Music Tuesday - "The Final Countdown"

Europe - The Final Countdown

SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW!!!! I'm super excited.

Music Monday - Back to School!

Pete Seeger - What Did You Learn in School Today?

Yikes! School starts in two days!

A Note

The new Beatles Rockband? Totally awesome.

Book Review - The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory: A Novel by Iain M. Banks


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have really conflicted feelings about this book. I honestly cannot say if I enjoyed reading it at all. I suppose that enjoy is really not the right word; The Wasp Factory portrayed a great deal of violence against both animals and humans that I found difficult to stomach. The pivotal scene that explained Eric's mental illness made me dry heave for an entire afternoon.

Basically, The Wasp Factory tells the story of a Scottish boy named Frank. As Frank has no birth certificate and does not officially exist, he lives in seclusion with his controlling father Angus. Frank narrates the book and tells us of his childhood, the rituals of his daily life, the atrocities that he has committed, etc etc. A great deal of his psychological issues seem to be a result of a terrible accident that he has as a child (the family dog attacks and castrates him). The plot set in the present revolves around Frank's brother Eric who has escaped from a hospital for the mentally ill and is making his way back home. As Eric nearly reaches the house - lighting an entire flock of sheep on fire on the way - Frank discovers that he was actually born and girl and just raised by his father as a boy after his accident.

I'm still not really sure what to make of this book. Frank has some serious issues with women and his masculinity in the book, yet once he realizes that he's actually a girl he comes to terms with it remarkably quickly. That really doesn't make sense to me. Eric's mental illness also seems a bit iffy. The books seems to suggest that his violence and psychosis stems primarily from this one afternoon in the hospital when he discovered an infant with it's brain eaten out by maggots; it's a horrific image, but does mental illness actually work like that? I admittedly don't know enough to be a good judge, but Eric's actually are so terrible that I don't think they can be a result of the trauma alone.

Despite my objections, The Wasp Factory was a compelling read.

View all my reviews >>

Music Wednesday - Bumbershoot Edition

This is super late, since Bumbershoot was this past Sunday, but I figured I'd post it anyway. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs live are fantastic. Karen O has such an exuberance that it was just a joy to watch her on stage doin' her thing.


Maps by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs