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The Liar: Complete & Unabridged | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephen Fry
Publisher: Random House Audiobooks
Category: Book
List Price: £20.00
Buy New: £12.57
You Save: £7.43 (37%)
New (11) Used (3) from £6.00
Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 304614
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Unabridged
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.3 x 2.1
ISBN: 1856863158
EAN: 9781856863155
ASIN: 1856863158
Publication Date: March 16, 1995
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 44 more reviews...
 Weird definitely weird April 14, 2008
Ed Taylor (Lancashire England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After reading this book I felt confused. Yes it was funny in places and Mr Fry's literary style and prowess are undoubted. Why then can't he write a novel that coherently follows a storyline instead of flitting about like a fly on the proverbial griddle. It seems like he has written down all the points he wants to get across then got them to the publishers without sorting them into order as he was running out of time.
If this is his life story as some seem to suspect no wonder he is depressed. I was after reading it!
The journey is more enjoyable than the arrival March 5, 2008
Brimsley The Flabby Egg Instep (Spirit of Buckinghamshire)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is beautifully written and bears all the hallmarks of Fry's familiar delivery. I heartily recommend it. I have given just 4 stars out of 5 as I didn't feel particularly satisfied by the ending but I had very much enjoyed getting there. It's the first Fry novel I've read and I am certainly encouraged to read more of them.
Charming... but smug October 23, 2007
Mike Cormack (Aberdeen UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Stephen Fry's first novel was published in the mid-90s, when he was well known as part of the Fry & Laurie comedy duo and the Cambridge Footlights crew of 1981, with Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery and others, but before he became the virtual national treasure he is now. (He'll be up there with Julie Walters in the next decade). Fry and Laurie had always been unashamedly clever and Oxbridge, and so it is no surprise to come to "The Liar", a bildungsroman of sorts about a terribly clever young man at public school and Cambridge. Though the book is a barely disguised fictionalised account of Fry's adolesences (as is made clear in his memoir of his actual youth, "Moab Is My Washpot", and as is suggested and denied by the first page which says "Not one word of the following is true"), there's more to it than that.
The book skates along the surface with an effervescent, comic verbal delight, while the undertones are somewhat darker. Adrian Healey (Fry's alterego) attends public school and is madly in love with a fellow pupil Hugo Cartwright. But while it is obviously an unspoken love there's an maniplativeness and deceit in the way that Adrian engineers incidents between them, whether from memorising Hugo's timetable or the fact that Adrian has a key to his locker. The schoolboy homosexuality is presented in a cheeky, comic fashion that's sometimes hilarious (when Tarty cuts holes into his pockets).
Alongside this strand of narrative is Adrian at Cambridge some years later; the two strands intertwine, enlightening and baffling the reader in parts. At Cambridge he has a similarly deceitful relationship with his tutor, the wonderfully-drawn Trefusis, and a girlfriend he treats with surface love and actual ignorance. This section leads to a murder mystery of sorts, which actually resolves into a moral lesson for Adrian. But meantime there is a flashback to Adrian running away, between school and Cambridge, as Fry himself did, and landing up in jail, as Fry did. All of this may seem a little confusing but it's handled deftly and the three sections by the end cohere into a whole, just as Pulp Fiction does.
My main problem with the novel is that a sometimes unbearable smugness of tone creeps in. One character, a Cambridge don, is maligned throughout for not being of the public school/Oxbridge background, for being combative where the other dons know how "things are done". Similarly, a fat school boy with a crush does not gather Adrian's sympathy but his contempt, even when he commits suicide. Also, at the denouement, when Adrian's various relatives and tutors are gathered round and the mystery turns out to be a game, Trefusis' arrest will be discreetly hushed over - someone will have a word with someone in power - and all will be well. And when Adrian runs away, he wonders if the chickens (the underage runaways who prostitute themselves) are less unhappy than the public schoolboys. I mean, really!! The idea that public school is somehow so dreadful that it compares to being an underage rentboy in London - what kind of life experience does Fry have? These views on prostitution are extremely rose-tinted, to say the least!
All the same, this is a tremendously funny book, one which will appeal to anyone with a vivid mentality, or anyone who read a lot as a youngster. The verbal games and fun are a delight, the characters memorable (especially Trefusis, but also Gary), and the various feints and twists of the narrative a delight to work out.
 A FISH TO FRY July 1, 2007
Lee Hendricks (Ascot, Berkshire UK)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
When John Prescott surfaced on the political scene as Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine commented on his lack of social grace saying, "Language is not his first language." The same cannot be said of Stephen Fry. He demonstrates a sculptor's skill in carving each sentence delicately from the rich palette of grammar at his disposal.
Delightfully easy to read and entertaining, the story mixes fiction with fact as a young Adrian Healey (presumably Stephen's alter ego) stumbles through life as a Cambridge undergraduate. Not content with simply reading for his degree in the conventional sense, Adrian attempts to demonstrate his literary brilliance by forging an early work from Charles Dickens. His deceit fools many a Cambridge Don and Adrian's prank becomes the substance of legend.
The book provides a frank and often shocking look into university life, covering fagging, homosexuality, suicide and Piccadilly rent boys. Designed more to entertain than to shock, the book will appeal to fans of Fry, those wishing to know more about university life in early 1970's England, and all who enjoy a riotous good read.
 A baffling & bewildering tale June 11, 2007
Mrs. N. J. Kewley (Douglas Isle of Man)
4 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is the second of Stephen Fry's novels that i have read. The enormous
enjoyment i felt upon completing "The Stars Tennis Balls" is mirrored only in the colossal dissapointment i felt in this work.
The story jumped about, was confusing, appeared to make no logical sence whatsoever and upon completeing my only thought was "Huh, what was the point of this book." Nothing really seems to happen and Stephen's word choise and sentence structure can be a little intimadating.
Although a huge fan of the man himself, i would reccomend his other books over this one.
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