But Not The Wasp Factory, Please

August 6, 2008 7:22 AM

Okay, so I found a recommendation for Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory via an old AskMe thread and picked it up.

Unfortunately, this was the thread I probably needed to see. Kill all the people you want, fictional characters, but hurt animals and you've lost me forever. I'm not capable of the kind of detachment required to read about waging war on bunnies or oh. my. god. setting fire to dogs.

What I liked about the Wasp Factory: very clean prose style--I'm not in the mood for frilly writerliness, but I also don't like mechanical writing, where you feel like a non-writer has a story to tell and everything is just plot, plot, plot. TWF had character-based forward momentum to it.

If I could have gotten past the animal stuff, it was INCREDIBLY compelling and had moments of dark humor, plenty of surprises, a vibrant narrator, a creepy sense of place, and even though ultimately I couldn't get through it I was really into it--I flicked through to pick out the plot so I'd get to know what happened without reading in terrible detail about the animal horrors. Basically I cheated.

So, what can I read that: has clean, sharp prose and is as compelling but is animal-torture free?

Books I've liked: The Pat Barker WWI series, Lolita, some Elmore Leonard, The Living by Annie Dillard (if anyone's looking for a recommendation: this is about settling the pacific Northwest, which sounds thuddingly dull but Dillard will be beautifully prosing along and will knock off characters without a second thought and merrily plink along to the next paragraph while you're still blinking the image away--in a weird way, it's got the same breezy momentum as TWF. I really liked it.), the story 'Brokeback Mountain' -- the writing is sheer unrelentingly awesome. I liked The Shining, too.

I think I'm in the mood to be creeped out--I'm home all day with an infant and would like some escapism (not that the rigors of changing diapers every three hours isn't riveting.)

Also, I will revisit the book recommendation threads again, but I was wondering if anyone had specific recommendations with the above in mind...

posted by A Terrible Llama to media & arts (15 comments total)

Other Iain Banks, if you like the style. My personal favourite is Whit. But the Crow Road comes a close second.
posted by handee at 7:43 AM on August 6, 2008

Patrick McCabe. Try Winterwood. Very dark, but very propulsive, and not pointless. McCabe also wrote the novels behind the excellent films The Butcher Boy and Breakfast On Pluto.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:43 AM on August 6, 2008

A second vote for "The Crow Road" by Banks. And if you want another rather creepy but compelling books set in Scotland try Alistair Grey's "Lanark" or (in particular) Michel Faber's "Under the Skin".
posted by rongorongo at 7:53 AM on August 6, 2008

I asked a similar question recently:
Here
Recently I've enjoyed stuff by Kelly Link, please check out "Magic for Beginners".
posted by nougat at 8:09 AM on August 6, 2008

I'm the same way - animal cruelty images stay with me for days & days.
How about Out by Natsuo Kirino. It's creepy. A bit gruesome but only to humans. And honestly, they had it coming anyway...
posted by media_itoku at 8:20 AM on August 6, 2008

Again for Crow Road... you can divide his novels into 'nasty' and 'nice', and though not totally peaches and cream Crow Road is definitely on the nice side. In fact I think, racking my brains, that the animal cruelty in the Wasp Factory is a bit of a one-off I can remember it turning up anywhere else (... unlike cruelty to humans, see Complicity).

AS for other writers, I'd recommend Tim Willocks... he's got a baroque strangeness to his work whether a thriller depicting a modern day prison riot - Green River Rising, which I read in one sitting, or a historical like The Religion about the medieval Siege of Malta.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:37 AM on August 6, 2008

Try Michel Faber. 'Under the Skin' is good fun (and just about the right length). Might contain animal cruelty; depends on your definition. Try the first chapter if you are concerned.

'The Crimson Petal and The White' is recommended.

also try any Ian McEwan. Fantastic characters which weave the story around themselves in a wonderful synergy of people and places.
posted by BadMiker at 8:43 AM on August 6, 2008

I think you should read Rupert Thomson. The only Banks I've ever read is Espedair Street but I think there is a similar feel there. Thomson does really well with the "creepy sense of place" you mention.
posted by runtina at 8:57 AM on August 6, 2008

I don't recall any gratuitous cruelty to animals in Banks' Complicity. Enough cruelty to humans to last a lifetime, though. Easily his bitterest and nastiest book.

Banks' "fluffy bunnies and hugs" books are The Crow Road and Espedair Street. Which is to say that the cruelty to humans is kept to a dull roar.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:08 AM on August 6, 2008

Seconding Ian McEwan and The Crow Road.
posted by Coventry at 10:59 AM on August 6, 2008

Here is a link to a free ebook download of Kelly Link's "Stranger Things Happen". Also a great book.
posted by nougat at 11:34 AM on August 6, 2008

I'd go with all of Iain McEwans books other than the Wasp Factory (obviously... I didn't enjoy it either). I just finished The Steep Approach to Garbadale which I really liked, but can also recommend Whit, Complicity, Canal Dreams and The Business.
posted by Admira at 3:09 PM on August 6, 2008

Mr. Banks has creeped me out a couple of times, I still look for his new stuff on Amazon, one of the authors I read their stuff. Try the sci-fi if it's your thing, 'Ian M. Banks", less creepy.

lol ROU_Xenophobe.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:04 PM on August 6, 2008

Many thanks, peoples! I'll compile a list and hit the library. Nougat, I think that thread may have been where I heard about The Wasp Factory...I'll take a look at those as well, and the ones above in general, particularly those mentioned as being on the misanthropic side, like Media_itoku's recommendation ('a bit gruesome but only to humans. And honestly, they had it coming anyway...') and the other Iain Banks suggestions where apparently he's learned it's not cool to kill off dogs. I have nothing to do but read for months, though, so I'll try them all.

Many thanks everyone.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 6:09 PM on August 6, 2008

Dogs on fire? Meh. Maggots in a baby's brain? Now there's an image that's stayed with me since high school.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:13 AM on August 7, 2008