The Lying Liar And The Lying Lies He... Err... Lies - Stephen Fry's 'The Liar'
Written: Jul 10 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Caustic wit. Great characters. Wonderful dialogue.
Cons: Not really.
The Bottom Line: A fun-filled and bizarre ride through the terror and turmoil that is life.
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| Vormancian's Full Review: Stephen Fry - The Liar |
There is one thing that all those remotely knowledgeable on the general subject of humanity agree on - there is no one as honest as a genuinely skilled liar. Don’t underestimate what I mean by being truly skilled at it though. It’s an art, and a difficult, meaningful, and magical one. And, there is no one trying harder to tell you nothing but the absolute truth as someone really laying one on you. There is more of a man detailed and delivered by a good liar telling you about a brief interlude that never actually happened than in a sadly honest one’s 1,000 page autobiography. To lie, whether by creating other worlds that don’t exist, comforting a loved one against the brutalities of life, or saving one’s boss from the unnecessary turmoil and awkwardness of having to fire you, is to become better, nicer, and more real than reality. To lie quite well is to become almost divine. Most importantly, to spin really good yarns at people about hope, life, compassion, Santa Claus, God, good will toward man, the absolutely best ever pizza place, and other fanciful creatures, is to build them, to grow them, to show them an unfettered respect... to love them.
Then again, that might be a bunch of rot.
Stephen Fry is a man who knows one of those two things very well, and I’ll leave it to you to discover which... though you might be able to guess.
‘The Liar’ follows the life of a boy named Adrian, and follows him for quite a while. Beginning with Adrian in early adolescence attending a boarding school, our story drops us in a world of confusion, duplicity, and inner turmoil. Adrian can’t manage to be honest, or even understand honesty. He’s not especially willing to commit to the idea that other people actually exist for that matter. Well, some of the time. We carry on with Adrian and his uncanny wit through several years of sex (or at least sex-ish) with his classmates, subversive ‘movements’, and his unrelenting ability to have no clue at all what to do with his very brilliant self. It’s a coming-of-age story like all the rest (except that it’s crass and vulgar), and like no other, because as most of us on the wrong end of such stories know, they’re all the same, and they’re all different.
Adrian moves himself along, almost dragged by a disconnection he can’t quite understand, from one excuse to make excuses to another. From schoolboy crush, to the discovery of a Professor he can actually respect, to family, to friends, to himself as audience: Adrian finds himself often guilty of the lie that causes the most concern initially, but also reveals the hint of true brilliance - the lie that serves no purpose.
Adrian soon (in the sense of ‘after quite a while really’) becomes entangled, by way of the above-mentioned Professor, Donald Trefusis, in a bizarre sort of political intrigue complete with spies, deaths, secret technology, and feints-within-feints included. Trefusis, who sees through Adrian’s attempt at lifting an essay, and then sees through his Dickens forgery, actually encourages Adrian’s, as the book would say, that-which-is-not-truthfulness.
Fry, genius comic actor (‘Wilde’, ‘Black Adder’, ‘Jeeves and Wooster’) and author of several books, delivers the story with just the same sort of sure hand that propels much of his acting work to instant classic status. Fry knows what’s funny, and knows how to get the most out of a role, scene, and line of dialogue. As an author, he also knows how to get the most out of a character or situation, but not simply in terms of humor. There is purpose even to the frequent vulgarity, and in the end we are left with one of the best tales of growing up ever, and a clever ride along the road to ‘men’ to boot.
Those familiar with the writing of certain British authors (or my own), will not be troubled by the ‘a sentence ends when I’m bloody well done talking’ format, but others may need to take some time getting used to it. Two brief examples from early in the book display the style well, and hint that a working knowledge of literature will be helpful in catching references and getting the most out of the read -
"For Adrian other people did not exist except as extras, as bit-players in the film of his life. No one but he had noted the splendour and agony of existence, no one else was truly or fully alive. He alone gasped at dew trapped in cobwebs, at spring buds squeaking into life. Afternoon light bouncing like a yo-yo in a stream of spittle dropping from a cow's lips, the slum-wallpaper peel of bark on birches, the mash of wet leaves pulped into pavements, they grew and burst only in him. Only he knew what it was to love."
"Cartwright of the sapphire eyes and golden hair, Cartwright of the Limbs and Lips: he was Petrarch's Laura, Milton's Lycidas, Catullus's Lesbia, Tennyson's Hallam, Shakespeare's fair boy and dark lady, the moon's Endymion. Cartwright was Garbo's salary, the National Gallery, he was cellophane: he was the tender trap, the blank unholy surprise of it all and the bright golden haze on the meadow: he was honey-honey, sugar-sugar, chirpy chirpy cheep-cheep and his baby-love: the voice of the turtle could be heard in the land, there were angels dining at the Ritz and a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square."*
‘The Liar’ is also a book that almost makes its pace a character. The first half plods along at a steady pace, never slow, but decidedly ‘character study’. Without warning things shift to the ‘intrigue’ part of the plot, and the pace quickens, and continues to pick up speed all the way to the end. Of note also is the fact that there is a surprising twist at the end. This is noteworthy because, despite the title, the book never gives any hint that it will go so far, and so many directions with the concept.
It may take a few pages to get going, but ‘The Liar’ is the sort of book that you will call wonderful at any given point during your trip through it, and the ending brings it all together to such a degree that an, ‘Oh, that’s just brilliant,’ is guaranteed to slip out.
*excerpts by permission
David Higham Agency
Hutchinson (UK) and Soho Press (US) publishers
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Vormancian
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Marc Eastman
Location: Bangor,ME
Reviews written: 328
Trusted by: 351 members
About Me:
Evangeline Sylvan Betty Eastman. AKA "Cricket" 9/12/06
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