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shane_tiernan's review against another edition
5.0
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 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."
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 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."
rj42's review
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.25
It is very hard to explain Aylett's work because there is nothing quite like it in the English language. Bigot Hall, like many of his books, is an exploration of language and an explosion of absurd humour which is barely housed by the trappings of a novel. Whole sentences and paragraphs are simply punchlines as our nameless narrator recounts the complexities of their supernatural family and the bizarre house in which they live. At times, it is the funniest thing you will ever have read and if you enjoy the author there are parts of this book that will simply be too much to read – I frequently found myself putting the book down to laugh. But as with much of Aylett's work, whole sections simply fall flat. It is this imperfection and sheer eccentricity that make him unique and that mean he is a cult writer who has never breached the mainstream: there is a certain type of reader who enjoys Aylett and you'll know within a few pages whether or not it's you. If you do, Bigot Hall is probably as 'accessible' as Aylett gets.
chramies's review against another edition
4.0
Actually it isn't that nightmarish. Bigot Hall is a sort of anti-Gormenghast, where it's the rest of the world that has a non-Euclidean geometry and the family of the eponymous Hall just want to mind their own business (as Steve Aylett wryly says, "this is back when that was still legal.") Impossibly cool parents and incomprehensibly annoying relatives abound.
xterminal's review
4.0
Steve Aylett, Bigot Hall (Serif, 1995)
I spent the first few pages of this book alternating between offense and amusement. After a while, it hit me that I hadn't laughed out loud this many times per page at any book in quite a while, so I dropped the offense.
Imagine In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash (the book that inspired the classic film A Christmas Story) jacked up on PCP and going on a crime spree and you have Bigot Hall, Steve Aylett's impressionist biography of hands down the most interesting family in all of literature. The narrator, a nameless adolescent called "laughing boy" by friends and family alike, turns his jaundiced eye upon most every family member and lodger at the family's country estate, a living (or at the very least highly unstable, from a dimensional perspective) mansion known as Bigot Hall. Amidst the witty repartee (and this would make a good handbook for those who like to find stultifyingly obtuse .sig files) these rather twisted characters come to life quite nicely, to the point where one can almost believe some of the book's most outrageous moments. I won't spoil them for you, you'll have to read it yourself, but let's just say Aylett pulled off a pretty nice chunk of real estate in making the Verger's predicament seem not only plausible, but completely in line with the rest of the doings about him.
As with all books of the "selected glimpses of life" genre, there's no plot here, so the book must rely on nothing but character development to succeed, and it does so quite nicely. It's also choke-on-your-manacles funny from beginning to end. ****
I spent the first few pages of this book alternating between offense and amusement. After a while, it hit me that I hadn't laughed out loud this many times per page at any book in quite a while, so I dropped the offense.
Imagine In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash (the book that inspired the classic film A Christmas Story) jacked up on PCP and going on a crime spree and you have Bigot Hall, Steve Aylett's impressionist biography of hands down the most interesting family in all of literature. The narrator, a nameless adolescent called "laughing boy" by friends and family alike, turns his jaundiced eye upon most every family member and lodger at the family's country estate, a living (or at the very least highly unstable, from a dimensional perspective) mansion known as Bigot Hall. Amidst the witty repartee (and this would make a good handbook for those who like to find stultifyingly obtuse .sig files) these rather twisted characters come to life quite nicely, to the point where one can almost believe some of the book's most outrageous moments. I won't spoil them for you, you'll have to read it yourself, but let's just say Aylett pulled off a pretty nice chunk of real estate in making the Verger's predicament seem not only plausible, but completely in line with the rest of the doings about him.
As with all books of the "selected glimpses of life" genre, there's no plot here, so the book must rely on nothing but character development to succeed, and it does so quite nicely. It's also choke-on-your-manacles funny from beginning to end. ****
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