MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Postmodern Mentality in

The Wasp Factory

Diploma thesis

Brno 2012

Supervisor: Author:

Mgr. Hana Waisserová, Ph.D. Mgr. Radek Holcepl

1

DECLARATION

I declare that I worked on my diploma thesis independently and that I used only the sources listed in the bibliography.

In České Budějovice August 2012 Mgr. Radek Holcepl

......

2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Hana Waisserová, Ph.D. for her kind guidance, patience and valuable comments and also to my wife for her support and understanding.

3 Bibliografický záznam

Holcepl, Radek. Postmodern Mentality in The Wasp Factory. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Fakulta pedagogická, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury, 2012. XXX s. Vedoucí bakalářské práce - Mgr. Hana Waisserová, Ph.D.

Anotace

Diplomová práce je zaměřena na zkoumání širších kulturních souvislostí postmoderní mentality v díle Iana Bankse The Wasp Factory. Rozbor je věnován vztahu formy a obsahu díla z pohledu sociologie vědění a hlubinné psychologie. Význačné symboly jsou vykládány na základě analogií s díly antické mytologie i moderní filosofie. Součástí rozboru je i reflexe vztahu literatury, náboženství a technologie v postmoderní éře.

Klíčová slova

Postmoderna, psychopatologie, literatura a technologie, literatura a náboženství, narativní postupy a ideologie

4 Bibliography

Holcepl, Radek. Postmodern Mentality in The Wasp Factory. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature, 2012. XXX pages. The supervisor of the Bachelor Thesis – Mgr. Hana Waisserová, Ph.D.

Annotation

The Diploma Thesis is focused on the enquiry into broader cultural contexts of postmodern mentality in The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. The analysis is dedicated to the relation between form and contents from the perspective of sociology of knowledge and depth psychology. Relevant symbols are interpreted on the basis of analogies with the works of antique mythology and modern philosophy. The reflection of relation between literature, religion and technology in postmodern era constitutes a part of the analysis.

Keywords

Postmodernity, psychopathology, literature and technology, literature and religion, narrative techniques and ideology

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction 7

2. Narrative Technique and Ideology 8

3. Modern Critique of Religion 11

4. Postmodern Critique of Frank's Cult 14

5. Sympathy for a Devil 20

6. Narcissism and Violence 25

7. Misogyny and Good Intentions 29

8. Measure What Is Measurable 40

9. Freud, Athena and Opus Contra Naturam 44

10. A Song of Water and Fire 48

11. Conclusion 54

12. Bibliography 56

6 1. Introduction

Vladimír Novotný, the reviewer of a printed Czech translation of The Wasp Factory, summarizes the book as ―storytelling about mental power of evil – firstly as a story of total deconstruction of human (here: child, more precisely adolescent) dreaming of a world order and of civilization values (moral, and even immoral, though equally unbreachable commandments), which have been associated with the vision from one generation to another. Analogous histories of lonesome, consciously and unconsciously frustrated individuals usually aim in accordance with the moral code of mankind from initial trauma towards its overcoming; a world full of anxiety, isolation and hostility is gradually suppressed by constructing personal or communal religion. It relies on both recognized certainties and ―the others‖ and especially the so called natural interpersonal relationships.‖

According to Novotný all the standard moral strategies are abandoned or perverted in TWF. Such a conclusion can be, however, drawn only if one assumes that the happy ending of the story (a new beginning, freedom from delusions and lies) is just an illusion as Novotný does. He also has it that the real and truly memorable message of TWF is summed up by this laconic utterance of Frank’s: ―Well, it is always easier to succeed at death‖. Novotný considers the sentence as way to convey the nearly unbearable truth that violence is also a possible response at the ready to the challenges of life. That seems to be meant either a very alerting warning or a reluctant acceptance of the state of affairs. Surprisingly enough, the grim interpreter Novotný asserts that TWF is a “British black grotesque” and as such “a classical work of postmodern prose”. Nonetheless, TWF goes much deeper in the analysis of the source of darkness and the very roots of evil. The aim of the presented thesis is to prove that The Wasp Factory is not only a black grotesque but also a psychologically sophisticated tragedy whose moral message is ideological in the modern (not post- modern) sense of the word.

7 2. Narrative Technique and Ideology

The narrative technique itself belongs among those very basic and yet very efficient tricks played by novelists on their readers. The whole story is told from the perspective of one character only. The focal point of the book is set on Frank Cauldhame, sixteen years old actual narrator of the story. The first person perspective always leads to reader’s feelings of strong attachment to the main hero. From a psychological point of view a long monologue about one’s activities, thoughts and feelings inevitably creates an intimate atmosphere. Such a monologue always tends to take on a form of a confession or personal myth narration. In both cases people are invited to share the innermost secrets, fears and hopes. In other words the narratee bestowed with a bare minimum of empathy must feel honoured and even flattered by the narrator’s trust and openness. Such exposure makes it very difficult to reject or even condemn the confessor. Narrator’s story may be embarrassing, drastic, base or even vile, but nevertheless expresses (from the pragmatics standpoint) one’s sincere attempt to put their life in a new, more cultivated and orderly perspective be it by talk therapy alone or by sharing a heavy burden. If a written medium is taken into account, the most obvious analogy to confession is a diary, an autobiography or memoires.

One passage in TWF states unambiguously how powerful motivational and existential a device such open monologues are: “I held my crotch, closed my eyes and repeated my secret catechisms. I could recite them automatically, but I tried to think of what they meant as I repeated them. They contained my confessions, my dreams and hopes, my fears and hates, and they still make me shiver whenever I say them, automatic or not. One tape recorder in the vicinity and the horrible truth about my three murders would be known. For that reason alone they are very dangerous. The catechisms also tell the truth about who I am, what I want and what I feel, and it can be unsettling to hear yourself described as you have thought of yourself in your most honest and abject moods, just as it is humbling to hear what you have thought about in your most hopeful and unrealistic moments.”1

In the case of TWF reader is confronted with a lot of bizarre, violent and distorted actions carried out by the narrator. The book is divided into two distinct groups of chapters. The first group forms a relatively consistent unit dealing with recent events in Frank’s life. These chapters follow chronological order and therefore serve as the backbone of the story. The other cluster of chapters is presented directly as a sort of explanation provided to the narratee

1 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 8, The Wasp Factory, p. 42.

8 at the moment when further recounting of recent events would be incomprehensible without some insights into Frank’s past. The novel as a whole is organized in a way that suggests Frank’s own uncertainty about the final outcome of latest actions and their connection to his family saga. The reader is not only confessed to but also drawn into a current of an ongoing adventure.

I felt compelled to comment on the formal aspect of TWF as most critics concentrate on brutal, disturbing and gritty contents.2 Even the final epiphany tends to be praised just as a culminating point of twisted bizarreness that characterizes the whole plot. Occasionally, the reviewers mention Banks’ crafty dealing with the last pages of the book that allows multiple exegeses, a happy ending included. Nonetheless, in order to do justice to the novel the ultimate revelation ought to be understood as an integral part of a carefully planned and meticulously devised plot. In a very unsettling way the novel itself resembles the namesake mechanical oracle assembled by Frank Cauldhame. The nearly surgical formal timing and dosing of information serves to convey a completely deranged message, i.e. inner world of an obsessive, violent psychopath. Such an uneasy alliance between rational form and irrational contents seems to paraphrase Nietzsche’s concept of Dionysian and Apollonian elements in the Greek tragedies.3 The contrast between controlling regularity, meticulousness and compartmentalization on one hand and wild, abrupt and ecstatic passions on the other hand creates the tension arc of the book on many and various levels. The most general and therefore the least visible or perceivable aspect of control-possession dilemma can be described as a neat narrative design versus revolting wickedness of the narrated story or form versus content. With both extremes (obsessive rational control and equally extreme emotional enthrallment) Banks goes to great lengths.

In fact I cannot make myself understand the book in a way that would not include personal confession of the author’s as well. All authors, especially those working with mysterious or overtly fantastical elements, have to face the tension between strictly rational control of the form and wildly imaginative process of acquiring inspiration. Nevertheless, this issue is

2 An Honourable exception is the online review by John Mullan, Behind it all. On the use of explanation as a device in Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory (2012-08-10) http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/28/saturdayreviewsfeatres.guardianreview31 (2012-08-10). 3 ―The tragic myth can only be understood as a symbolic picture of Dionysian wisdom by means of Apollonian art.‖ From: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Birth Of Tragedy Out Of The Spirit Of Music http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/tragedy_all.htm#tragedy (2012-08-08)

9 overshadowed by more specific and personal messages Banks sends to his readers. As a matter of fact, the disentanglement of the novel sheds a very intriguing light on Banks’ philosophical standpoint and ultimate artistic goal (and in the most likelihood a subconscious need met by projection as well). After a shocking discovery about his true “nature” Frank Cauldhame shakes off all the ritualistic needs and obsessions as if touched by a magic wand. All the phobias receded to a manageable level and the murderous past was disenchanted to the extent that allowed for a new hope and a new beginning. In the last chapter called “What Happened to Me” Frank undergoes a rapid psychological transformation. The “truth” plays the role of the decisive agent in this rebirth which is facilitated by conscious acceptance of what is “natural”. The lies are unravelled as such and repudiated along with all the unnatural pseudo-religious patterns of behaviour that formed the axis of Frank’s life before the moment of revelation.

The depicted approach towards the truth and delusions, naturalness and twistedness, transsexuality and gender identity does not fit into the “postmodern” paradigm very well. Even though “postmodern” is a label stereotypically put on TWF there is no sign of postmodern approval of freedom to construct life on arbitrary foundations as, according to postmodernism, there are supposedly no absolutely objective (postmodern anti-scientism), natural (postmodern anti-essentialism) or even divine (postmodern anti-metaphysics) scales or standards. In TWF the confession of truth about one’s natural essence leads to a salvation of a sort. The final chapter definitely defies a postmodern reading of TWF as there is no doubt about Frank’s fatalistic accepting the newly found identity. Frank did not find himself in a position of an arbitrarily choosing post-modern identity consumer.4

4 Among numerous interpreters of our ”Zeitgeist” Gilles Lipovetsky and Zygmunt Bauman represent arguably the most influential proponents of the abovementioned sociological definition of post-modernity and its effect upon people’s behavioural patterns. Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_Bauman#Postmodernity_and_consumerism or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_consumericus (2012-08-10).

10 3. Modern Critique of Religion

The old personality is rejected at the moment of liberation as a big mistake, stupidity and delusion based on malign, unnatural schemes. Conclusion that TWF represents a specimen of modern “salvation myths” would be nearly impossible to digest for those among us who still associate words like myth or salvation exclusively with explicit religion or God forbid Christianity alone. Moreover, Frank’s old identity religious practices belong among those condemned consequences of “false consciousness” or “neurotic personality”. Banks puts these words into the mouth of a re-born Frances: ―The Factory was my attempt to construct life, to replace the involvement which otherwise I did not want.‖5

Repudiation of religion on the basis of hermeneutical critique6 characterizes modern, not postmodern mainstream. Comte, Feuerbach, Marx, Frazer and Freud are typical representatives of such a modern approach to religion. In all their super-influential theories religion is interpreted as an imperfect, outdated or all-out harmful version of abovementioned thinkers’ evolutionary and revelatory systems of “purely scientific” thought. In all the mentioned reductionist philosophies attention is paid to a proper understanding of religion as a mere precursor or a grotesque parody of real science. Science is elevated onto a position of true knowledge that can heal or safe man(kind) from a crippling and deluding grip of religious superstitions. Religion is mocked either as a childish or pathological illusion suitable only for those pitiful who are not able to sustain a mature worldview.

Freudian pan-sexual reductionism is evidenced by yet another part of Frances’s final omniscient monologue: ―Having no purpose in life or procreation, I invested all my worth in that grim opposite, and so found a negative and negation of the fecundity only others could lay claim to. (...) I would find or make my own weapons, and my victims would be those most recently produced by the one act I was incapable of; my equals in that, while they possessed the potential for generation, they were at that point no more able to perform the required act than I was. Talk about penis envy. (...) The murders were my own conception; my sex.‖

5 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 65. 6 Cf. Mircea Eliade, Dějiny náboženského myšlení IV, Praha 2009, chapter 437.: Klasikové ―hermeneutické kritiky náboženství‖: Feuerbach, Marx, Freud, p. 447-453.

11 The concluding message of TWF was the only letdown I experienced when reading it and musing over it. A profound and extremely convincing depiction of a tormented soul has been at last raped by implementing ideological moral lesson into the last chapter. A simplistic misreading of late Freud’s dual instincts (life-instinct Eros and death-instinct Thanatos) can lead to a conclusion that we either have inclination towards healthy sex and rationality OR sickly aggression and superstition. It may be the case that Banks consciously continued shrouding his own opinion in a cloud of mystification – it is the fictitious heroine who speaks not the author himself – and then Frances’s final self-understanding would be possible meant by Banks as another example of dangerously distorted, black-and-white logic. This time the fallacious dichotomy would not be represented by two clearly weird value clusters (evil/women X good/men) but by two way too often espoused and dichotomised value packages (sex / ”natural” reason and goodness X violence / ”unnatural” faith and badness).

Even though I would personally appreciate such a sublime, sophisticated subversion of intellectual clichés, it is hardly imaginable that Banks resisted the temptation to finally reveal the real Truth (his own conviction) to the readers in the finale of his novel. Banks is a self- proclaimed committed atheist, a person on a seriously taken warpath against dangers of religious “faith”, ergo a doctrinaire and ideological activist: ―Quite a few of us are guilty - by us I mean so the atheists - we are kind of guilty of thinking that religion will somehow you know ... back off, embarrassed, you know, backing to the shadows going: ―Sorry, it was all nonsense, wasn‘t it? Sorry all... forget what we said.‖ Err and it‘s not. It‘s come back with the vengeance, you know, you got people especially in the States it‘s err basically bananas... and it‘s this host of gradual turning away from reason and rationality... Faith itself and faith is a belief without reason. I think as soon you turn your back on reason you turn your back on what makes us human...‖7

The abovementioned position characterizes every public statement delivered by Iain Banks that deals with his attitude towards religion. It might be argued that for many it was Banks who introduced them to a specific phrase “evangelical atheist” to further promote his believes concerning faith. No matter how repetitive it may sound this position cannot be in any way

7 Cf. Iain Banks: 'I'm an evangelical atheist' from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dnCTApJ4Bc (2012-08- 09) . Transcription RH

12 labelled postmodern in the strong sense of the word. Banks’ conscious aim of his “evangelical atheism” is supposedly to "to proselytise about the badness of religion, and to say that faith is wrong, belief without reason and question is just evil".8 This struggle seems to be stemming from a perspective that is definite and essentialist. Much to my dismay “evangelical atheism” tediously repeats 18th century arguments with all the plain naivety of the Encyclopaedists generation about the absolute and clear boundaries between religion and science, backwardness and progress, “historical” faith and “natural” reason.

The most important question presents itself quite naturally (rhetoric figure only – it is clearly a cultural issue): “Is there anything postmodern about TWF at all?” If we dismiss an obvious notion of its publishing date (1984) we are not far from the end of the list. The tension between a refined, rationally structured form and irrational or even repulsive subject of depiction has been around on a large scale since L'art pour l'art aestheticism and decadence movement. Bitterly sarcastic mockery of church and religion can be traced back to at least 18th century literary canon. A painful enquiry into uncivilized island mentality of adolescent males and their barbaric idolization of killing urges made its way into compulsory school reading lists years before TWF. Nihil novi sub sole then?

Not exactly. Truly postmodern is the cultivated and learned attempt to reject vast majority of classical Western “Great Stories” that have an ambition to present a global vision of the world and the laws governing it, therefore “rightfully” claiming absolute commitment of their followers.9 Banks mocks scientific manipulation (Frank-enstein theme of hubris), military prowess (courage, discipline, cold-blooded determination) and religious motivation (Power, altar, sacrificial poles etc.) indirectly by ascribing all these ideals to a mad transsexual serial killer.

8 http://www.infidels.org/kiosk/author204.html (16.3.2012) 9 Jean-François Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, 1979

13 4. Postmodern Critique of Frank’s Cult

The book’s namesake apparatus, the Wasp Factory itself, is an elaborate divination device: ―All our lives are symbols. Everything we do is part of a pattern we have at least some say in. The strong make their own patterns and influence other people's, the weak have their courses mapped out for them. The weak and the unlucky, and the stupid. The Wasp Factory is part of the pattern because it is part of life and—even more so- part of death. Like life it is complicated, so all the components are there. The reason it can answer questions is because every question is a start looking for an end, and the Factory is about the End—death, no less. Keep your entrails and sticks and dice and books and birds and voices and pendants and all the rest of that crap; I have the Factory, and it's about now and the future; not the past.‖10 Factory constitutes one of the dominant elements in Frank’s private religion. In this context the word private denotes that the whole cult evolved and revolves around Frank himself. In this sense Frank’s cult may be counted among numerous postmodern self-realization or self- actualization movements that have flourished since the 1960s at a large scale.

Nonetheless, pointing out this similarity ought not to conceal two radical differences between New Age movement and Frank’s cult. Firstly, New Age systems of religious validation of personal uniqueness publicly proselytised their version of the path to salvation or enlightenment. Even though every adherent of New Age was supposed to find his own individual Self there was a little to no discussion that everybody must restrict their cultic, meditation and other practices solely to the boundaries of their personal past time. The modern division of state and church was paralleled by an analogous division of public and private dimensions of postmodern world. It has always been anathema for New Agers to stir the beast of the Establishment with a piece of constructive critique. They have never struggled for official power by means of a theocratic political party. New Age unconformity remained totally loyal to the Enlightenment tenet that delegates religion to the realm of civil society. In fact the fragmentation was deepened by one more step. It was preached that the only genuine spiritual path is the path of non-violence, tolerance and individualism. The rest of religious practices were condemned as authoritarian, hypocritical and hence intolerable. The only community sanctioned (and not criticised) by New Age dogmas consisted of free, equal and brotherly individuals. Hierarchy and authority was questioned even in the relationships between parents and children.

10 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 7, Space Invaders, p. 42.

14

In contrast, Frank would never approve of the idea that all people should be considered equally valuable and that everyone is infinitely important. In Frank’s cult, he himself became the exclusively sacred person. To be honest, many New Age doctrines only barely conceal that their all-mankind-broad-unconditional love just compensates for their equally unlimited self-centredness. The individualism in Frank’s cult does not spring out of compensatory bonds with universalism. On the contrary, it represents a bizarre product of conscious tribalism and exceptionalism, resembling to a haunting degree the cults of Egyptian pharaohs, Oriental god- kings and Roman, Chinese etc. emperors or even mediaeval Christian kings. Banks, however, as a stout critique of what he understands under the term religion, ridicules the parallel with the following words of reborn Frances’: ―I was proud; eunuch but unique; a fierce and noble presence in my lands, a crippled warrior, fallen prince.... Now I find I was the fool all along.‖

The similarity goes deeper because both Frank bears the same twin responsibility as divine kings of yonder did. Kingship has traditionally consisted of profane and spiritual power, authority and duties. It is no coincidence that there were clerics called “rex secrorum”11 in Rome, “Archon Basileus”12 in Athens or that the Czech word for a priest “kněz” and a prince “kníže” has got the same origin with German “koenig”, i.e. a king. Frank was also both a chief military commander of his one-man army and a supreme spiritual leader of his one-man church. The borders of his island empire were marked and magically protected by devices far more macabre than mere frontier stones. Frank describes the role of his Sacrifice Poles in an inner monologue as his ―early-warning system and deterrent rolled into one; infected, potent things which looked out from the island, warding off. Those totems were my warning shot; anybody who set foot on the island after seeing them should know what to expect.‖13 The Poles in question are not called Sacrifice or infected for no reason. Every piece of the magical firewall consists of several severed animal heads or whole creatures in case of those smaller, less potent ones. The whole description of Poles’ function sounds pompous, archaic and fanatical. Most postmodern Western people would be probably scared to death by just listening to a speech like this. Witnessing to a person ranting about a non-traditional, violent religion without irony or sarcasm can lead to just one conclusion. The speaker is a dangerous

11 The title means literally a sacred king. Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_sacrorum (2012-08-12). 12 The title literally means an anointed ruler. Cf. „The Archon Basileus was charged with overseeing the organisation of religious rites.“ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon_basileus (2012-08-12). 13 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 65.

15 madman. Frank fits the description pretty well: ―That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.‖14

Freudian edge to the critique remains quite tangible even if only the titles of his most notoriously known antireligious books are taken into account: “Totem and Taboo” and “The Future of an Illusion”. For Freud religion was nothing but a collective neurosis stemming out of the most urgent human wishes. Freud was quite an early critique of religion and therefore in fact aimed only at the nineteenth century type of European monotheism (need for a father figure and immortality of human soul). All these facts considered, there is no doubt that Banks followed Freud only as far as to claim that cultic practices are products of a pathological wishful thinking. Frank’s private religion does not include any personal loving deities or believes concerning life after death. Both these key points of Freud’s attack on dominant type of religion of his days are dismissed by Frank as pervasively mocks the Christian notion of God as something unrealistic and in the most likelihood totally non- existent. His dead relatives went ―to whatever they imagined their Maker was like‖15 and his brother Eric went mad because there was a fundamental flaw in his personality, feminine oversensitivity, which caused that ―(m)aybe some deep part of him, buried under layers of time and growth like the Roman remains of a modem city, still believed in God, and could not suffer the realisation that, if such an unlikely being did exist, it could suffer that to happen to any of the creatures it had supposedly fashioned in its own image.‖16

The other significant difference between New Age and Frank’s religion therefore lies in their directly opposite standpoints from which they criticise Christians and their concept of God. Most hippies would focus on how brutal, violent and corrupted by political power Christendom had been throughout its history. Especially crusades, witches processes and destruction of supposedly “natural” heathenism belonged among pacifistic, feminist and anti- industrial pet hates. These arch-crimes were attributed to male chauvinism and aggression sanctioned by Christianity. On the contrary, Frank saw the feminine need for reconciliation, wishful thinking of ultimately triumphing love and forgiveness as the most abhorrent vices of

14 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 2, The Snake Park, p. 13. 15 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 2, The Snake Park, p. 8. 16 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 10, Running Dog, p. 52.

16 Christian dogma against a realistic, scientific and manly worldview. New Agers strived to promote historically newer and more differentiated development inside Christianity. Politics, wars, nationalism and authoritative discipline of old patriarchal Judaism ought to have been radically wiped out of “real” or “pure” spirituality. Universal scope of all-embracing tenderness (faith, hope and love) became quite rightfully a trademark of the Primitive Church and her founder chose to die as a political criminal when confronted with an armed opposition. The sacrifice was made in order to prove that the faithful of God who is Love must not resort to violence as a means to serve their ultimate purpose. Frank could not stand such a concept and rather embraced more Mohammed-like view towards the value of vengeance in the eyes of his God. Six years old Frank, after murdering his one-legged cousin Blyth by putting a viper into his prosthetic leg, had a theological dispute with his older brother Eric. The untimely death of a small boy was put into connection with God’s wrath over Blyth’s killing boys’ rabbits with a flamethrower: ―All I said was that I thought it was a judgement from God that Blyth had first lost his leg and then had the replacement become the instrument of his downfall. All because of the rabbits. Eric, who was going through a religious phase at the time which I suppose I was to some extent copying, thought this was a terrible thing to say; God wasn't like that. I said the one I believed in was.‖17

As stated above Banks is an “evangelical atheist”. An interpretation was proposed that Frank’s values are all rejected in Frances’ final monologue as misguided and erroneous. These two general premises should logically lead to a conclusion that Frank’s critique of Christian and New Age spirituality is either also rejected by Frances (and therefore in contradiction to evangelical atheism or final epiphany) or an exception to the rule which deserves further investigation. The first option leaves us disappointed and angry with Banks’ lack of intellectual integrity. The other option opens a new dialogue with an extremely sophisticated message that a brilliant novelist enwove into the fabric of his story. Let us then assume that critical thinking is the core of Frank’s personality that survives the apocalyptic event of Frances’ psychological birth out of his ashes. The shock and pain of a sudden collapse of the old self-image could not be better described than as a psychological equivalent

17 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 2, The Snake Park, p. 13.

17 of death:‖I want to laugh or cry or both, as I sit here, thinking about my one life, my three deaths. Four deaths now, in a way, now that my father's truth has murdered what I was.‖18

Those experiences that revolutionise our worldviews are truly apocalyptic in both original and derivative form of the word.19 As always Banks plays the card of inner vs. outer dichotomies and analogies. Frank’s inner devastation and Frances’ resuscitation takes place on the background of a real conflagration caused by Eric’s mad assault on his family. The flaming inferno of burning sheep, swinging axe and exploding bombs foreshadowed the ultimate fate of Frank’s. He survived the catastrophe. Or at least the nucleus of his psyche survived that consisted of a paranoid pride of uniqueness and intelligence. For instance, Frank admitted he could not convince Eric to give up his arsonist plans with these words: ―(N)o normal brain— not even mine, which was far from normal and more powerful than most- could match that marshalling of forces.‖20

Critical thinking helped Frances to get over the most critical stage of her phoenix-like rebirth. All the crimes were rationalised and explained, put away from her herself in stricto sensu. Even though the continuity was accepted as logical, carrying the burden of Frank’s old crimes was not deemed fair from the analytical point of view: ―But I am still me; I am the same person, with the same memories and the same deeds done, the same (small) achievements, the same (appalling) crimes to my name. Why? How could I have done those things? Perhaps it was because I thought I had had all that really mattered in the world, the whole reason—and means—for our continuance as a species, stolen from me before I even knew its value. Perhaps I murdered for revenge in each case, jealously exacting—through the only potency at my command—a toll from those who passed within my range; my peers who each would otherwise have grown into the one thing I could never become: an adult.‖21

18 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 64. 19 Apocalypse is a Greek word for revelation whose meaning was transposed to denote just the most spectacular content of the most influential, biblical revelation. In New Testament the Apocalypse of Saint John or the Book of Revelation of Saint John depicts the future cataclysmic end of the world, the Last Judgment and the beginning of completely new life – either in heaven or in hell. The vivid imagery of the horrendous destruction (Great Tribulations) preceding the Last Judgment became equivalent with the word apocalypse in modern European languages. 20 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 8, The Wasp Factory, p. 45. 21 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 64, 65.

18 Stubborn, courageous and open-minded search for the Truth is therefore celebrated as the only unambiguously positive trait of Frank’ and Frances’ alike. Critical thinking can save us in the same manner it saved them. Not from suffering or responsibility that naturally came with life, but from illusions and delusions that hurt people unnecessarily, i.e. unnaturally. In my opinion, Banks moral lesson reads that only our own individual reason can provide us with the Ariadne’s thread that will lead us out of the labyrinth inside which unnatural monsters are crouching and feeding on human flesh. Remember that you can not leave until you have killed your own personal Minotaur – a man-eater with human body but animal head. Put off the mask of a beast and join the people outside dungeons. And do not forget to help the others to get from the dark to the light, too.

Frank confronted his and Eric’s demons at night: ―He looked at me. His face was bearded, dirty, like an animal mask. It was the boy, the man I had known, and it was another person entirely. That face was grinning and leering and sweating, and it beat to and fro as his chest heaved in and out and the flames pulsed.‖22

Frances and Eric met in the bright morning: ―I found Eric lying asleep on the dune above the Bunker, head in the swaying grass, curled up like a little child. I went up to him and sat beside him for a while, then spoke his name, nudged his shoulder. He woke up, looked at me and smiled. 'Hello, Eric,' I said. He held out one hand and I clasped it. He nodded, still smiling. Then he shifted, put his curly head on my lap, closed his eyes and went to sleep.‖23

22 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 11, The Prodigal, p. 62. 23 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 64, 65.

19 5. Sympathy for a Devil

There is a general theory of the relation between author’s “being” and his “consciousness” manifested in his work. Karl Mannheim pointed out that when we want to embrace a certain state of things we just describe it affectionately without any further analysis.24 This conservative stance is opposed by a reformist viewpoint that goes beneath the surface of a studied phenomenon and tries to “dismantle” it into rational elements. Using a template of ideal norms for judging the present reality of course leads to an assumption that the reality should be shaped into a better, more sensible state of affairs, free of the irrational burdens of the nowadays.25 TWF represents a brilliant fusion of both a conservative and reformist attitude.

As stated above, the final epiphany allowed Banks to use conservative narration technique for everything he wanted to ridicule or warn against. All pre-Frances Frank’s horrendous actions and deranged views are delivered in such a package. It means that told stories and disclosed feelings or ideas are not rendered as a dubious material to be questioned and analysed in order to reshape that something fundamentally flawed or at least imperfect but rather as a kind of myth that confirms the value and significance of what Frank was, is and will be – ideally forever. The style of conservative narration makes it extremely difficult for readers not to sympathise with Frank in spite of his vicious bizarreness. This way Iain Banks shows to all readers that are honest with themselves how alluring the power of mythical tales is that exculpate and aggrandize the pivotal character (be it individual or collective) of the narrative.

On the other hand Frances speaks in a tone that suggests a liberal position of a person who firmly believes in an ever enfolding process of life. Frances warns against the idea that the world is and will be the same place as it has always been. Our need for the feeling of secure definiteness and regularity forces us to construct our own personal Factories, models of life

24 ―The conservative type of knowledge originally is the sort of knowledge giving practical control. It consists of habitual and often also of reflective orientations towards those factors which are immanent in the situation.‖ From: Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, 1936 (1954 English translation), p. 206. http://www.unz.org/Pub/MannheimKarl-1936 (2012-08-09). 25 The liberal „ideal of reason, set up as the goal, contrasted with the existing state of affairs, and it was necessary to bridge the gap between the imperfection of things as they occurred in a state of nature and the dictates of reason by means of the concept of progress. From: Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, 1936 (1954 English translation), p. 200. (http://www.unz.org/Pub/MannheimKarl-1936 (2012-08-09).

20 that allow us to control or at least accept our limited worlds by and at the cost of ignoring everything outside the box. Frances, however, preaches that the intrinsically unfitting stationary models of a dynamic reality are prone to collapse at the moment of enlightenment: ―Each of us, in our own personal Factory, may believe we have stumbled down one corridor, and that our fate is sealed and certain (dream or nightmare, humdrum or bizarre, good or bad), but a word, a glance, a slip—anything can change that, alter it entirely, and our marble hall becomes a gutter, or our rat-maze a golden path. Our destination is the same in the end, but our journey—part chosen, part determined- is different for us all, and changes even as we live and grow.‖26

Even though Frances does not explicitly express a belief in an unilinear progress but in an inevitably transient character of life, it seems that she welcomes broadening of horizons as something valuable and worthy all the turmoil it may bring along. Moreover, in the case of Frank/Frances there is a little doubt that accepting transiency of evolving worldviews dawned a very promising new day – both in a literal and figurative sense of the word. Banks uses the ancient notion of weather conditions mirroring the inner psychological processes: ―The weather had cleared. No storm, no thunder and lightning, just a wind out of the west sweeping all the cloud away out to sea, and the worst of the heat with it. Like a miracle, though more likely just an anticyclone over Norway. So it was bright and clear and cool.‖27 28 It remains unclear what is Frances’, let alone Banks’, attitude towards the subjectively meaningful coincidence of objectively causally unrelated phenomena. The perceived numinosity of the inner experience is instantaneously dismissed by a hardcore scientific causal rationalisation. The term “synchronicity” was coined by a Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung to denote (subjectively) meaningful coincidences of inner and outer reality or in

26 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 65. 27 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 64. 28 Cf. Mannheim’s assertion about liberalism that “the central elements of the intellectualistic mentality were open to the clear light of day. The dominating mood of the Enlightenment, the hope that at last light would dawn on the world, has long survived to give these ideas even at this late stage their driving power. However, in addition to this promise which stimulated fantasy and looked to a distant horizon, the deepest driving forces of the liberal ideas of the Enlightenment lay in the fact that it appealed to the free will and kept alive the feeling of being indeterminate and unconditioned.‖ From: Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia. An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, 1936 (1954 English translation), p. 206. ( http://www.unz.org/Pub/MannheimKarl- 1936 (2012-08-09)

21 other words an accumulation of symbolically, not causally related occurrences.29 In the context of Frances’ final epiphany it might be plausibly argued that after the discovery of her “true nature” Frances is no longer willing to yield herself to the magical thinking that relates everything to her ego and finally sees the things clearly and from the perspective that sheds illuminating light on objective, scientifically explicable “natural truth”.

It may be concluded that although dispelling of clouds of delusions may be very harsh or virtually unbearable, it has got a liberating and invigorating potential in a sense of two very famous aphorisms: ―And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.‖30 and ―What does not kill me, makes me stronger.‖31 These two classics could be completed with a sinister quote of Dexter’s: ―Conscience is a killer.‖32 Frances is able to resist the temptation of a suicidal escape from the remorse pressure mainly because her sharp analytical reasoning separated the old personality and the new one. Frank is seen as a victim of a cruel deception who passed on the destructive urges of others in magnified, truly abominable dimensions and forms. All the kills were sacrifices to non-existent gods, bloodsucking apparitions and delirious demons: ―Now it all turns out to have been for nothing. There was no revenge that needed taking, only a lie, a trick that should have been exposed, a disguise which even from the inside I should have seen through, but in the end did not want to. I was proud; eunuch but unique; a fierce and noble presence in my lands, a crippled warrior, fallen prince.... Now I find I was the fool all along.‖ With a new name and gender, Frances feels that she reached the end of the old path, and standing at the crossroads, she can choose what turning she will take. Actually, Banks selects more appropriate wording in order to render the atmosphere of a newly gained objective point of view: ―Now the door closes, and my journey begins.‖

In the last chapter Banks suggests that, generally spoken, all sins and crimes have their roots in inadequate interpersonal relationships and in a consequently twisted self-image. The whole story implies that the “island mentality”33 leads to the emergence of pathology. Being isolated

29 Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity (2012-08-10) 30 From: John 8:32, http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/truth_free.html (2012-08-10). 31 Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888. Cf. http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/38037.html 32 From: http://www.veidt.com/?p=2145 (2012-08-10). 33 “Believing in my great hurt, my literal cutting off from society's mainland, it seems to me that I took life in a sense too seriously, and the lives of others, for the same reason, too lightly.‖ (emphasised by RH) From: The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 65.

22 and separated from what and whom we really love inevitably distorts our notions of right and wrong and results in an acute need for morbid and bizarre substitutions. Here again it becomes clear that TWF cannot be seen as an affirmation of post-modern “everything-goes” ideology. From the perspective of the last chapter the reader observes that Frank’s insanity can be explained as a result of the Cauldhames’ family tragedy. There is no room for a metaphysical evil existing on its own as a supernatural element defying rational analysis. All the monstrous actions are shown as being caused by deprivation of basic personal needs. Little Frances was deserted by her mother and rejected by her father. The terrible void opened inside Frank’s soul and, as it is inevitable with all human beings, the “horror vacui” made him hastily construct a substitute identity. Frances sums up this insight: ―Lacking, as one might say, one will, I forged another.‖34 Ironically enough, it means that the “evangelical atheist” Banks promotes Christian dogma of evil as a mere lack of good.

Nevertheless, in the classical concept of evil as the absence or deprivation of good, i.e. God (privatio boni), Thomas Aquinas equates moral good (being empathic/good to someone) and existential good (being efficient/good at something) as it is inevitable in any strictly monotheistic religion that merges all the desirable features into the image of One True God. Frank Cauldhame on the other hand is extremely good at doing what he does (bombs making, dams building, running, shaving, religious rituals observing, philosophical reasoning and, of course, killing in particular) which does not mean he has genuine feelings to anybody but a dwarf Jamie and his mad brother Eric. Frank’s relationship with his father is explicitly ambiguous: ―I've always had a rather ambivalent attitude towards something happening to my father, and it persists. 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. What delight to behave really badly and still get loads of sympathy! But I'd miss him, and I don't know what the legal position would be about me staying on here by myself.‖ Reading these lines about the prospect of a death in the family strikes horror and disgust in heart. Nonetheless, the childish openness and all-out selfishness provokes eruptions of laughter. The level incongruence between the expected and the performed determines the intensity of comical effect. Usually, people laugh at the expense of somebody who wanted to or was expected to behave maturely but failed to. Frank’s high brow stylisation of the last sentence stands out as a sore thumb after the abhorrent hymn to death-related fun and a minimalistic

34 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 65.

23 confession to a normal emotional reaction. We should be terrified but instead we end up perplexed, amused and positively curious what will come next. The whole book can be therefore labelled a “sympathy for devil” novel.

24 6. Narcissism and Violence

Undoubtedly, the most unique feature of TWF lies in the emphasis which is put on the description of psychologically plausible births of anti-heroes. An early childhood trauma has always been perceived as a typical feature of great leaders, heroes and prophets. Orphanage, semi-orphanage or adoption belong among those most widely spread means of Fate or God’s Providence how to discard common identity of the chosen one and replace it by a fanatical clinging to an ideal way too extreme for a “normal” or “average” everyman. To name only some of the most famous exemplars: Zeus, Sargon, Moses, Romulus, Buddha, and Jesus were all adopted at a very early age. When the nucleus identity of an infant lacks unfettering love and admiration from so called selfobjects (mother and later also father) their personality grows up around a narcissistically wounded centre. This unenviable state gets progressively worse as the instable personality demands gradually more and more energy to keep stress levels at reasonable levels. All the protection mechanisms need upkeep and psychological development of narcissistically wounded personality is therefore split between facing new life challenges and continual care of compensation mechanisms that protect personality core from breaking apart. Those people whose nucleus self is fragile unconsciously demand absolute love or admiration throughout their life as they were denied unfettering parental love in their infanthood. Such demands cannot be met with understanding under normal circumstances and narcissists therefore seek for never ending stream of extreme self-aggrandizing in one way or another. Frank’s held himself in a certainly high esteem: ―The rocks of the Bomb Circle usually get me thinking and this time was no exception, especially considering the way I'd lain down inside them like some Christ or something, opened to the sky, dreaming of death.‖35 And as his monologue enfolds, Frank is absolutely mesmerized by memories of his own actions and “achievements”, especially those involving suffering, terror and death that he caused with impunity: ―Well, Paul went about as quickly as you can go; I was certainly humane that time. Blyth had lots of time to realise what was happening, jumping about the Snake Park screaming as the frantic and enraged snake bit his stump repeatedly, and little Esmerelda must have had some inkling what was going to happen to her as she was slowly blown away.‖36

35 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 4, The Bomb Circle, p. 22. 36 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 4, The Bomb Circle, p. 22.

25 A famous psychologist Heinz Kohut believes that in therapy sessions a well trained, insightful and longsuffering therapist can assume the position of a substitute parental selfobject for time long enough to heal the narcissistic wound. During so called “transmuting internalizations” a narcissist absorbs waves of forced self-admiration that he projects onto a therapist. There are some typical routes which a healing process can take. First of them is “idolizing transference” during which a narcissist perceives a therapist as the best and absolutely perfect person in the world – because it is the way all people need to perceive their parents, i.e. those caring person who pay all they sincere and loving attention to in their infanthood. Therapist does so for a needy narcissist and the inevitable outcome of this psychodrama is a childish idolization of a parental figure.

Another option is called “mirroring transference” in which a narcissist patient uses a therapist to confirm and praise good qualities. Supposedly this process leads to a firm internalization of positive evaluation and hence to an emergence of a reliable self or in other words a stable psychological core of a healthy self-esteem. “Twinship transference” occurs when a narcissist perceives an analyst as a person who shares the same tremendously admirable characteristics with him or her. They are in fact the same fantastic persons. This outer bombastic self-image of a narcissist however only compensate for a real self-esteem rooted in early childhood experience. The narcissists are always endangered by a full-blown realisation of their own inferiority complex because a realistic and healthy self-image must always be created and continually confirmed in relationships to somebody or something external. Narcissists crave for a childish solipsistic self-aggrandisation because they never experienced enough of it in a proper phase of their psychological development. Unfortunately, they must reduce other people, animate and inanimate objects in their vicinity to a mere prolongation of their own personal needs and even of their personalities. This attitude denies autonomy and to a large extent even reality to people surrounding a narcissist for whom real are only those beings that are confirming his compensatory self-aggrandisation. Such a fixation on archaic needs of one’s self makes it highly unlikely for a narcissist to establish close and long-lasting relationships with anyone but equally damaged persons. The deeper the damage goes the more obnoxious and obscure forms the compensation takes. Vicious circle is completed.

Modern (read: 19th century and later) secular psychology proposes a liberation from the vicious circle through a therapeutic relationship. In a vulgar secularist simplification this is very often seen as a progress and major change in comparison with religious salvation. On one hand there is human relationship based on a scientific theory while on the other hand

26 there is worship of illusionary “supernatural” forces or beings based on a religious dogma. Fortunately, “by selfobject Kohut means the experience of another – more precisely, the experience of impersonal functions provided by another – as part of the self. “37 Vitally important psychological “impersonal functions” can be according to Kohut internalized through the encounter with “another” who provides them.

This implies two conclusions:

1. Psychological functions are objective, impersonal and independent of individual living people in a very similar way as laws of physics, chemistry or biology – psychological functions shape our lives and are to be respected.

2. Psychological functions need “another” - a medium through which they can be perceived as objectively valid and then internalized.

Even though Kohut himself considered only living people as suitable selfobjects this irrational restriction might be plausibly ascribed to a generalized anxiety of mainstream psychoanalysts about non-human healing agents. Talk therapy centred on personal urges and inhibitions has been the trademark and even the war banner of psychoanalysis since the times of the founder father Freud and this can be hardly changed. If it was possible, then perhaps only at the cost of being ostracized and excommunicated from the movement (Jung, Adler, etc.). For our purposes it must be emphasised that even work and especially art can reflect our desires for wholeness and salvation and produce effects comparable with Kohut’s therapy. Any piece of art, craftsmanship, scientific research or administration work that is suitable to serve as a projection of impersonal psyche functions facilitates “transmuting internalization” in a similar way to a psychoanalyst.3839

37 http://www.selfpsychologypsychoanalysis.org/selfobject.shtml (17. 3. 2012) 38 Cf. the notion of “ekklesiomorphic institutions”, a sort of factories on salvation, in: Stanislav Komárek, Sto esejů o přírodě a společnosti. Praha 1995 or Stanislav Komárek, Lidská přirozenost. Praha 1998. The concept was inspired by: Eugen Drewermann, Kleriker. Psychogramm eines Ideals, Olten 1990. 39 Cf. “Most mandalas have an intuitive, irrational character and, through their symbolical content, exert a retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess a "magical" significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was never consciously felt by the patient.“ http://www.netreach.net/~nhojem/jung.htm (2012- 08-13). From Concerning Mandala Symbolism. C. G. Jung. trans. from C. G. Jung, Uber Mandalasymbolik. Gestaltungen des Unbewussten, Zürich, 1950.

27 Intense relationship to one’s “special” objects or institutions can span from superstitious fetishism, fervent worship to noble dedication. In all cases religion is considered to deal with these projection techniques of soul care. The notion of an unsurpassable gap and even essential enmity between religious and psychological soul cares was undermined by several noted scholars (e.g. Jung, Campbell, Maslow), but generally spoken there is no will on part of both therapists and clerics to abandon their trench war policies. Such a clear distinction between our know-how and their know-how works wondrously in establishing “tribal” or “worldview” group identities, less so in searching for a more global synthesis that would help overcome ideological provincionalism.

TWF presents the reader with a disturbing depiction of a narcissistic character and his bizarre idiosyncratic attempts to keep at bay his excruciating feelings of inferiority and fragmentation. Banks’ decision to tell the story from a deeply damaged madman’s perspective does make the reader to sympathise with the monster. The narration technique also turns all the tragic into a sort of black humour grotesque as we cannot but be amused by childishness and conceit that characterize every single line of Frank’s comments. Readers are manoeuvred into laughter over his monstrously distorted vision of his actions, their motivation and results.

28 7. Misogyny and Good Intentions

At a conscious level Frank ascribes his insecurity predominantly to his assumed genital mutilation and also to his blighted family history. In both cases gender, its biological basis and psychological component, plays an essential role in understanding Frank’s personality. His mother left him and his father behind, running away from all responsibility for the family in order to pursue her hippie happiness. Children that are separated from one of their parents characteristically exhibit guilt anxiety as their mythopoetic and self-centred perception of reality instantly builds a pseudo-causal connection between what children can do and what happens to their family. Many small children therefore consider a divorce their own fault to a certain degree because it is more acceptable for their weak, developing selves to live in a reality of guilt than in a reality that is completely out of their control and in which bad things happen without any understandable causes.40 Banks goes a step behind this stage when introducing Frank’s coping strategy. Frank was psychologically able to project all the guilt not only onto his biological mother, but women in general: “My GREATEST ENEMIES are Women and the Sea. These things I hate. Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them, (…) Women... well, women are a bit too close for comfort as far as I'm concerned. I don't even like having them on the island, not even Mrs Clamp, who comes every week on a Saturday to clean the house and deliver our supplies. She's ancient and sexless the way the very old and the very young are, but she's still been a woman, and I resent that, for my own good reason. ―41

The factors that contributed to such a totally undiscriminating prejudice must have been made strong enough by Banks in order to maintain psychological plausibility of his character study. Banks produced a colossal complex of misogyny stirring circumstances which in all its colossal improbability cannot but provoke reader’s sense of absurdity and black humour. It is

40 In a review of Elizabeth Marquardt: Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce a psychotherapist Thomas J. Burns says: ―Perhaps even more disturbing, parents show remarkable perseverance in keeping the past alive, and the "visitation handoffs" are dreaded by children because their natural parents cannot let grievances die. Marquandt gives examples of children who feel responsible for their parents' pain and end up becoming the emotional caregivers. Divorce in effect robs a child of childhood.‖ (Emphasised by RH.) From: http://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Worlds-Children-Divorce/dp/0307237109 (2012-08-07)

41 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 3, In the Bunker, p. 14.

29 not only a character of Frank’s reckless Hell's Angel-esque mother who abandoned men of his family.

Frank has an older half-brother Eric whose mother died when giving birth to him. It was the first, very tragic separation which Cauldhame Senior had to undergo. Even though Banks is not explicit, his several hints suggest that Mr Cauldhame was deeply stricken with grief and that his second marriage might have been a bit desperate and forced attempt to escape depressions that followed the first Mrs Cauldhame demise. At the beginning of the second chapter Frank describes a photograph in which his father ―was holding a portrait-sized photograph of his first wife, Eric's mother, and she was the only one who was smiling. My father was staring at the camera looking morose.‖42 However, the tragic dimension is wrapped in a numbing display of bizarreness and banality. The quoted passage is preceded by a dry, matter-of-fact description of cleaning after a twisted ritual (―I TOOK the little cinder that was the remains of the wasp and put it into a matchbox…‖43). Even more emotionally cold and sarcastic is the final sentence of the family photo’s description: ―The young Eric was looking away and picking his nose, looking bored.‖ The whole “wrapping” of a personal tragedy in aloof, black humorous observations can be at a superficial level considered as a mere fan service to cynical audience. At a deeper level it can be understood as a very precise, truly empathetic depiction of a fictitious but completely plausible psychopath and his inner world that is almost entirely flat from the emotional perspective. Frank is not touched by the picture in a normal way as a healthy interpersonal rapport is substituted (compensated) by a rather disturbing religious cult centred around Frank’s own family: ―When the ritual standing-down of the Factory was completed I went back to the altar, looking round it at all its parts, the assortment of miniature plinths and small jars, the souvenirs of my life, the previous things I've found and kept. Photographs of all my dead relations, the ones I've killed and the ones that just died. Photographs of the living: Eric, my father, my mother. Photographs of things; a BSA 500 (not the bike, unfortunately; I think my father destroyed all the photographs of it), the house when it was still bright with swirling paint, even a photograph of the altar itself.‖44

Nevertheless, the death of Eric’s mother took place long before Frank was born and therefore it is Mr Cauldhame who is portrayed as the original vessel of profound bitterness towards

42 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 2, The Snake Park, p. 6. 43 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 2, The Snake Park, p. 6. 44 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 8, The Wasp Factory, p. 44.

30 women. After one of the harshest strikes of destiny, death of a beloved spouse giving birth to the couple’s first child, Mr Cauldhame was smitten down by yet another fatal blow to his belief in a generally benign nature of life. His second wife, Agnes, was a peculiar choice for a life partner. Even though mixed feelings towards a semi orphan are quite understandable - because the idea of being a parent for somebody who is a constant living reminder of husband’s previous love can be quite unsettling – most women are eventually overwhelmed by the innocence and cuteness of an adopted child, especially when they are very young. In a stark contrast to this happy ending conclusion, Agnes Cauldhame ―didn't like children in general and Eric in particular; she thought he was bad for her karma in some way.‖45 Both her emotional attitude and rational theory give an impression of a pathological person who consciously rejects not only mainstream worldview but also the most basic paternal instincts.

Indian concept of karma was very popular with the adherents of various alternative lifestyles in the 60s. Especially because “karma” was simplified into a notion of a cosmic law that echoes back all you give to the other beings. The karmic concept portraits the world unambiguously as a place where practice of nonviolence (in accordance with the so called golden rule46) is the only truly rational way of living. In spite of her hippie terminology Agnes does not feel any affection to children at all, even to her own newborn. ―Probably the same dislike of children led her to desert me immediately after my birth, and also caused her only to return on that one, fateful occasion when she was at least partly responsible for my little accident. All in all, I think I have good reason to hate her. I lay there in the Bomb Circle where I killed her other son, and I hoped that she was dead, too.‖ In this passage it is again evidenced that Frank is not able to consciously experience anything that would endanger his so painstakingly constructed feeling of strength, independence and emotional invulnerability. He does not show self-pity or desire to reunite with his mother. He seems not puzzled, disappointed or hurt by his mother’s actions anymore. She is perceived as pure evil and Frank is determined not to suffer from it ever again. It appears that out of the instinct of self- preservation victims of severe abuse opt for a psychological strategy consisting in accepting the vision of world where “might is right” and at the same time aggressively refuse to end up as a victim again. The only possible outcome of such a life lesson lies in assumption of the opposite role in the archetypical situation, i.e. of the bully.

45 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 4, The Bomb Circle, p. 22. 46 ―One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.‖ From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule (2012-08-01)

31 Moreover, Frank is determined to purge the world from anything that has connection with the original tormentor. Even though it is far more common for general public to associate abuse with direct violence, humiliation and intimidation, psychologists ever since Adler have been pointing out the devastating effect of parental indifference and neglect. Frank hates his mother for deserting him. She was also responsible for Frank’s first separation from his much admired and beloved half-brother Eric: ―It was she who let the Stoves take Eric away to Belfast, away from the island, away from what he knew. They thought that my father was a bad parent because he dressed Eric in girl's clothes and let him run wild, and my mother let them take him because she didn't like children in general and Eric in particular.‖47 That is what Frank consciously felt and thought about his mother at the age of sixteen. There was no redeeming quality in women at all. Their treacherous nature was to be banished from the world in as big scale as it was possible for Frank. Such a blind hatred towards all feminine is easily recognisable for an uninvolved observer as a result of inappropriate generalization fallacy. The same diagnosis holds true for Mr Cauldhame as well. Nonetheless, there is no easy way to transform profound personal anguish and despair into an elevated scientific perspective.

Mr Cauldhame lost his first wife and his second wife gave birth to his daughter Frances and made him reject his son Eric. Then she left both him and Frances. At the top of that Agnes returned to him only to give another birth - this time to a child of another man. Such an outrageous act alone could make many a man fly into rage. Unfaithful wife on the run that dares to come back for the sole purpose of taking a shelter in a house of her humiliated husband is an infuriating situation. However, Mr Cauldhame swallowed the insult and helped Agnes in distress. Actually, it was Agnes’s own irrational and irresponsible behaviour that puts her in danger: ―WHEN Agnes Cauldhame arrived, eight and a half months pregnant, on her BSA 500 with the swept-back handlebars and eye of Sauron painted red on the petrol- tank, my father was, perhaps understandably, not ferociously pleased to see her. (…) Agnes, tanned, huge, all beads and bright caftan, determined to give birth in the lotus position (in which she claimed the child had been conceived) while going 'Om', refused to answer any of my father's questions about where she had been for the three years and who she had been

47 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 4, The Bomb Circle, p. 22.

32 with. She told him not to be so possessive about her and her body. She was well and with child; that was all he needed to know.‖48

No one could blame Mr Cauldhame from a lack of good will. In fact, he exhibited quite a suspicious amount of understanding for or rather submission to a woman who was so arrogant as to dictate him an unconditional surrender to all her utterly impudent demands bordering on insanity. According to information available to Frank, his mother never apologised and as the story goes on the readers are provided with material evidence indeed: ―Agnes didn't stay long. She spent two days recovering, (...) then got on her bike and roared off. My father tried to stop her by standing in her way, so she ran him over and broke his leg quite badly, on the path before the bridge.‖49 Frank therefore quite understandably contemplated possible reasons that had made his father agree that he would house, feed, nurse and deliver Agnes: ―Whether he was secretly glad to have her back, and perhaps even had some foolish idea that she might be back to stay, I can't say. I don't think he is all that forceful really, despite the aura of brooding presence he can show when he wants to be impressive. I suspect that my mother's obviously determined nature would have been enough to master him.‖50

Frank can perceive that his father might still have loved Agnes, but that is - in Frank’s view - not an extenuating circumstance. On the contrary, Frank is able to understand irrationally forgiving or at least ambiguous nature of Mr Cauldhame’s affection only as a sign of weakness, be it of reason or of willpower. Such a position completely dismisses the value of emotionality and is not a real help when it comes down to understanding of psychological importance of romantic love. Actually, throughout the novel there is no mention about Frank ever falling in love. That seems very suspicious as people in general suffer from acute need to be in love with somebody during their teenage years. Romantic involvement (stretching from platonic love, daydreaming, writing poems, first dates and kisses to bravado-styled exploring of sexuality) forms the centre of most teenagers’ life values. Falling in love belongs among one of the most widely shared numinous51 experiences and ever since the romanticism era the

48 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 6, The Skull Grounds, p. 37. 49 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 6, The Skull Grounds, p. 38. 50 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 6, The Skull Grounds, p. 37. 51 Here used in the sense that was coined by ―the German theologian Rudolf Otto in his influential book Das Heilige (1917; translated into English as The Idea of the Holy, 1923), who described it as the power or presence of a divinity. According to Otto, the numinous experience has in addition to the tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling, a quality of fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The

33 western culture has been plagued by works of art that depict and idealise heterosexual lovers’ relationship as the most sacred value out there. Nonetheless, Frank appears to be through and through immune to it.

There are psychological theories that describe mechanisms responsible for falling in love. Generally, love is considered as a relationship in which our subconscious expectations of our ideal partner are met. These expectations have always something to do with the idea of perfection achieved by completing the whole with two matching opposite parts. Romantic love is the encounter with the numinous “wholly other”. There are two widely recognised varieties of romantic love: “passionate” and “compassionate” love. Passionate love can be labelled “Jungian” because the famous concept of archetype anima/animus was introduced by a Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung: “The anima and animus are described by Jung as elements of his theory of the collective unconscious, a domain of the unconscious that transcends the personal psyche. In the unconscious of the male, it finds expression as a feminine inner personality: anima; equivalently, in the unconscious of the female it is expressed as a masculine inner personality: animus.‖52 Jung ascribed natural, innately configured tendency to develop technical rationality to men and the analogous tendency to develop caring emotionality to women. The complementary features supposedly atrophy because of both nature (gender genetics) and nurture (gender politics) and are therefore hidden or suppressed beneath the light of daily consciousness. Nevertheless, all human beings strife for wholeness in so called process of “individuation” and therefore seek for a way how to redeem their anima/animus from the atrophied and subconscious state. The most natural way is to project our unmet need for psychologically androgynous wholeness to a person who can be more or less suitable for such a role. Such a compensation for our lacking qualities is experienced as a miracle full of infinite promises and deep meaning. Another psychologist, Elaine Hatfield, has described passionate love as a ―state of intense longing for union with another. (...) Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfilment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness, anxiety, or despair‖53.

numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that the person feels to be in communion with a wholly other. The numinous experience can lead in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and/or the transcendent.‖ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous 2012-07-31) 52 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus (2012-07-31) 53 http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/a/compassionate.htm (2012-07-31)

34 “Jungian” or “passionate” love seems to be an ad hoc compensation of problems with our own one-sidedness and corresponding inferiority complex. The state, according to Hatfield, lasts between 6 and 30 months. In an optimistic scenario, “passionate” love undergoes a transformation into “compassionate” one. This relationship relies more on intimacy, sharing and mutual commitment. This sort of happiness soothes worries and tensions, hence contributes to establishment of a calm, mature self-confidence. In the terminology of humanistic psychotherapy people able of a compassionate love have their ideal self in congruence with they personally experienced self image. That is of course much easier after 6 to 30 months of a close relationship with an idolized selfobject.54 In the terminology of humanistic psychotherapy people able of a compassionate love have their ideal self in congruence with they personally experienced self image.

If all those abovementioned factors are taken into a consideration the whole love business seems to be a layman’s version of psychotherapy. That position appears to be just one side of a coin and the other side taps into the dark waters of a primordial, Darwinian struggle for propagation of the fittest. While the model of humanistic psychology stresses spiritual and teleological (towards-a-higher-purpose-aiming) dimensions of erotic fascination, there is another school of thought which puts emphasis on the basic instincts and urges. Today these thinkers are known sociobiologists or evolutionary psychologists and they usually pay homage to Charles Darwin or Sigmund Freud as to their prophetic precursor and founding father. Long before Freud and earlier than Darwin German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, wrote his “Metaphysics of Love” where he asserts that: ―Every kind of love, however ethereal it may seem to be, springs entirely from the instinct of sex; indeed, it is absolutely this instinct, only in a more definite, specialised, and perhaps, strictly speaking, more individualised form.‖55 In other words, love serves as a drug that lures people into a blind obedience to the nature’s most fundamental imperative: ―the establishment of the next generation‖.56

Schopenhauer is quite monomaniacal about his explanation and covets his theory as the only secret key to the understanding of the origin of love. That sounds a bit presumptuous but it

from: Hatfield, E., & Rapson, R. L. (1993). Love, sex, and intimacy: Their psychology, biology, and history. New York: HarperCollins. 54 Cf. Kohut‘s selfobject theory. (p.) 55 Arthur Schpenhauer, Metaphysics of Love, p. 2. From: http://pryazhnikov.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/mataphysics_of_love_eng.pdf (2012-08-13). 56 Arthur Schpenhauer, Metaphysics of Love, p. 2. From: http://pryazhnikov.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/mataphysics_of_love_eng.pdf (2012-08-13).

35 also gives enough vigour to his arguments that can therefore serve as a healthy counterbalance to the equally extreme position of some idealistic humanistic psychologists that prefer to talk only about soul mates, soul twins etc. The raw power of flesh, however, seems to influence human romantic preferences as heavily as our psychological needs of individuation or self actualisation. Shopenhauer puts it this way: ―Hence the most manly man will desire the most womanly woman, and vice versa, and so each will want the individual that exactly corresponds to him in degree of sex. Inasmuch as two persons fulfil this necessary relation towards each other, it is instinctively felt by them and is the origin, together with the other relative considerations, of the higher degrees of love.‖57

Even as cynical thinker as Schopenhauer somewhat trimmed his theory for the symmetry’s sake. Today’s popular theory has it that we all struggle to mate with as much attractive (wo/manly) partner as possible and moreover that there is a constant secretly waged gender war. That war consists in tensions between different behavioural strategies of men and women. Women crave for stable, long-lasting protection of a responsible father to their children, while men are driven to spread their genes in as big scale as it is possible. These strategies (female monoandry and male polygamy) are supposedly “natural” because of human biological differences: one egg a month and 9 months of pregnancy versus dozens of millions sperms a day and no biological responsibility for the outcome of conception. This popularization of sociobiology is being promoted not only by direct pseudoscientific propaganda, but also by virtually all documentaries about wildlife whose message “all living organisms, homo sapiens sapiens included, live to survive long enough for proliferation of their genes” instil the dogma far more efficiently. Still, documentaries cannot stand a comparison with the impact of Hollywood film industry (and its epigones) that has been quite rightfully nicknamed “the dream factory”. Hollywood literally manufactures the most vivid artistic form used for storytelling, a perfect embodiment of Wagnerian Gesammtkunstwerk. Frank admits the profound influence film heroes had on him and his notion of manliness ideal: ―I believe that I decided if I could never become a man, I—the unmanned would out- man those around me, and so I became the killer, a small image of the ruthless soldier-hero almost all I've ever seen or read seems to pay strict homage to.‖58 Banks lets his hero(ine) honestly admit that the expected award for a knight in shining – the princess – was denied to

57 Arthur Schpenhauer, Metaphysics of Love, p. 8. From: http://pryazhnikov.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/mataphysics_of_love_eng.pdf (2012-08-13). 58 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 65.

36 him and therefore only one pole of perfect man – the warrior – remained attractive or just available for Frank to identify with. The other pole of a perfect man – the lover – had to be demonized in order to preserve Frank’s dignity as a worthy human being.

Frank could not make love, so he made war. The true reason of his sexual impairment was monstrous. His own father in a fit of desperate rage towards all the anguish women brought into his life decided to transform a daughter into a son. Banks major success is not the theme itself but the elaborate and hugely convincing depiction of psychological motives that lead Mr Cauldhame to make a monster out of his own child. Usually, authors of fiction just assume that there of course are some people that embody the trope of a mad scientist. Such people are irresistibly attracted to mad science just because the potentially godlike powers are, quite understandably, incredibly tempting. It is not a rare case that the mad pseudo-demiurge is made more humane and sympathetic by adding a story of a tragic loss that is supposed to be undone by an insanely risky experiment. The natural order of things is corrupted by a hubris stricken scientist and the eventual backlash is nigh. Banks most certainly pays homage to the genre defining classic of the mad scientist stories – Frankenstein by Mary Shelly – by naming his main character Frances/Frank. In many ways Banks’ novel rolls over the original Frankenstein in terms of plausibility and realism. Victor Frankenstein had no other reason for making his monster than that he could make it. Moreover, the process itself was more magical than scientific at best. Some secret formula and a bit of body bits plus lightening and voila! A dead body is animated. On the other hand the motivation of Mr Cauldhame’s would seem plausible to a real life psychologists. His romantic history is moulded – I assume that more intuitively than from actual study of the matter – after the psychological theories concerning falling in love, mourning, generalization of experiences, personal disorders and pathological defence mechanisms. The depth of Banks’ understanding for limit states of a hurt soul borders on a psychological prodigy. It seems much more intriguing for him to observe and examine the complicated “cultural” interplay of individual feelings, rationalizations, lies, illusions, delusions and emotionally self-preserving logical fallacies than mere biologically or chemically hard-wired, universally applicable “natural” laws.

First of all, a rationally oriented young scientist Mr Cauldhame fell in a presumably “compassionate”, mature love with his first wife. His education59 suggests that he was used to

59 Frank hints that his father probably ―used to work in a university for a few years after he graduated, and he might have invented something― and that he ―never seemed bothered about the suffering of lower forms of life,

37 understanding those biochemical processes in our body very well and that his positivistic approach was dominant, well developed and fully conscious segment of his psyche. Until the tragic death of his wife this one-sidedness had not represented a major problem for his personal balance. Nevertheless, the safe picture of a rational world governed by science was shattered as Mr Cauldhame had to face one of the most excruciating experiences one can possibly imagine. What are the odd that in Scotland of the 1960’s a mother dies during childbirth? What is the statistic probability that an advanced, scientifically based medical care is not efficient enough to save her? Such questions alone would be enough to shake trust in seemingly omnipotent science. Other questions arise and are even more personal: “Why did it happen to her? Why have we done to deserve it?” And perhaps in the most vulnerable layers of his soul even a selfish, hurt cry could be heard: “Why did she abandon me?” Unfortunately, that sort of blaming fate or generalising personal experience does violate a lot of fundamental rules of scientific conduct. The invasion of archaic emotions, primitive reactions to death and mourning must be very unsettling for a mind trained in a cold positivism of biochemistry.

The clash remained largely at the level of unease and vague feelings that Mr Cauldhame is not acquainted with. Nonetheless, his sub-consciousness finds a way how to solve the acute identity crisis in a unsophisticated, “natural” ignition of love to a woman that represents everything so far unconscious in Mr Cauldhame’s psyche. Agnes is a proponent of a counterculture of the 1960s and her own values literally opposed everything Mr Cauldhame stood for prior his wife’s death: emotions over reason, freedom over control, religion over science, intuition over scrutiny. The way she is depicted all these values of hippie generation were more of a pose and external adornments to Agnes than a real, seriously taken moral compass. However, this shallowness and lack of a rationally coherent code of conduct qualified her as a perfect projection screen for equally undeveloped, but unconscious emotionality of her future husband. The Jungian archetype of “anima” is an amassed collective and hereditary experience that provides men with an instinct to seek for a passionate love as means of “transmuting internalizations” that can heal a serious injury (inadequacy) of their selves. So far so good, but ―there‗s always a ―but‖ in this imperfect

despite having been a hippy, and perhaps because of his medical training.― The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 1, The Sacrifice Poles, p. 3.

38 world‖.60 In the case of “passionate” love affair with anima men encounter the numinous “wholly other” and the ecstasy of reciprocated love overwhelms them utterly.

The less conscious and differentiated male emotionality is the more divine and enthralling power a “femme fatale” exercises over an infatuated man. Mr Cauldhame plunged into another marriage in a hope to heal his deep emotional wound. The relationship with a woman that was as insensible as he was insensitive collapsed soon after their mad love bore a fruit called Frances. From a common sense perspective the blame could be attributed solely to a crazy mother that had fled away from her husband and a newborn daughter. On the other hand Agnes was a suspicious choice for a life partner on the part of Mr Cauldhame from the beginning. That illustrates well Banks’ refusal to exculpate or condemn anybody completely and to make it easy for a reader to assume a way too tempting position of a moral authority over the lives of his characters. In other words, Banks excels at masterful dramatization of the profound truth that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. This is the feature that qualifies TWF as a full-blooded tragedy.

60 A quote by Anne Bronte. Cf. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/there-is-always-a-but-in-this-imperfect- world/532160.html (2012-08-12).

39 8. Measure What Is Measurable

Frank’s recollection of the second coming of his father’s false saviour exhibits a magnificent eruption of contemptuous sarcasm. It is highly probable that even her name was chosen by Banks for this reason. Agnes means “pure”, “chaste” or even better “immaculate” in ancient Greek, “a” being a negative suffix. Not only that Frank hates her through and through as the most eminent exemplar of all women’s depravity and corruption. The word “immaculate” tends to be almost exclusively associated with the collocation “immaculate conception” of Virgin Mary. Banks’ hostility towards religion taken into consideration, it might be a subtle accusation of all unconditional love centred cults. The main point of the charge stands against their hypocrisy: ―So that was my mother's last visit to the island and the house. She left one dead, one born and two crippled for life, one way or the other. Not a bad score for a fortnight in the summer of groovy and psychedelic love, peace and general niceness.‖61 At the top of that, Agnes’ own conception was in a way immaculate, too – at least from her husband’s point of view. In contrast to that, her delivery proved to be stained by horrible guilt. The old, ugly and compassion provoking bulldog Saul, which was kept by Mr Cauldhame also because he disliked women a lot, got kicked to the head by Agnes as soon as she arrived to the island. This might have, along with the heat, contributed to Saul’s aggression with which he responded to little Frances’s annoying mischief. Were it not for Agnes’s extravagant selfishness - she insisted on giving birth on the island, not in hospital – Mr Cauldhame could have kept the bad tempered beast or his naughty daughter at bay.

Nevertheless, the disaster happened and still not even Frances’ serious injury and a cry of little Paul could stop Agnes from deserting island again, leaving her deceived husband in both physical and mental agony. At that moment something broke deep inside Mr Cauldhame and he conceived a truly abominable idea. He can safe himself from the devastating influence of close relationship to women only by using science to mould a son out of a daughter. Such a creepy obsession and terrible violation of a child’s identity is presented by Banks as a mere experiment to Mr Cauldhame.62 This apology that he produces when Frank discovers the truth speaks in favour of the theory that extremely harmful influence of Agnes, the “anima”

61 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 6, The Skull Grounds, p. 38. 62 ―'Wha' you goin' t'do, Frangie? Am sorry, am really really sorry. Was an experimen, sall. Juss an experimen.... Don' do anything' t'me, please, Frangie.... Please....'‖ The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 11, The Prodigal, p. 62.

40 woman, lead Mr Cauldhame to reject all the emotionality, teaching of universal love and empathy in favour of the only thing he could muster himself to still cling to – the science.

When the challenges of the present times are too harsh to face people sometimes resort to a defence mechanism called regression. It means that they regress to the nearest safe stage of their psychological development and cling to the then working behavioural codes. Psychoanalysts explained a very common practice of eating or drinking oneself out of stress as a retreat to the safe haven of “oral” phase of childhood when sucking or not sucking milk was the only real issue in the world. The following phase labelled “anal” refers to the psychological atmosphere in which training to pooh discipline shaped child’s attitude towards order, cleanliness and regularity. Such kernels of personality are of course modified by later experience and common sense expectations about respective age of those who regress to their dominant happy time. However, a regression is always bizarre and ridiculous to a certain degree. When the suffering, psychologically impaired neurotics succumb to the temptation of escapism they protect themselves from an unbearably negative self-image. On those occasions when neurotics see clearly the level of their humiliation from a common sense perspective, they cannot but despair and teeter at the brink of utter self-loathing under the weight of enormous shame. The original-incompetence-plus-weird-response stress seems insurmountable by reason or will and unaided (or misunderstood, hence misguided) neurotics fall back into the blissful oblivion of regression. The vicious, self-sustaining circle is completed.

In case of Mr Cauldhame an obsession with scientific control over life developed. He withdrew from the outer world to his island so that his bizarre idiosyncrasy would not be exposed to criticism of real scientists that can more or less keep their common sense grip on reality because they are in interpersonal contact with their peers and non-scientists on a daily basis. In contrast to that Mr Cauldhame surrounded himself only with family, a senile housemaid and pub buddies. In all these cases a harmful tolerance switching between polite indifference and amused curiosity towards eccentricity can be taken for granted. Mr Cauldhame was left largely unnoticed to live his secluded, secretive little life in whatever fashion he inclined to.

These inclinations consisted mainly in compulsive measuring and controlling of all objects in his household. Frank admits that there were times he was scared by his father’s demands to learn the scores of Imperial measures of all imaginable household components. As Frank

41 grew up and gained more confidence in his own judgment, he could knock off a lot of childhood indiscriminating respect to a parent and the fear of numbers receded. In his sixteen Frank sees clearly that his father suffers from an obscure obsession: ―It gets embarrassing at times when there are guests in the house, even if they are family and ought to know what to expect. They'll be sitting there, probably in the lounge, wondering whether Father's going to feed them anything or just give an impromptu lecture on cancer of the colon or tapeworms, when he'll sidle up to somebody, look round to make sure everybody's watching, then in a conspiratorial stage-whisper say: 'See that door over there? It's eighty-five inches, corner to corner. ' Then he'll wink and walk off, or slide over on his seat, looking nonchalant. Ever since I can remember there have been little stickers of white paper all over the house with neat black-biro writing on them. Attached to the legs of chairs, the edges of rugs, the bottoms of jugs, the aerials of radios, the doors of drawers, the headboards of beds, the screens of televisions, the handles of pots and pans, they give the appropriate measurement for the part of the object they're stuck to. There are even ones in pencil stuck to the leaves of plants.‖63

The only excuse for quoting such a long passage is that it can render a lot of meaningful insights into the artistic goals and means of TWF. First of all it should remind of a style Frank uses for his narration. It is a dry, sarcastic, matter-of-fact description. Frank is honest and open in every possible way. His need to tell the story in an aloof, cold and cool way exhibits many features of a self-aggrandizing control freak. Actually, Frank feels, or better knows, that it is him not his father who really understands and controls the environment. Frank is very certain about it and loves nothing more than his frankness and Frankness because these two utmost valuable qualities – scientific and narcissistic – fall in one in his mind. This wordplay is unlikely to be accidental or of my own invention in a world devised and controlled by Banks.

Moreover, the massive quotation was aimed to make the reader laugh and it worked perfectly for me. It is an at least partly sad truth that nothing provokes a heartily laughter as much as a dry description of somebody else’s embarrassment, especially intellectual and social. No one could be blamed for laughing at somebody adorning his house with stickers indicating every possible measured dimension, even the length of growing leaves! Or ... could? Why? It is so hilarious to meet a nutshell like that! He is harmless so why not to have some super fun at his

63 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 1, The Sacrifice Poles, p. 2.

42 expense? Why? Because such a person must have some serious personal issues and his immediate family is unlikely not to get caught into the whirlwind of his grotesque madness. I believe that in this respect TWF can be read as a critique of indifference and especially of the cowardice that is the true motivation of people that prefer a loud laughter to active empathy. “It is not our business” could be a perfect motto for everybody who prefers the seeming safety of an island mentality. Speaking of that, another etymology lesson might appropriately sum up the last train of thoughts. Somebody living on his own, not communicating with or participating in a larger world used to be called “idiota” in Latin.

Mr Cauldhame’s obsession with dimensions, measures, numbers and figures resembles the very foundations of what the Euro-American civilisation understands under the term “science” since its revolution in the 17th century. Galileo Galilei, an Italian philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, who fundamentally contributed to the development of a modern scientific method is famous also for these two quotations: ―Mathematics is the key and door to the sciences.‖ and ―Measure what is measureable and make measurable what is not so.‖64 Supposedly, Banks aimed to ridicule hubris of scientists who claim complete control over nature, animate and inanimate alike. Mathematization of the world may be helpful in many life situations but certainly not in all of them. As it is shown in the example of Cauldhame’s house, this approach can end up as a suffocating grasp around all involved. Especially interpersonal relationships suffer from mathematization and in fact the top achievement of human rationality quite paradoxically turns on the soil from which scientific method grows – on common sense. Modelling the world “more geometrico” reduces all the marvellously varied manifestation of reality to their minimal common denominator and therefore blinds scientific fundamentalists to the specificity of more complicated phenomena. Uniqueness is lost in translation into the language of statistically relevant figures. That uniqueness which has always been accessible through respectful compassion and authentic communication. Nevertheless, quite a lot of men suppresses their emotionality in a way Jung observed and analysed. The main reason for such a dubious strategy lies in peer pressure and generally less demanding specialization that is not jeopardised by complementary yet still antagonist character of intuition and sensitivity. It is just more “natural” for men to culturally support callousness and cold bloodiness.

64 According to en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei (2012-08-05) to be found in: Building Fluency Through Practice and Performance (2008) by Timothy Rasinsky and lorraine Griffith, p. 64.

43 9. Freud, Athena and Opus Contra Naturam

The abovementioned psychological mechanisms (regression and suppression) are sometimes called Freudian after Sigmund and Anne of that name who established corresponding scientific theories. Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis, employed his classical education to draw a connection between Greek myths and constellations of psychosexual development, most notoriously in his notion of Oedipus complex. Much to my astonishment the situation of Frank’s artificial invention and making described by Banks bears a striking similarity to one of the most widely known Greek myths – the birth of Athena.

Zeus, the notorious skirt chasing King of Gods, made a terrible mistake when he raped Métis, the Titaness of wisdom, cunningness and deep thought. Since it was prophesied that Métis would give birth to a daughter and then to a son more powerful than his father, whom he was destined to overthrow. That’s why Zeus tricked his wife into an exhibition of her ability to transform. When she turned into a fly Zeus promptly swallowed her. Nevertheless, the already conceived daughter continued growing inside her father’s head and when the pain became intolerable, Hermes, the messenger of gods, summoned Hephaestus. Then the divine blacksmith cleft his father’s head with a hammer and so released Athena from her unlikely womb. Athena leaped out fully grown and armoured and gave her clarion cry of war. The new born goddess became a patroness of craftsmanship, prudence and calm practical intelligence. She also embodied a new approach towards war craft. The older God of War, Ares, remained in Greek pantheon but his role was quite negative as he personified all the brutal savagery and senseless butchering that is unleashed during armed conflicts. On the other hand Athena was perceived as a supreme strategian who wins by calculation and cold blooded courage.65

65 It is fascinating that Carl von Clausewitz, the most influential modern theoretician of war, saw the nature of war in a fascinating alliance of two contradicting poles that can be easily attributed to what Ares and Athena represented for ancient Greek. A quotation by Christopher Bassford, professor of strategy at the National War College of the United States, explains the previous argument: ―Clausewitz's famous line that "War is a mere continuation of politics by other means," ("Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln") while accurate as far as it goes, was not intended as a statement of fact. It is the antithesis in a dialectical argument whose thesis is the point – made earlier in the analysis – that "war is nothing but a duel [or wrestling match, a better translation of the German Zweikampf] on a larger scale." His synthesis, which resolves the deficiencies of these two bold statements, says that war is neither "nothing but" an act of brute force nor "merely" a rational act of politics or policy. This synthesis lies in his "fascinating trinity" [wunderliche Dreifaltigkeit]: a dynamic, inherently unstable interaction of the forces of violent emotion, chance, and rational

44 Already in Homer’s eposes Athena is portrayed as an eternal virgin who can always prevail over Ares.

In other words Athena was neither a genuine woman nor a man who was born out of “its” father’s head. Conceived with Métis, a personification of mind and cunningness, she was born with the help of Hephaestus, a symbolic figure of what was for centuries closest to an “engineer” mentality. Mr Cauldhame also - at least symbolically - devoured and buried deep inside him all Agnes represented for him and so engineered his son (with androgen) and designed him as an eternally virginal celibate66 (with bromide). In both mythological and

calculation.‖ (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz#Interpretation_and_misinterpretation 2012-08-07) Nevertheless, as it is stressed elsewhere, only brilliant minds are able to encompass both polarities and unite them in a ―hieros gamos‖ (Greek for sacred marriage) of a sort. Most people can identify themselves with just one of the complementary forces and use it as a guiding principle in real life. As a general rule the so called Western civilisation preferred Athena to Ares, scheming rationality over brutish instincts, and therefore only the famous aphorism about war being ―a mere continuation of politics by other means‖ has made it into the pantheon of western intelligentsia clichés. The evolution in general proceeds through differentiation and integration in all strata of reality, from astrophysical forces, chemical reactions, biological evolution in stricto sensu and human society to an individual personality. At least according to the synthetic philosophy of Herbert Spencer. Frank is a proof that a dogmatic, stilted dichotomy between differentiated elements is not to be feared for no reason. Especially if the cultural idealtypes are intentionally identified with biological differences so that they seem ―natural‖. For Frank, all women ―are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them‖, mainly because of generalization of his own traumatic narrow-minded experience. Banks hints at how easy it is to be rational and liberal if there is no personal involvement in the particular scorn prejudice: ―Another part of me is racist, probably because I've hardly met any colored people and all I know of them is what I read in papers and see on television, where black people are usually talked of in terms of numbers and presumed guilty until proved innocent. This part of me is still quite strong, though of course I know there is no logical reason for race hatred. Whenever I see coloured people in Porteneil, buying souvenirs or stopping off for a snack, I hope that they will ask me something so that I can show how polite I am and prove that my reasoning is stronger than my more crass instincts, or training.‖ 66 In this case it is the only desirable state of being for Mr Cauldhame and from his point of view for his child as well. Therefore we can assume that Frank was supposed to be saved from damnation (femininity) and designed to live the only caelibatus or literally celestial life (masculinity) a deranged atheistic misogynist could conjure up. What would the equivalent of the first Buddha’s noble truth (arya satya) read if Mr Cauldhame consciously formulated his worldview? Perhaps something like: “Women are full of sorrows and malice” instead of “The world is full of suffering”. The lesson got through to Frank: ―Frankly, I didn't have much faith in either, Jamie being too small to stop me if I really started to topple, and the girl being a girl. Probably too weak; and, even if she wasn't, I expected she would just let me crack my skull on the pavement because women like to see men helpless.‖ The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 4, The Bomb Circle, p. 27.

45 literary versions the product was an androgyne with ambition to out-man those around it – both in practical intelligence and battle prowess. It is a question whether ancient Greeks or Romans would find it fitting to say about Athena / Minerva that she is a “normal (divine) female, capable of intercourse and giving birth, (but she would) shiver at the thought of either.‖67 It would be definitely understandable if one takes her family history into account. Sex equals (a) rape; pregnancy equals (a) violent death.

Such a brutal story seems rather inappropriate for a state patron deity and still the old Romans elevated their version of Athena, Minerva, into an unlikely dominant position among the gods they worshipped. The most venerated triad of gods underwent a very rare transformation within Roman state cult. The so called archaic triad consisted of three male gods, namely Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. Such male triads of high gods used to be fairly common in Indo- European societies, for instance Zeus, Poseidon and Hades or Odin, Thor and Frey. However, at the times of the Republic Romans adopted a non typical Capitoline Triad probably because they continued to pay great respect to Etruscans in the matters of religion and Etruscans were the only society that worshipped a trio of a supreme god, his wife and daughter. If religion represents an evolving system that – despite its notorious conservatism – reflects changing realia and ideals of society, it can be assumed that the concept and symbolism of Minervian values must have appealed a lot to a very prominent and still unique feature of Roman national character. Romans excelled at brutal execution of a cold-blooded logic that requested absolute discipline and no exceptions. There was a streak in Roman character that mistrusted natural order of things. They did not bathe in rivers but in spas. They did not depend on local sources of drinking water and brought it via technical miracles called aqueducts instead. Their armies triumphed because they were calculating and disciplined not only in battle but especially in logistics. They did not believe in vague notions of charismatic power but in a complex and detailed legal system. Latin tendency towards anti-naturalism evolved throughout centuries and eventually coined a very one-sided definition of education: opus contra naturam.

A-work-against-nature may be one of the best fitting definitions of Frank Cauldhame. He stands in a firm opposition to what people in the 1980s and today alike call “natural” when they mean “good”, “right”, “healthy” or “desirably spontaneous and fluent”. Not only that he

67The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 12, What Happened to Me, p. 64.

46 is not “good” to animals or empathetic to people, he even killed his brother and cousin which is considered very “unnatural” even though statistically a significant number of murders is committed by victims’ family members.68 But this is just the most abominable tip of the iceberg. Despite the fact that Frank does not share the same form of measurement compulsion with his father, he can be clearly labelled as a person suffering from an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Frank follows an “unnaturally” strict regimen when it comes down to his daily hygiene. Every procedure must be executed in the only possible right order and in the only possible right way: “Next the shave. I always use shaving foam and the latest razors (twin-blade swivel-heads are state-of-the-art at the moment), removing the downy brown growth of the previous day and night with dexterity and precision. As with all my ablutions, the shave follows a definite and predetermined pattern; I take the same number of strokes of the same length in the same sequence each morning. As always, I felt a rising tingle of excitement as I contemplated the meticulously shorn surfaces of my face.”69 Even though no animals in the world shave daily people do not find daily shaving itself unnatural. It is the exceeding amount of rigid attention paid to insignificant procedure details that makes Frank’s shaving session abnormal, “unnatural” or more precisely ritualistic.

68 ―A Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of murder cases disposed in 1988 in the courts of large urban counties, found that 16% of murder victims were members of the defendant's family: 6.5% were killed by their spouses, 3.5% by their parents, 1.9% by their own children, 1.5% by their siblings, and 2.6% by other relatives. Women were 45% of the victims in murders involving family members but 18% of victims in other murders. Among family murder defendants, 35% were female versus 7% among nonfamily defendants. Women were over half of the defendants (55%) in only one category of family murder: parents killing their offspring. Firearms were used in 42% of family murders, compared to 63% of nonfamily murders. 7/94 NCJ 143498‖ http://murdervictims.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=family&action=display&thread=1402 (2012-08-06)

69 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 3, In The Bunker, p. 14.

47 10. A Song of Water and Fire

When we speak about fluency of expression, about “natural” flow of life or uncensored stream of consciousness, water metaphors render very positive, wholesome images of liberating surrender to a benign power. However, there are water metaphors which have served for millennia as symbols for being overwhelmed, unable to escape; surrounded by legions of enemies you cannot fight, drawn out of the solid ground into the abyss. Floods, whirlwinds and swamps belong among the most dreaded natural phenomena. Drowning stands for helpless awaiting of inevitable doom as it is evidenced for example in the collocation “drowning in debt”. Nevertheless, all these terrible associations with death have been incorporated into religious practices in varied traditions. It is possible because water does not only take life but it also nurtures living creatures during their prenatal or immature development. All the eggs and wombs are literal substitutes for an outer watery environment. Water is one of the most widespread religious metaphors for primordial chaos out of which the cosmos rose. The intuition has been confirmed by geologists and evolutionary biologists and a standard theory on origin of life really says that life came into existence (was born?) in Precambrian oceans presumably earlier than 3.500 million years ago. Water abounds with potential to give birth not only in biological but also spiritual sense of the word. For instance, having a sip out of the Holy Grail could save the life of an ailing king and so invigorate the waste land king’s country has turned into as a result of his disease and a presumed mystical bond between kingdom and its ruler. Christian baptism unites both drowning and life giving symbolism sets. The old, worldly man must die so that the new, heavenly can be born. Water represents the potential for both ruthless cleansing and wholesome growth in the soul. The message is clear – if you open yourself to the divine waters your old rigid sinful personality will be drown in floods and in that numinous environment the seeds of your new / mature / saved personality will sprout.

Freudian iceberg metaphor for conscious, preconscious and unconscious layers of psyche are notorious and in Jungian psychology the collective unconsciousness have been very often described by water metaphors like well, lake and ocean or some containers that can found in mythology all over the world.70 Banks puts these words into Frank’s megalomaniac mouth: ―My GREATEST ENEMIES are Women and the Sea. These things I hate. (...) the Sea because

70 Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung (2012-08-08)

48 it has always frustrated me, destroying what I have built, washing away what I have left, wiping clean the marks I have made. And I'm not all that sure the Wind is blameless, either. The Sea is a sort of mythological enemy, and I make what you might call sacrifices to it in my soul, fearing it a little, respecting it as you're supposed to, but in many ways treating it as an equal. It does things to the world, and so do I; we should both be feared.‖71

Frank openly likens himself to a natural force and demands the same respect as the enormous Sea commands. The so called psychic inflation, an inadequate identification with superhuman agent, usually arises from the other extreme, i.e. identification with a subhuman quality. These two harmful, inadequate extremities form a blindly “natural” or “elemental” overcompensation for either a conscious or unconscious inferiority complex as the case may be.72 It is no coincidence that Frank who is consciously narcissistic and unconsciously suffer from inferiority hates the Sea as a mythical enemy of his. Large bodies of water has always fascinated human imagination and provided one of the best natural symbols of a deep knowledge or secret memory, magically hidden under the surface. Frank cannot allow the secrets to pour out and flood his so painstakingly constructed conscious life. In addition to that the Sea stands for periodical tide of ebbs and sways governed by the Moon which presides over women’s period as well. The Sea has got a way too many associations with the Women and that is dangerous. The oceanic feelings of surrender to the “wholly other” or to the mystical flow that ruptures people from their conscious controlling egos and makes them float helplessly on the surface of waves cannot be tolerated by obsessive people. A deliberate loss of rational and volition control would mean a supposedly irreparable betrayal of “manly” principles Frank and his father valued so much. Therefore Frank literally struggles to keep the Sea at bay.

Frank indulges in a fervent, almost fanatical building of dams. Dams are his way how to set limits to the Sea and hence control it physically and at the same time to fight off everything that water symbolises in his psyche. Frank openly admits that when he was younger he used to day dream about saving their house by building a dam: ―There would be a fire in the grass on the dunes, or a plane would have crashed, and all that stopped the cordite in the cellar

71 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 3, In The Bunker, p. 14. 72 Inflation means “identifying with a nonpersonal part of the psyche as though it were acquired individually. A regression into unconsciousness. Positive and negative inflation supercharge the collective unconscious and can alternate. Inflation causes dissolution of the ego into its paired opposites (inferiority/megalomania, good/evil, etc.).” according to a glossary of Jungian terms. Cf. http://www.terrapsych.com/jungdefs.html (2012-08-13).

49 from going up would be me diverting some of the water from a dam system down a channel and into the house.‖73 The ambivalent symbolic role of water and also fire appears very explicitly in such fantasies. The enormous fluid Sea is in itself an ancient symbol of limitlessness (“apeirón“) and gaping chaos that surrounds the solid Earth, the home of people: “Piston gé, apiston thalassa.” On the other hand, house and fire are the most obvious symbols of civilisation as an “opus contra naturam”. It seems that Banks wither intuitively or intentionally let a very young Frank dream of a solution to his life dilemma. The unhealthy dominance of conscious/rational/scientific/masculine experience threatens to explode in a similar way that strenuous and concentrated work can burn people out. The consequent fire can be extinguished only if the unconscious/emotional/intuitive/feminine experience is assimilated and integrated into the system.

The solution suggested by unconscious gathering of symbolic images into a salvation story was not understood and later Frank underwent a stage when his ambition was to persuade his father to buy him an excavator that would allow him to make really big dams. That seems as a complete victory of conscious control-oriented ego. Nevertheless, Frank transcended the dilemma of natural flow and civilised control in the same way Hegel, Clausewitz or Jung proposed only in the philosophy of his dam-building. The psychological gain was considerable but indirect at best. ―But I have a far more sophisticated, even metaphysical, approach to dam-building now. I realise that you can never really win against the water; it will always triumph in the end, seeping and soaking and building up and undermining and overflowing. All you can really do is construct something that will divert it or block its way for a while; persuade it to do something it doesn't really want to do.‖74

Such a change of opinion stands out in comparison with the rest of meticulously and stubbornly observed rituals. Frank remains fragmented and unsure what element (“natural” water or “cultural” dams) should win in his ideal scenario. The hectic dam-building is followed by a construction of a model of whole town. The miniature town, a classical metonymy for human civilisation in general, is then flooded by water accumulated in dams. ―Bursting a good big dam, or even just letting it overflow, is almost as satisfying as planning and building it in the first place. I used little shells to represent the people in the town, as

73 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 2, The Snake Park, p. 7. 74 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 2, The Snake Park, p. 7.

50 usual. Also as usual, none of the shells survived the flood when the dam burst; they all sank, which meant that everybody died.‖75

The analogy between rational civilisation, an exemplar city and Frank’s conscious character is developed into an unexpectedly detailed psychological symbolism. Frank can feel the incongruence inside and is sometimes affected by what he considers to be feminine weakness. However, the assaults of remorse and bad conscience are fought off by very intriguing mental game that consists in likening different psychological impulses to individual citizen or political parties, vocational organizations and so on in a state that represents the entirety of Frank’s fragmented psyche: ―It used to seem to me that the different ways I felt sometimes about ideas, courses of action and so on were like the differing political moods that countries go through. It has always seemed to me that people vote in a new government not because they actually agree with their politics but just because they want a change. Somehow they think that things will be better under the new lot. Well, people are stupid, but it all seems to have more to do with mood, caprice and atmosphere than carefully thought-out arguments. I can feel the same sort of thing going on in my head. Sometimes the thoughts and feelings I had didn't really agree with each other, so I decided I must be lots of different people inside my brain.‖76

This is one of the most unsettling and impressive ideas introduced in TWF. The opposite direction of symbolisation is far more widespread throughout the history of political legitimization. It seems that Frank’s genuine brilliance at rational analysis (fire, masculine, mechanical) combined with an equal lack of emotional cohesion (water, feminine, organic) produced a philosophical turns the intuitive order of things upside down. “Normal” understanding of personality and society presumes that a single person functions in concord with himself as the individual organs are synchronised in a hierarchical harmony. Such a state of affairs is then “naturally” seen as an ideal role model for the whole political “body”. The “head” of state is expected to control the “arm” of justice and to rule from the “capital” city that represents the real “heart” of the country etc. Plato introduced a very influential version of bodily metaphor in his treatise on the ideal state called “The Republic”. In such a prototypical state population is stratified into three distinct classes. The working class is associated with abdomen, concupiscible soul and the virtue of temperance. The soldiers and

75 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 2, The Snake Park, p. 7. 76 The Wasp Factory (1984), chapter 4, The Bomb Circle, p. 21.

51 guards have irascible souls positioned in chests and their virtue is called audacity. The political leaders, dubbed famously philosopher-kings, are virtuously wise because their rational soul resides in their heads. All three castes and every citizen have to exercise justice as this is the virtue that corresponds with wholeness of soul and society alike. For Plato being just means to assume one’s position in the political system and embrace it sincerely.

These days, philosophers usually interpret Plato’s Republic as a projection of his soul concept that is more fruitful when used for shedding light on psychology than political theory.77 Closer to Frank’s concept lies another attempt to understand psychology via political metaphor. Nietzsche wrote that Zarathustra thus spake: ―Illustrious is it to have many virtues, but a hard lot; and many a one hath gone into the wilderness and killed himself, because he was weary of being the battle and battlefield of virtues. My brother, are war and battle evil? Necessary, however, is the evil; necessary are the envy and the distrust and the back-biting among the virtues. Lo! how each of thy virtues is covetous of the highest place; it wanteth thy whole spirit to be its herald, it wanteth thy whole power, in wrath, hatred, and love.‖78

While the totalitarian dystopy of Plato’s republic seems a bit idealistic projection of self- control, Nietzshe’s pessimistic concept of ever warring virtues that struggle for utter dominion over a person appears to be written by a man haunted by monomania. Frank’s version of psycho-political metaphor clearly wins the competition in producing the most sober map of human psyche of all time because he offers all the possible scenarios – not only a bloody protracted struggle between aspiring warlords (Nietzsche) or society ruled by a caste of godlike philosophers (Plato).

Even though Frank/Frances twist might put the whole concept in doubt, the realism and elegance of the metaphor will remain a lasting achievement of Banks’ writing. Of course, such an approach towards one’s personality can be constructive only during meditative introspection that aims to harmonise and unite the state of soul. Such meditations are definitely exclusive to instable, power oriented rational geniuses. The extreme profundity of Frank’s insights is paid for by his severe impairment in social life. Frances abandons the external isolation (literal island) and internal fragmentation (figurative state) hence restoring

77 Cf. Zdeněk Kratochvíl, Filosofie mezi mýtem a vědou. Od Homéra po Descarta, Praha 2010, p. 150-153. 78 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883, chapter V: Joys and Passions, p. 43. From: http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/nietsche/tszarath.pdf (2012-08-13).

52 the “natural” balance. Banks’ healthy people feel congruent within and sociable outside, in the big world. Anything obscure and religious, i.e. pathological, can be observed and analysed by science or art. In fact, the vicarious thrill of experiencing religion without any real commitment is an advisable entertainment according to Banks. "I wanted to write about faith and the nature of belief," explains Iain Banks. "I find that fascinating, being an evangelical atheist myself. There was also the sheer fun of making up a new religion. I felt like L. Ron Hubbard. He did it for real, I know. But he started out being serious about it and then he eventually started saying things that were just so utterly absurd that he thought, 'Well, they can't possibly swallow this. It's so stupid'. There is considerable fun to be had devising a religion. I recommend it."79

79 http://www.infidels.org/kiosk/author204.html (2012-08-13).

53 11. Conclusion

In conclusion, Iain Banks’ premiere novel The Wasp Factory is a brilliant and empathetic study of a psychopath’s journey from absurd, terrifying monstrosity to a hope of becoming a human being. The grotesqueness of the surface is unveiled with a surprising subtlety and sensitiveness. Inside the black humorous story a reader can find a literal treasure island of paradoxes that confine deluded people into the endless labyrinths of their personal hells. Unfortunately, it seems that Banks himself can relate to the numinous symbols of salvation only inside the books he writes. In these little, schizoidly private “factories on redemption” Banks opens the dams of his religious imagination and heals his soul and those of his readers with a magical talent equal to that of Plato or Jung. In the big world of reasonable and economically active citizens Banks resorts to a role of a comedian because he cannot withstand the idea that his book should compete with something as real as cars or jets are. This masochistic streak of his character makes me sad. The sip of Holy Grail is ridiculed as a mere fun to kill some time. As such Banks adopted a “serious” worldview of hardcore scientists. From this point of view the dignity of man lies solely in his machines, not in his psyche: ―I think it‘s bringing this reason and rationality that makes us who we are...it‘s the only thing we can do better than any animal...because animals can fly faster, dive deeper and swim better and run faster and that‘s to it... But we can do better than animals because one thing we can do is we can think and therefore we can create, you know, rockets and jets and submarines and cars and all the rest. So we can do better. We can outdo the animals but only because in this weak little body (...) human stuff we‘ve got incredible brain and it uses reason and rationality. It‘s got not very much to do with superstition and stuff you are told by your holy man.‖80

The positivist fetishism of technology that changes the material world and only indirectly human self-understanding is perfectly understandable with working class or engineers. It is a philosophical absolutisation of their social dignity, promotion of their own values as the best or perhaps the only possible values at all. Nonetheless, it remains a mystery to me why a sci-fi and psychological horror author clings to getting engineers’ worldview through to his readers in interviews. If Banks were consistent in his logic, he would have to give up all that literary non-sense and start doing something proper, like cars or submarines. Fortunately, the costume

80 Cf. Iain Banks: 'I'm an evangelical atheist' from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dnCTApJ4Bc (2012-08- 13) . Transcription RH.

54 of an evangelical atheist is just a silly mask the wizard wears for whatever twisted reasons I cannot fathom but do not mind anymore. Hopefully, Banks himself will see one day that this bizarre and tragic fragmentation of his own allowed him to delve deep into the ocean of truly numinous images and words. For the time being, let us not spoil the experience of reading The Wasp Factory by the accursed postmodern fallacy that even good books are just a vicarious thrill. Good books do something as real as planes and ships do. Powerful stories are means of transport human soul needs for a journey from the dark to the light.

55 12. Bibliography

Printed Sources:

Banks, Iain, Vosí továrna, Praha 1998

Concerning Mandala Symbolism. C. G. Jung. trans. from C. G. Jung, Uber Mandalasymbolik. Gestaltungen des Unbewussten, Zürich, 1950.

Eliade, Mircea, Dějiny náboženského myšlení IV, Praha 2009.

Komárek, Stanislav, Sto esejů o přírodě a společnosti. Praha 1995

Komárek, Stanislav, Lidská přirozenost. Praha 1998.

Kratochvíl, Zdeněk, Filosofie mezi mýtem a vědou. Od Homéra po Descarta, Praha 2010.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883.

Schopenhauer, Arthur, Metaphysics of Love, 1837.

Online Sources:

2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/nietsche/tszarath.pdf (2012-08-13) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung (2012-07-31) en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei (2012-06-06) http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/truth_free.html (2012-08-10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus (2012-07-31) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon_basileus (2012-08-12) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz#Interpretation_and_misinterpretation (2012-07-28) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule (2012-08-01) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_consumericus (2012-08-10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous (2012-07-31) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_sacrorum (2012-08-12) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity (2012-08-10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_Bauman#Postmodernity_and_consumerism or http://pryazhnikov.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/mataphysics_of_love_eng.pdf (2012-08-13)

56 http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/a/compassionate.htm (2012-07-31)

http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/tragedy_all.htm#tragedy (2012-08-08) http://thinkexist.com/quotation/there-is-always-a-but-in-this-imperfect-world/532160.html (2012-07-29) http://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Worlds-Children-Divorce/dp/0307237109 (2012-08- 07) http://www.infidels.org/kiosk/author204.html (2012-03-16) http://www.netreach.net/~nhojem/jung.htm (2012-08-13) http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/38037.html (2012-07-29) http://www.selfpsychologypsychoanalysis.org/selfobject.shtml (2012-03-17) http://www.unz.org/Pub/MannheimKarl-1936 (2012-08-09) http://www.veidt.com/?p=2145 (2012-08-10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dnCTApJ4Bc (2012-08-09). Transcription R. Holcepl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dnCTApJ4Bc (2012-08-13) infidels.org/kiosk/author204.html (2012-08-13) terrapsych.com/jungdefs.html (2012-08-09)

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