捕蜂器 - 书评

点点

　　Burning a dog; Burning a flock of sheep; Blowing up a colony of rabbits; Experimenting on own child; Killing a sibling; Killing cousins; Torturing insects; Turning an already damaged brain to mush. In the novel wasp factory, everything abnormal seems normal to the three Cauldhames. Frank, the narrator, leads us through his twisted world and beliefs, odd rituals he developed, and the odd acts of his odd father and odd brother. His brother Eric, his father Angus, and himself, each of them live a very unconventional life separately. Mental disorder is a distinct characteristic of them.
　　First of all, Frank’s father Angus is an absolutely control freak. He has an obsession with measurements and measures out every object in his home. He is so proud of the fact that he remembers the dimension and capacities of everything in his home and forced Frank to learn this skill too. In order to conduct a useless experiment, he deceived his daughter and transferred her gender identity. His experimented on his daughter for many years, without guilty. He wants to control others, even though he definitely can ruin other person’s life. When Frank was young, he fabricated various lies to control Frank. As Frank grew up, he felt less control over him/her. So he changed his strategies by using degrading words to threat Frank. All his words and behaviors made his daughter become a cold blooded psychopathic. The most ruthless lie he told to Frank “old Saul bite off Frank's genitals when Frank was a toddler” was the root of all the tragedy.
　　Additionally, Frank’s elder brother Eric is a violent sociopath who loves to burn dog and was confined to a psychiatric hospital. He escaped from the psychiatric hospital and on the road on revenge to Angus. He constantly screamed and laughed from a distance, like a hell angel. It seems that he has a boundless power to destroy anything he hates. With Eric’s approaching, we could feel his madness, Angus’s anxiety and Frank’s excitement.
　　Frank is a little tyrannism committing violence on people and animals. He has already killed 3 of his relatives who were at six, eight and nine, during his childhood. Only because he thought he could do it well. After that, he has no intention to kill human beings again, but animals and insects became his victim. He loves torturing animals, including decapitating mice, birds, wasps. He is addicted to manufacturing home-made bombs and proud of building miniature dams and models of villages downstream. He also enjoys blowing up the dams to flood the villages and kill the imaginary inhabitants. He manufactures a Wasp Factory which is an old clock with a trap behind each number to predict the future. Frank puts a wasp into a tube located in the center and then waits. He decided a death ritual according to each number the wasp went in and then he captures an animal from the island to kill. After killing the animal, he hangs its head on a pole. There are many blooded poles surround. Frank gives himself the power to control other creature’s life and death, without any punishment.
　　After read this novel, I feel sorry for Frank; even though I knew it may be not a real story. I was shocked by Frank’s family’s disorder. An illiberal father creates the tragedy of the whole family. The Cauldhames all have mental disorder, but none of them acknowledge the truth. If they put down their hate and intolerance, any tragedy will not happen. From this novel I realized that a responsible parent is very important for the development of a child. A selfish and controlling parent will destroy a child’s whole life.