What do You think about The Liar (2004)?
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 just want to be /seen/ as witty, unafraid, and prepared as they know they're not. Adrian also brings out our darker side. His semi-sociopathic ability - eagerness even - to lie, outright lie, when nothing is gained; this is something we can also relate to, whether we like it or not. Adrian - or perhaps Fry - exposes us as sad, pathetic people who feel, know, that they simply aren't as interesting as they'd like to be. His habitual lying revolves around himself and his experiences; he says what he wants people to know, and how he wants them to think of him. And we've all done the same. How many new-age college girls are spontaneously lesbian, vegetarian whale-lovers after their 18th birthday? Much more than actually /are/ lesbian, vegetarian, or whale-lovers for their lives, but it's something to /say/. It's a distraction from the fact that they, like so many others, are white, middle-class American girls who go home to the family they said was dead for Christmas and are at the college on a sports scholarship for lacrosse. Ho-hum. You wouldn't date a girl like that. All the possibly psychological analysis aside, The Liar is a racing novel of thrilling heroics, less-than-tender romantic encounters, and staggeringly fabulous Wildian wit.Or maybe, just maybe, I'm lying to you.
—Julia
Technically, I did not finish this book; I waved the white flag and surrendered. I'm not certain if my problem was the book or me. My sense is that it was a little of both. While Fry is intelligent and witty, I felt like the book was based so thoroughly on scenes from perhaps Fry's own life that it made it almost impossible to give the plot any kind of real progress or momentum. Picking the book up and putting it down again for even a short time made it hard to remember what had been accomplished last-- if anything-- and where the main character and plot was headed next. So I got tangled up in various cycles of character discourse, and I stalled out on it. I was trying to finish this almost on principle, since I rarely leave a book undone. I may still attempt to wrap it up. But it was preventing me from reading other things. I hang my head in readerly shame. :) Sorry, Mr. Fry. I failed you.
—Jenn Thorson
"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 quite smart), and so cunningly evil that you'll wish he was real and he was your friend. The plot is quite unorthodox and may seem quite messy at times, the characters are all likable, and the humor is intelligent and very infectious. I found myself laughing so hard countless times that I couldn't breathe. Though Fry does seem rather fond of queerness, he justifies it in the end. But the real treasure in this book is the conversations. The conversations between Adrian and Trefusis particularly, though Adrian to anyone else is already gold standard. The conversations are so smart, so witty, so ingeniously hilarious, so lip-smackingly spectacular that no one but Stephen Fry can pull this off. It's rather quite funny that this book is called "The Liar", because Stephen Fry uses these lies to tell the truth, well, the truth about lies. It's also rather quite subversive, if I may add. Genius.
—Jr Bacdayan
