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Available
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Publication
Valancourt Books (2013), 192 pages
Description
Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling. Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar was published in 1959, and captures brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town. It tells the story of Billy Fisher, a Yorkshire teenager unable to stop lying - especially to his three girlfriends. Trapped by his boring job and working-class parents, Billy finds that his only happiness lies in grand plans for his future and fantastical day-dreams of the fictional country Ambrosia.
User reviews
LibraryThing member JonArnold
A quintessentially British tale of a smalltown dreamer who never plucks up the coverage to follow his vaultingly ambitious dreams, living in a fantasy world while he sabotages his normal life. In other words something I could really relate to. Billy's engaging, although his fine words (and the
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reader's sympathies) are undercut by his lies and other actions. Still relevant nearly fifty years on. Show Less
LibraryThing member dczapka
Every now and again, life delivers a clear portent. When I first took Billy Liar out of the University library--an act completely inspired by the Decemberists song of the same name--I was shocked to pick up a book that was printed and bound the same year it was published, 1959. The book fell apart
Our intrepid hero, Billy Fisher, works (poorly) for a local mortuary, a job that allows him to stay away from his overbearing parents, balance his three engagements to local girls, and pine away at his potential future gig writing for a London comedian. Over the course of the day, he must settle up his affairs and depart for the big city, but it's not so simple a task for a man who lies more than he tells the truth. Hijinks, predictably, ensue.
I probably should have known what was going to transpire was going to be a disappointment when the cover proclaimed Billy to be as "zany" as Holden Caulfield. Perhaps the novel just hasn't aged well, but I really didn't find the humor all that zany or madcap, and while many have commented on how charming Billy is, much of his act comes off as substantially more mean-spirited than one might expect. As a character, he is conflicted and frustrating, but also lazy and self-destructive. It's rather hard to feel sorry for him.
In addition, most of the characters that surround him feel like little more than caricatures. His churlish, brash father and hyperprotective mother don't ever feel like humans, which makes a late plot twist regarding Billy's grandmother even less affecting. Billy's friends, too, don't feel like much more than sounding boards for his one-liners, and none of them seem to come through when he really needs it, which makes them pretty unlikable as well. As for the women, the only one we can really root for is Liz, but Billy predictably fouls that up as well. Leaving the reader, in the end, floundering for something to like and grasping at straws.
The final scene essentially encapsulates what I felt was wrong with the novel: Billy makes a brash decision that feels like it has almost no precedent. So too does the novel as a whole feel as if it's not sure of what it wants to accomplish and say, and when it does say it, it doesn't feel like it's the result of any significant change in Billy's character. Maybe I missed something in those missing page pieces, but Billy Liar didn't strike me as a terribly impressive novel, even if it was fairly short and easy to read.
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as I breezily read its 150 pages--literally, crumbling. Many pages were missing substantial portions of sentences that I needed to guess to put together. All this should have suggested that Billy Liar was likely something to be wary of, and I turned out to be right.Our intrepid hero, Billy Fisher, works (poorly) for a local mortuary, a job that allows him to stay away from his overbearing parents, balance his three engagements to local girls, and pine away at his potential future gig writing for a London comedian. Over the course of the day, he must settle up his affairs and depart for the big city, but it's not so simple a task for a man who lies more than he tells the truth. Hijinks, predictably, ensue.
I probably should have known what was going to transpire was going to be a disappointment when the cover proclaimed Billy to be as "zany" as Holden Caulfield. Perhaps the novel just hasn't aged well, but I really didn't find the humor all that zany or madcap, and while many have commented on how charming Billy is, much of his act comes off as substantially more mean-spirited than one might expect. As a character, he is conflicted and frustrating, but also lazy and self-destructive. It's rather hard to feel sorry for him.
In addition, most of the characters that surround him feel like little more than caricatures. His churlish, brash father and hyperprotective mother don't ever feel like humans, which makes a late plot twist regarding Billy's grandmother even less affecting. Billy's friends, too, don't feel like much more than sounding boards for his one-liners, and none of them seem to come through when he really needs it, which makes them pretty unlikable as well. As for the women, the only one we can really root for is Liz, but Billy predictably fouls that up as well. Leaving the reader, in the end, floundering for something to like and grasping at straws.
The final scene essentially encapsulates what I felt was wrong with the novel: Billy makes a brash decision that feels like it has almost no precedent. So too does the novel as a whole feel as if it's not sure of what it wants to accomplish and say, and when it does say it, it doesn't feel like it's the result of any significant change in Billy's character. Maybe I missed something in those missing page pieces, but Billy Liar didn't strike me as a terribly impressive novel, even if it was fairly short and easy to read.
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LibraryThing member J.v.d.A.
What a great first novel.....much better than Kingsley Amis' "Lucky Jim" in my opinion.
LibraryThing member otterley
A day in the life of Billy Fisher, serial fantasist and all round loser. Engaged to two of the wrong girls, his workplace sins and emotional failures catch him up on a day that might have seen him escape to something different - but ends up with him back at home, doubtless doing his best next day
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to dodge the music again. Waterhouse writes of small town Yorkshire life before the Beatles first LP changed everything - an evocative world of dancehalls and narrow streets, that was quickly changing into something different. Show Less
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse has proved to be an influential book and has been adapted into a play, a musical, a film and a TV series. The main character, William Fisher is a working-class 19 year old living at home with his parents in a small town in Yorkshire. He is bored by his job as a clerk
The author captures that stifling small-town atmosphere as the story cycles through one day in Billy’s life. Between his multiple girlfriends, exasperated parents, annoying colleagues and some quite serious misconduct at work, Billy needs to be doing more than escaping into his fantasies. It quickly becomes apparent though that Billy has no desire to grow up.
While there were some stellar scenes in the book, I never really found myself much caring about the main character. Perhaps I should have read this book when I was younger and more sympathetic to rebellious youth, but at my current age, I had more in common with his parents and his Gran. Billy’s attempts to avoid responsibility and his lack of judgment simply seemed rather pointless to me.
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for an undertaking business, so he spends his time indulging in fantasies and dreams about life in the big city as a comedy writer. He has managed to get himself engaged to two girls all the while being in love with a third one and, no surprise here, he appears to be a compulsive liar. The author captures that stifling small-town atmosphere as the story cycles through one day in Billy’s life. Between his multiple girlfriends, exasperated parents, annoying colleagues and some quite serious misconduct at work, Billy needs to be doing more than escaping into his fantasies. It quickly becomes apparent though that Billy has no desire to grow up.
While there were some stellar scenes in the book, I never really found myself much caring about the main character. Perhaps I should have read this book when I was younger and more sympathetic to rebellious youth, but at my current age, I had more in common with his parents and his Gran. Billy’s attempts to avoid responsibility and his lack of judgment simply seemed rather pointless to me.
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LibraryThing member SandraBrower
This book was not as good as I just expected. I thought there would be more humor as I love British humor. I guess It just didn't have enough Brit humor for me. Billy sure was a glutton for punishment.
LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
Billy Fisher is a 19-year-old suffocating in a small fictional Yorkshire town and this book covers one day in his life. Billy works as an undertaker's clerk, is nagged by his mother and shouted at by his father, is engaged to two girls but is in love with a third and dreams of becoming a hit comedy
'Billy Liar' became an instant hit following its first publication in 1959 and has been adapted into a play, a musical, a TV series and even a film.
I found this a quick, warm and pleasant read filled with a subtle British humour which although it didn't actually make me laugh out loud, I did read it with a smile. Billy is an interesting character, a lively storyteller with an unmistakably northern humour but like all the best comedy, the book's tragedy rings true with a much wider audience that still resonates today.
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writer. Feeling trapped by the monotony of his everyday life Billy frequently disappears into a world of daydreams and lies. Inevitably, Billy's compulsive lies begin to catch up with him. 'Billy Liar' became an instant hit following its first publication in 1959 and has been adapted into a play, a musical, a TV series and even a film.
I found this a quick, warm and pleasant read filled with a subtle British humour which although it didn't actually make me laugh out loud, I did read it with a smile. Billy is an interesting character, a lively storyteller with an unmistakably northern humour but like all the best comedy, the book's tragedy rings true with a much wider audience that still resonates today.
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LibraryThing member ffortsa
After two pages, I said to Jim, "Oh, he's OCD". Not the guts of the story, but a complicating factor. It's England in the hinterlands, in 1959, and Billy, 19, is struggling in a job he detests, a social life he can't cope with, a depressed economy and a depressing family, but he can't seem to get
Very nicely written, with some terrific sentences and images:
the fat women rolling along on their bad feet like toy clowns in pudding basins
or Frowning women, their black, scratched handbags crammed with half-digested grievances..
or I was amazed and intrigued that they should all be content to be nobody but themselves.
In all, a vivid portrait of that part of England in that year between the war and the artistic explosion of the 60s, as well as that of a young man adrift.
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out. His every action and inaction lead to more complications, with his employer, with women, with family. Some of it is very funny (I'm sure it reads well on audio), but the cage is closing in on him and he knows it. How will he escape?Very nicely written, with some terrific sentences and images:
the fat women rolling along on their bad feet like toy clowns in pudding basins
or Frowning women, their black, scratched handbags crammed with half-digested grievances..
or I was amazed and intrigued that they should all be content to be nobody but themselves.
In all, a vivid portrait of that part of England in that year between the war and the artistic explosion of the 60s, as well as that of a young man adrift.
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Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1959