I am me, and I regard that as a compensation enough”. Masculinity is linked to violence and domination as the only outlet to deal with problems. His deep-seated anger and misogynistic attitude, connected to his childhood traumatic experiences with his father's abuse: “women.. are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compare to them”, and “ both sexes can do one thing specially well; women can give birth and men can kill.” I hate having to sit down on the toilet all the time. With my unfortunate disability I usually have to, as thought I was a bloody woman, but I hate it. Sometimes in the Cauldhame Arms I stand up at the urinal, but most of it ends up running down my hands or legs." No Sartre, no Lessing, no Mailer: Frodo the hobbit beats them all". The Independent. 20 January 1997. Archived from the original on 20 June 2022 . Retrieved 1 February 2019.

His science fiction works, meanwhile, seemed liberated from some of his grimmer certainties and were notably even-handed in their treatment of moral and ideological dispute. From Excession (1996) to The Hydrogen Sonata (2012), he produced a sequence of seven science-fiction novels, all but one of which, The Algebraist (2004), belonged to the Culture series. Agents of The Culture are on a mission to spread democracy, secularism and social justice throughout the universe. It might be thought that they represent Banks's own values. Yet, as a novelist, he had considerable sympathy for those who resist this imposition of contentment. 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: Transition (2009). London: Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 978-0-316-73107-2. (Published in the United States as Iain M. Banks.) From 2007 Banks lived in North Queensferry on the north side of the Firth of Forth, with his girlfriend Adele Hartley, an author and founder of the Dead by Dawn film festival. [31] She and Banks had been friends since the early 1990s, [31] but commenced romantic relations in 2006 and married on 29 March 2013 [47] after he asked her to "do me the honour of becoming my widow." [6] [48] Illness and death [ edit ] Frank seems to know that we need explanations for his odder comments. Lamenting the fact that he is "chubby", and not "dark and menacing" as he would like to look, he remarks regretfully: "Looking at me, you'd never guess I'd killed three people. It isn't fair." When he first mentions his half-brother Eric, he adds, without further explanation, "to whom such an unpleasant thing happened". These puzzles will be explained. But we must also decipher what he takes for granted. Piecing together the story of his mother's brief return, when he was three years old, from details dropped by his father, he says: "I can't remember anything about it at all, just as I can't remember anything before the age of three. But then, of course, I have my own good reasons for that.""Of course": as if the narrator were speaking to someone who knows just what he means. What are the reasons?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."

Doctor of the University 1973–2011" (PDF). The Open University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 December 2013 . Retrieved 9 January 2013. ASLS Honorary Fellowships". Association for Scottish Literary Studies. Archived from the original on 13 January 2013 . Retrieved 5 November 2013. Premio Italia Science Fiction Award in the Best International Novel category for Inversions (winner) I finally got around to a book that is considered a modern classic by many. Trust me, my 3-star rating was a surprise to even myself. 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.The journeys through life that Angus, Frank and Eric make finally all come together in the most unexpected denouement. Then we have the manic telephone calls from Frank’s highly intelligent but also regrettably insane brother Eric, who has escaped from the psychiatric hospital (admitted as he had a partiality for burning dogs) and is heading home. He wants to give his father a surprise and Frank knows that he will make it even though the police are out looking for him. Eric appears to be more insane than ever and so although he wants to see his brother, Frank is rather disturbed about the idea.