The Liar

by Stephen Fry

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 murders and wholly unprepared for the truth.

Stephen Fry's breathtakingly outrageous debut novel, by turns eccentric, shocking, brilliantly comic and achingly romantic.

'Hilarious' Literary Review

'Sublime' Cosmopolitan

• ISBN10: 0099457059
• ISBN13: 9780099457053
• Publish Date: 5 August 2004 (first published 16 September 1991)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Cornerstone
• Imprint: Arrow Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

(Review first posted on Booklikes - http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/724049/the-liar .)

This is such a first novel. It has all the aspiration of a first novel, complete with an author who can write - and we KNOW he can write.

Unfortunately, the main character of this one - Adrian - is a bit of a bore, who lives up to every imaginable cliche associated with a public school boy, and the plot of The Liar only serves to confirm Adrian's lack of ingenuity. But that of course is the point. Adrian has to be a fake.

The problem that this posed for me was that I was not sure why I wanted to go through the trouble of reading about Adrian. And then a number of sub-plots developed and we were introduced to the weird and delightful world of Adrian's university tutor Donald Trefusis.

And a few pages further on, we were introduced to another sub-plot of espionage and another sub-plot of a Dickensian play within the story itself.

However, with all the sub-plots, none of which were developed to an engaging level, I lost interest in the story, and by the end of it have already forgotten much of what I read along the way.