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The Liar
by
Stephen Fry's breathtakingly outrageous debut novel, by turns eccentric, shocking, brilliantly comic and achingly romantic.
Adrian Healey is magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life; unprepared too for the afternoon in Salzburg when he will witness the savage murder of a Hungarian violinist; unprepared to learn about the Mendax device; unprepared for more mu ...more
Adrian Healey is magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life; unprepared too for the afternoon in Salzburg when he will witness the savage murder of a Hungarian violinist; unprepared to learn about the Mendax device; unprepared for more mu ...more
Paperback, 390 pages
Published
August 5th 2004
by Arrow
(first published September 16th 1991)
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Community Reviews
(showing 1-30)
Mar 01, 2008
Martine
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anglophiles and lovers of British humour
Stephen Fry ranks among my favourite persons on earth. There's something about his terribly English combination of wit, erudition and a dirty mind that never fails to delight me, and it shines brightly in The Liar, the first of the four novels he has published so far. An irreverent and intelligent take on such British institutions as the public-school novel, the Cambridge novel and the spy novel, it is best appreciated by people who have an affinity for such things, but really, anyone with a tas
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Fry is a very funny comic actor, in Blackadder and the TV version of Bertie & Jeeves, among others. This debut novel concerns a young lad at a prep school, who later (or is he lying?) becomes a street prostitute and then, under the tutelage of his supremely arch and worldly mentor at Cambridge, becomes involved in an international espionage drama, which turns out to be not at all what it seems – more than once.
Although Fry writes some sharp and funny dialogue, this book never really decides ...more
Although Fry writes some sharp and funny dialogue, this book never really decides ...more
Who says you can't read smut and improve your vocabulary at the same time? Although I'm not sure how well "bottomite" will serve at Scrabble...
Stephen Fry should stick to acting. The Liar is a valiant effort, and it is clear Fry is well versed in 'significant' english literary tropes...but this is far from making him a good writer. The construction of the story is as sickeningly 'clever' as the main character but ultimately also just as superficial and empty...and in contrast to the main character also kind of sloppy. Fry uses time-worn devices to confuse, obscure and misdirect--effective for what turns out to be a ha-ha-got-you spy no
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Loved, loved, loved it! And I can see where others wouldn't.
The dialogue reads like white-water rafting. The story-telling tantalizes and satisfies like the tongue-in-cheek sex scenes (no pun intended?) that work themselves onto every third page. And the hero, Adrian, should be the sort of character I detest, the kind that ruins the whole book for me. But the near perfect collage that are his lies and truths, his desires and apathies, yanks at every sense until "smitten" sounds too gentle a desc ...more
The dialogue reads like white-water rafting. The story-telling tantalizes and satisfies like the tongue-in-cheek sex scenes (no pun intended?) that work themselves onto every third page. And the hero, Adrian, should be the sort of character I detest, the kind that ruins the whole book for me. But the near perfect collage that are his lies and truths, his desires and apathies, yanks at every sense until "smitten" sounds too gentle a desc ...more
Took a while to get into but very funny!
"Not one word of the following is true." Stephen Fry started out his book with this proclamation. I've always loved British Humor and quite frankly, I've always liked Stephen Fry so I had great expectations for this book. I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I was rather quite surprised. I didn't expect it to be this good. Adrian Healey the protagonist, a modern Oscar Wilde type (who is also a compulsive liar, hence the title) is so witty, so charmingly smart (well, most of the characters are indeed
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I find it fitting that I started my reading challenge with Mr. Fry and am closing it out with one of his books. For a debut novel this is remarkable but then again so is the man that wrote it. It is every bit as witty and charming as the man himself. Which to me reinforces the veiled autobiographical nature of it.
If you want a fun romp with a thriller basis this book is for you at least until it switches genres. Unfortunately it tries to be too many other genres at the same time but one thing it ...more
If you want a fun romp with a thriller basis this book is for you at least until it switches genres. Unfortunately it tries to be too many other genres at the same time but one thing it ...more
I thought this was a very though book to get into, especially because it takes pretty
long to see what the book is trying to tell you. Also the writing style used is confusing and a bit pretentious. About 40 pages into the book that all started to matter les, because I was fascinated by the protagonist Healey. Healey is a boarding school kid and is a pretentious crook and a liar. In that way the writing style is very fitting for the book, and might have been a conscious choise of Stephen Fry.
Th ...more
long to see what the book is trying to tell you. Also the writing style used is confusing and a bit pretentious. About 40 pages into the book that all started to matter les, because I was fascinated by the protagonist Healey. Healey is a boarding school kid and is a pretentious crook and a liar. In that way the writing style is very fitting for the book, and might have been a conscious choise of Stephen Fry.
Th ...more
Love love love Stephen Fry but this one was a little hard to follow. I think I got 90% of the story but there were some very confusing bits. Even so, his writing is wonderful.
Part of the fun of realizing that a novel's narrator is unreliable is that the whole structure of the book becomes a puzzle—which are the bits that we ought to believe? Fry (or, I suppose, whoever the book's narrator is meant to be) insists from the beginning, however, that this is not the game that he's playing, claiming that "Not one word of the following is true."
So, what actually is the game? Is Fry aiming for a certain effect, or is this just a lazily tossed-off first novel which fails to h ...more
So, what actually is the game? Is Fry aiming for a certain effect, or is this just a lazily tossed-off first novel which fails to h ...more
Feb 02, 2011
Julia
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
People who aren't afraid of naughty language
After reading the unabridged version, I've decided this is one of my favorite books.
Fry stylistically jumps around in his narrative in order to add the feel of disunion with reality. Adrian, Fry's out-of-touch, flamboyant, attention-seeking miscreant of a protagonist, is one of the most wonderfully amiable and relate-able characters in modern literature, because we don't like to think he is. In one way or another, we're all like Adrian. Estranged, lonely people who just want to be /liked/. Who j ...more
Fry stylistically jumps around in his narrative in order to add the feel of disunion with reality. Adrian, Fry's out-of-touch, flamboyant, attention-seeking miscreant of a protagonist, is one of the most wonderfully amiable and relate-able characters in modern literature, because we don't like to think he is. In one way or another, we're all like Adrian. Estranged, lonely people who just want to be /liked/. Who j ...more
Hörbuch gehört. Sehr unterhaltsam, bis ich bei der 4. CD irgendwann dachte, ich hätte eine wichtige Passage übersprungen, so wenig schien mir das plötzlich zum Rest zu passen. (Bei einem Buch hätte man die Chronologie der Kapitel anhand der Jahresangaben nochmal nachschlagen können.) Aber anbetrachts des Titels und des ersten Satzes (sinngemäß "Nichts, was hier steht, ist wahr") könnte auch das einfach eine weitere Geschichte sein. Ich ziehe ein nochmaliges Hören in Betracht, was mich nochmal in
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This isn't something I would've sought out to read, but seeing as I like Stephen Fry and came across this sitting neglected on a library shelf, I figured I'd give it a go. All in all, it was entertaining, and a fast read. It's a bit all over the place, and definitely trying to sound funny and smart, and begging the questions of what isn't a lie and who isn't a liar?
Stephen Fry is a wit and raconteur if ever there was one. His first novel "The Liar" is an interesting, erudite, comic, and witty semi thriller all in one package. The protagonist of this novel, one Adrian Healey, is always lying to and fooling others. In no great irony the person he is lying to the most is himself. Almost every reader will see some of their own foibles in him at some point in the text, which can make for some uncomfortable reading moments. Adrian is both nasty and kind, and I v
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I need to start by saying that I think this man is a God, which does seem to be the standard opening play in any discussion of Stephen Fry by at least one person in the room. If, in this case, that person needs to be me, well, so be it. This is his first novel and although there were parts of it that had me making the kind of snorting sounds that could all too easily have had people thinking I was suffering from a terribly debilitating illness – mostly I don’t think it worked. It pains me to say
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If I hadn't read "Moab is my Washpot" before reading "The Liar", I would probably have enjoyed it more. As it is, this book now seemed to be an odd mix of two separate books: an addition to Fry's school years autobiography, and a camp espionage caper. Not unlike Oscar Wilde, the author sprinkles bon mots throughout the text. The recondite (!) vocabulary is sometimes exhilarating, sometimes tiring, typical for the "Look mama, no hands.." mentality of a new author keen to prove his virtuosity. On
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זהו סיפורו של אדריאן, בחור שמעביר את חייו בפנימיה, בקיימבריגד' ובעולם בכלל באמצעות חן אישי ושקרים, הוא פוגש בשלב כלשהו פרופ' מתוחכם לאנגלית ויחד הם נוגעים לא נוגעים באיזו פרשת ריגול וזה בערך מה שניתן לספר. פריי, כמו בספרים מאוחרים שלו, משחק בין הזמנים קווי העלילה, מסווה את הדמויות עד הרגע האחרון ומפציץ ברפרנסים לתרבות גבוהה ונמוכה.
אז הספר משעשע, סוחף, מעניין וגם מרגיז כי כולו שקר על שקר על שקר.
זה לא הספר הכי טוב שלו. "עושים היסטוריה" הוא למעשה שכלול של הספר הזה, אבל "לא הכי טוב" של פריי זה עדיין ...more
אז הספר משעשע, סוחף, מעניין וגם מרגיז כי כולו שקר על שקר על שקר.
זה לא הספר הכי טוב שלו. "עושים היסטוריה" הוא למעשה שכלול של הספר הזה, אבל "לא הכי טוב" של פריי זה עדיין ...more
Brilliant and funny as Fry can be, it was also hard to follow as the timeline is all over the place. But don’t fret, the journey is quite worthy!
Fry bezit een benijdenswaardige combinatie van humor en eruditie die ik onweerstaanbaar vind. Het is een combinatie die voor mij het meest tot uiting komt buiten zijn rol als acteur/komiek en auteur. Begin jaren negentig was ik fan van A Bit Of Fry And Laurie en ik pikte graag een aflevering van Blackadder mee, maar ik vind hem nog boeiender in zijn recentere uitstappen, zoals de documentaires The Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive en HIV and Me (toevallig deze week op tv). Het leukste en ontsp
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This novel is so many things at once - a British public school pastiche, a coming-of-age novel, an espionage thriller, a saddening commentary on life, yet at once a manifesto for everyone who's ever felt out of the ordinary, a heart-breakingly true account of the madness of being young and in love, and so on. I adored Adrian from the first, laughed out loud about 50 % of the total time I spent reading this book (which amounts to little over five or six hours, as I ripped through it). I do think
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Sep 26, 2008
Miss Bookiverse
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
f-audiobook,
read-in-my-teens
The first half of the book deals with the protagonist's teenage years which are quite bizarre but rather interesting. After that the story turns into some weird crime-murder-something I didn't quite grasp. Also the change happened so quickly that I wondered whether I had skipped some tracks but I hadn't. So first part good, second part bleh.
Apart from that the use of words is wonderful and original, I had to marvel at quite a few sentences.
Apart from that the use of words is wonderful and original, I had to marvel at quite a few sentences.
I loved how the book was a-chronological and how there are small nuances of each character brought out. Humour is not the only highlight that Stephen Fry has brought out here - it's the character sketch of Adrian! And I could relate to him beyond words :)
English boarding schools have much to recommend them. If boys are going to be adolescent, and science has failed to come up with a way of stopping them, then much better to herd them together and let them get on with it in private
If you combined Douglas Adams with Jean Genet and asked this new man to rewrite Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, the writer would write very much like Stephen Fry and the book would look a lot like The Liar. It would all be too too and so very very.
…he had read and absorbed more...more
Written absolutely amazingly!
The story keeps you entertained and leaves you, well, wondering what the hell is true and what was a lie.
I'd strongly suggest reading this book before reading Stephen Fry's memoirs as he does use some of his own experiences and it taints the story slightly - or at least it did for me! Learn from my mistakes...read this one first!
Even with the above mentioned slip, mine not the author's, I absolutely love it!
The story keeps you entertained and leaves you, well, wondering what the hell is true and what was a lie.
I'd strongly suggest reading this book before reading Stephen Fry's memoirs as he does use some of his own experiences and it taints the story slightly - or at least it did for me! Learn from my mistakes...read this one first!
Even with the above mentioned slip, mine not the author's, I absolutely love it!
So, I didn't actually finish this. I love Stephen Fry, but this book was a chore. And life is too short to force yourself to finish a book when there's so many other things to read.
There were really funny moments in the half that I read, but they were all witty one liners that didn't have much to do with the plot.
There were really funny moments in the half that I read, but they were all witty one liners that didn't have much to do with the plot.
Took me 50 or 60 pages to get a feel for the rhythm of the writing and the changing time streams. But I certainly didn't see the end coming!
Блестяще рассказанная история! Колоритные детали, специфический юмор и все, совершенно все, врут!
2.5 stars.
This book was just too confusing. We go from schoolboys to spies to schoolboys to prostitutes to professors to spies to little boys that won't grow up?
I don't feel as if there is a point with this book. During the beginning it reminded me a bit of The Catcher in the Rye. This made me apprehensive since I did not like that book at all. We had Adrian, who is this nasty main character who is having some trouble with his sexuality. In between there are these weird chapters written with pe ...more
This book was just too confusing. We go from schoolboys to spies to schoolboys to prostitutes to professors to spies to little boys that won't grow up?
I don't feel as if there is a point with this book. During the beginning it reminded me a bit of The Catcher in the Rye. This made me apprehensive since I did not like that book at all. We had Adrian, who is this nasty main character who is having some trouble with his sexuality. In between there are these weird chapters written with pe ...more
Adrian Healy is a chronic liar. You can always tell when he is lying by the simple fact that his lips are moving. We follow Healy’s exploits through private school where toast and buggery are the order of the day culminating in an underground magazine and expulsion. Following this disgrace he finds himself in Piccadilly turning tricks as a rent boy and being caught by the police with enough Bolivian Marching Powder to see him safely incarcerated at Her Majesty’s pleasure for a couple of years. F
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| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Backlot Gay B...: Stephen Fry's "The Liar" | 3 | 22 | Aug 12, 2017 05:29PM | |
| the use of bad language.. is it acceptable | 4 | 36 | Nov 04, 2013 04:28PM |
Stephen John Fry is an English comedian, writer, actor, humourist, novelist, poet, columnist, filmmaker, television personality and technophile. As one half of the Fry and Laurie double act with his comedy partner, Hugh Laurie, he has appeared in A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. He is also famous for his roles in Blackadder and Wilde, and as the host of QI. In addition to writing fo
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“My first meeting with you only confirmed what I first suspected. You are a fraud, a charlatan and a shyster. My favourite kind of person, in fact.”
—
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“I think Eros should be dirty. In Greek legend, as I'm sure you are aware, he fell in love with the minor deity Psyche. It was the Greek way of saying that, in spite of what it may believe, Love pursues the Soul, not the body; the Erotic desires the Psychic. If Love was clean and wholesome he wouldn't lust after Psyche.”
—
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