Bigot Hall

Steve Aylett is one of those author's who are best recommended to others by merely pointing to his book repeatedly while nodding wide-eyed. Nothing you can possibly say can prepare someone for the twisted tales from Bigot Hall, although an easy attempt would be to describe it as The Addams Family, only darker, British, and considerably less polite. If you like black humor in a Gothic vein, mixed heavily with poetic pseudo-logic that makes your eyes bleed, than this is the book for you.

As Laughing Boy so eloquently states, "The most amusing thing about a pantomime horse is the necessity of having to shoot it twice."

This was absolutely excellent. I read Slaughtermatic and thought it was kind of over the top and incomprehensible way too often. But this was just smart and over the top.

It's hard to imagine exactly how he writes like this. It's like stream of consciousness (which is often boring or disjointed) but edited and cohesive. There are characters and each one stays "in character". You begin to know what to expect (even if it is the unexpected) and each is so interesting that it's hard to pick a favorite.

Each vignette is more absurd than the last but together they form a complete story. Some have interesting story seeds that could be the entire premise for a novel, others are just funny and mischievous.

Here's some dialogue, if you like this show more you'll love this book:

"You were referred to me by Mr. Roger Lang," said Father. "What can you say to redeem yourself?"

"I would like a room here."

"You and a million others. How old are you Mr. Mandible?"

"Thirty four."

"Correct. Do you heal quickly?"

"In a flash,. Unless the wound is open, as with a triangular chunk blade."

"Or a tubular coral injury," suggested Father, "sustained off the Hawaiian Islands."

"Precisely." show less

The overall story in this one was pretty nebulous and a bit hard for me to follow, but Aylett more than makes up for that side of things with his rapid-fire one-liners and delightfully sick POV. I believe the man is a genius, which doesn't mean everything he creates is perfect, but it does mean the rest of us should give it some attention and try to make some sense of it. Humor is a very subjective thing, but for me, this was absolutely hilarious, and for those of you out there sicker than me, it may be even funnier.