The Liar by Stephen Fry Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Liar
Book Review: PAGLIACCIO
Summary: 5 Stars
The Liar is the first novel that Stephen Fry wrote and the second of his novels that I have read. Over the last 15 or 20 years he has of course become familiar from television as a comedian and comedy actor, as large as Oscar Wilde and with a flippant urbane wit nearly to match.
A born entertainer, one would say, full of zest for and enjoyment of what he does, and a bit of a toff with it. However when I first read his The Stars' Tennis Balls I sensed something else entirely. My reaction was `This man is seriously not right', and it came to me as no surprise recently when he let out that he is a manic depressive. You can already sense the problem in The Liar. It is largely autobiographical obviously, and just as certainly embellished too, I should say. The hero and the author are carried along on a torrent of their own phenomenal articulacy and imagination. Experiences and ordeals that would have had most of us in permanent psychiatric care seem to leave no lasting mark so far as this narrative is concerned, but the underlying nihilism is unmistakable as well. Fry's genius is a gift of the gods, but like most gifts of the gods it comes with a heavy burden attached. When the effervescence boils down, as it sometimes must, the vessel is empty. The style is not just the man, the style is the man's whole world.
The most elite English education is the scaffolding that supports Fry and his hero. Their patois is a joy to listen to, and the author's satirical ear is acute. He has not only the idiom of the English public school to perfection, but also the jargon of Cambridge professors arguing as well as the strange lingo in which examination questions are framed. None of these are targets for Fry in any sense implying hostility. He is a liberal, not a revolutionary, and he laughs because otherwise he might weep. All the same, it would be leaving an utterly false impression to suggest that there is any tone of gloom to this book. It's funny, sometimes hilariously funny, and it is damnably ingenious. I will go further - there is a real feeling of kindness about Fry, and cruelty is absent altogether. This book involves people being murdered, but the sense is no more gory than in Agatha Christie, and the Christie-style denouement with the master-mind explaining the intricacies of what has happened is clever beyond anything Christie could do.
Is he perhaps too clever by half? Not for me, but very likely for his own good. He remains an entertainer of genius, his heart is obviously in it, and I feel it's a good heart too. This is what he does because this is what he's good at, and I have not read a book that entertained me quite so much for quite a long time. Put your Family Values in a jar with the lid firmly on, of course, when you read Fry.
Book Review: Pretty good, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
The book in it's own right is pretty decent, although it had a few too many attempts at sounding hi-tech and that has dated rather badly. It's just that compared to the Count of Monte Cristo, it's barely an appetiser. Amusingly in the final notes by Fry he explains that he had never read The Count until after he has already written a portion of this book.
Worth a read if you like Fry, and who doesn't?
Book Review: Read "The Hippopotamus" instead
Summary: 2 Stars
I am in a state of devout adoration when it comes to Fry's "The Hippopotamus", probably the most entertaining read I've enjoyed in the past five years so I figured I'd give his first novel a shot. Fry comes out of the blocks well enough. Has moments of cleverness that verge only slightly on being too clever for their own good. Be warned, non-UK readers: the novel is steeped so deeply in British prep school jargon (prefects and dons, uniforms and "school neckties" and what not) that you'll feel like you're reading an adolesecent, gay Harry Potter without the flying owls, giants and games of Quidditch (which is easier to understand than cricket for this poor Yank, I'll tell you that). The cricket references aren't terribly difficult except during a long stretch in the novel where I read the word "googlie" about twenty times in ten pages and I did not have my cricket jargon dictionary handy. My bad, I guess. I'm sure Brits reading Ford's "The Sportswriter" must've felt the same way about baseball.That aside, I did have trouble *liking* the protagonist, Adrian. I found the inclusion of the italicized "teaser" mini-chapters interdispersed between the main storyline to be a giant pain in the neck, a distraction that made me finish the book. I guess that was Fry's intent.
The sudden turn from British prep school gay persona to unwitting (or was he aware? I still don't know.) espionage operative is jarring and even more distracting than the italicized bits (though, yes they are related.) Is Fry expecting me now to re-read the italicized bits and put the whole story together. C'mon, give me a break, man!
I don't want to sound parochial and narrow when it comes to the whole cultural difference between myself and Adrian. I do like other modern Brit works ("A White Merc with Fins", "High Fidelity") and the gay themes don't make me sqeamish. I just think the guy is someone to whom I would have nothing to say and with whom I would have nothing to do.
Pass.
Book Review: Snappingly, Cracklingly, Poppingly Funny
Summary: 5 Stars
Stephen Fry writes jaunty, superbly clever and often belly-achingly funny prose. Much of it can be called irreverent, but only by the irredeemably Puritan. Fry has a sharp sense of human nature, a tender spot for human frailty, and his crosshairs trained on human cruelty.Fry's protagonist (and, so it seems, shadow self), Adrian Healey goes forth in the world of the English public schools, English public houses and English public streets as best he can--most often his best requires an assiduous disregard for the truth. But his lies are "lived and felt and acted out as thoroughly as another man's truths." This book doesn't have everything, but it does have international espionage, campus comedy and figgy oatcakes. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an organic or convincing ending, but five stars doesn't have to mean "perfect."
If you have ever fancied the idea that there is more truth in fiction than in history, this is the book for you. If descriptions of human sexual affection put you off unless they are of a married man and woman under the covers with the lights out, then you may turn a shade or three of red with THE LIAR. Honestly! If you like this book, Fry's second novel, THE HIPPOPOTAMUS, is even more hilarious (and much better plotted).
Book Review: Stephen Fry excels in all he pursues
Summary: 5 Stars
This is very well-written book, well within the tradition of great British comic authors - in particular, P.G. Wodehouse. The book is admittedly difficult to follow in the beginning, as there are two separate story lines w/o much prelude or introduction. However, the payoff at the end is worth it. Fry's elegant and easy-to-read prose is more than sufficient to keep you turning page after page. The ending was fantastic, not because of what happens, but because of the feeling you are left with... not to mention the epiphany that hits you at the very end. Definitely worth a read. Having read this book, I intend to read his other novels. I also recommend his autobiography, "Moab is My Washpot", another joy to read!