http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaydVvH7S4E

I’ve never really enjoyed science fiction, but I’m a big fan of most of Iain Bank’s non-scifi novels. The Wasp Factory was his first, and I think probably his greatest (though it’s a close call between this and the rather different Whit).

The Wasp Factory tells the story of Frank, an adolescent living with his eccentric single father on a Scottish island. Frank’s brother is in a psychiatric hospital. Frank himself is, to say the least, severely maladjusted, taking part in bizarre sacrificial rituals of his own making, and expressing negative emotions through extreme violence, and occasionally murder.

It’s a modern Gothic character study, with such evocative description in some scenes that they evoked a physical response in me – and I think this is the only book I’ve ever read which has had that effect. Frank serves as the psychologically flawed first-person narrator, which provides for the deeply disturbing normalisation of grotesque horror, but also for perhaps the darkest and funniest moments of black levity in any of Banks’s books.

This is a novel which really rewards re-reading because of the number of different levels on which it plays, and the number of themes it explores: power and abuse, psychiatric illness, identity, and loneliness to list just some of the more prominent. There is a “big twist” at the end of The Wasp Factory which might discourage re-reading, but, in fact, the knowledge gained from the ending sets out a whole other level for the reader to explore within the narrative. I’ve read it quite a number of times, and have read individual passages even more.

This was also the first book I gave to Wendy, some time before we started dating. In hindsight, it may well be one of the world’s least romantic books, but it evidently didn’t put her off me too much!

The edition I have is also unusual for displaying quotes from reviews that are highly critical of the book, alongside the more positive ones. That felt like a brave yet endearing decision. It’s probably also a fairly successful marketing ploy: I can’t remember a single one of the cover quotes from any other books I’ve read, yet can remember some from this volume which I first read well over a decade ago.

The Wasp Factory is only a couple of hundred pages long, but it’s a couple of hundred pages that’s stayed with me for a long time. If you haven’t read it before, I hope that you will. It stands as testament to the genius of its creator, who will be sorely missed by legions of fans.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks is available now from amazon.co.uk in paperback and on Kindle.

This weekend’s recommended read is You’re too cheap to fly faster, published on Medium by Jason Paur. His brilliant post explores the reasons why air travel is now slower than it was shortly after the invention of the jet airliner.

The article starts off with a comparison between flight speed and computer speed, and it made me wonder if (or when) the same balance of factors will influence us to start using slower computers… although, as I’m writing this on my (totally brilliant) Chromebook, perhaps I could conclude that we’re already there…!

The beautiful picture of Concorde at the top of this post was uploaded to Flickr by Dan Daivson, and has been reproduced here under Creative Commons licence.

Even as someone who has recently switched from iPhone to Android, there are few things in life that are as tiresome as listening to or reading the constant bickering between Apple and Android “fanboys”. It might seem, therefore, that this is an odd choice for a 2D post – but, in fact, there are some well-written and well-argued posts from reasonable people on both sides.

First, here’s a Businessweek article by Mathew Ingram explaining why he is considering making the same leap as me, and ditching the iPhone for an Android device. He concludes by saying

Apple has great design, but it restricts your choice in all kinds of ways. I have been seeing those restrictive bars more and more, despite all the beautiful flowers.

On the other hand, Colin Walker of BetaNews has done the opposite, and leapt from Android to iPhone. He too makes some excellent points, though of course reaches the opposite conclusion:

My disillusionment with Android has been growing and the move has been a long time coming; it will not be one I regret in a hurry.

It’s great to have a couple of well-written, non-obsessive, rationale contributions to a long-running and often heated debate.

2D posts appear on alternate Wednesdays. For 2D, I pick two interesting articles that look at an issue from two different – though not necessarily opposing – perspectives. I hope you enjoy them! The photo at the top of this post was posted to Flickr by Mike Lau and has been modified and used under Creative Commons Licence.

This week, my chosen Weekend Read highlights the logistical importance of the humble shipping container. This short article in The Economist describes the profound impact that the introduction of the shipping container on global trade. It serves as a reminder of the innovative logistical thinking which keeps our world running from day to day, but which rarely reaches the conscious mind.

The picture at the top of this post was uploaded to Flickr by Jim Bahn, and has been modified and used under Creative Commons licence.

It seems a little unfair to compare prime-ministerial autobiographies, but with Tony Blair’s relatively fresh in my mind (review here), it is hard to resist. Poor writing makes Blair’s volume difficult to consume, and it took me well over a year to plod through it in relatively short bursts. In contrast, Thatcher’s is entirely readable, and very enjoyable – bordering on being a page-turner. Thatcher genuinely masters the art of making the reader feel like a close confidant, as though this is a fireside chat in book form. I get the sense that this is what Blair strives to achieve, but fails.

And yet, Thatcher’s contains much more detailed political discussion. While Blair chooses to share his toilet habits, Thatcher writes long and detailed (though defensive) rationales for many of the policies she adopted. To give a single example from their respective autobiographies, I understand much more clearly Thatcher’s argument for defending the Falklands than Blair’s argument for invading Iraq. Where I disagree with Thatcher, I can still follow her line of argument in a way that I cannot even where I agree with Blair.

This set me thinking: perhaps the reason for Thatcher’s clearer explanations is the fact that she defended her policies more often and in greater detail than Blair. The long-form wide-ranging radio and television political interviews in which Thatcher participated simply did not exist in Blair’s day. I think that represents something lost at the heart of modern democracy. But I digress.

It’s worth pointing out that this is an abridged combination of two volumes: The Path to Power and The Downing Street Years. While I haven’t read those two volumes, it seems that the abridgement has largely been handled with skill. There are occasions where the detail of events is noticeably lacking in comparison to others, but these are rare, and don’t distract from the overarching narrative.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Thatcher should write a self-assured autobiography, and it’s no surprise that many will disagree with much of the reasoning contained within. But it is the quality of the writing that stands out here, and that makes this volume worthy of four-star rating.

The Autobiography is available now from amazon.co.uk in hardback and on Kindle.

My recommended read for this week comes from The Daily Beast, in which Heidi Vogt describes the harrowingly mundane process of reporting on bomb blasts in Afghanistan during her time as an AP foreign correspondent. It gives real insight into this particular aspect of war reporting in the 21st century, where every second counts when it comes to reporting news. It’s well worth a read.

The picture at the top of this post shows the detonation of an improvised explosive device by the US army’s bomb disposal team at Bagram Airfield. It was taken by Sgt Rob Frazier, posted on Flickr, and has been modified and used under Creative Commons licence.

Writing in Prospect, the magazine for which he’s associate editor, Edward Docx describes Farage’s “relentless charm” in an article with several arresting revelations. Perhaps the most intriguing, if not the most insightful, is that “close up, he smells of tobacco, offset with a liberal application of aftershave”. I found it not a little strange how much that added to Docx’s characterisation of the man. Perhaps the scent of all party leaders should become a regular feature of all political reporting.

Docx mentions Farage’s deft handling of a lack of policy detail, but in The Telegraph, Allister Heath goes a little further in taking Farage to task on the lack of coherent policy: he claims that “there are huge black holes at the heart of Ukip’s proposals”.

While these are two rather different articles in terms of tone, form and content, they do identify much the same traits in Farage, at least from the grand political point of view. Despite this, they come to utterly different conclusions: Heath argues that Ukip essentially doesn’t “stand up to detailed scrutiny”, while Docx argues that Farage can “make politics feel personally relevant again” and “show our parliament a way to recover its dignity”.

Both arguments are well worth reading.

2D posts appear on alternate Wednesdays. For 2D, I pick two interesting articles that look at an issue from two different – though not necessarily opposing – perspectives. I hope you enjoy them! The photo at the top of this post was posted to Flickr by the Euro Realist Newsletter and has been modified and used under Creative Commons Licence.