Billy Liar (Penguin Decades)

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As Billy's web of falsehoods begins to unravel, and more lies are required to fill the gaping holes in his chronicle, the more hilarious the novel becomes. A long Saturday in the life of 19 year old Billy who skates perpetually on thin ice and today looks like finally he will fall right through. He lives in Stradhaughton in Yorkshire and the year is 1959. It’s a small town. He’s such an aggravating, annoying fool. His boss at the undertakers (a comedy job) asks him to post 200 Christmas calendars out, but he doesn’t do it so he still has them stashed under his bed months later. His boss also asks him to post out some invoices, but he doesn’t do it so he still has them stashed under his bed months later. His mother asks him…. Now this guy is not quadriplegic so I did not see what the problem was – why not just post them? This is not explained, he’s just an idiot. Also, he’s stringing two girls along and each thinks he’s engaged to them, leading to some why is she wearing my ring comedy. Also, he floats around town in daydreams about some imaginary kingdom where Billy is the king, this was very tiresome. Also, he brags to all and sundry that he’s landed a top job in London as a scriptwriter for a top comedian. All in all, if a 29 bus flattened young Billy as he was crossing Ironmonger Street you would not be all that sorry. Find sources: "Keith Waterhouse"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( September 2009) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)

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Keith Spencer Waterhouse CBE (6 February 1929 – 4 September 2009 [1]) was a British novelist and newspaper columnist and the writer of many television series.We owe a debt of gratitude to the publisher Valancourt, whose aim is to resurrect some neglected works of literature, especially those incorporating a supernatural strand, and make them available to a newreadership." Keith Waterhouse was born in Hunslet, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He performed two years of national service in the Royal Air Force. Billy also finds himself attracted to his former girlfriend Liz ( Julie Christie), who has just returned to town from Doncaster. Liz is a free spirit who, unlike anyone else in town, understands and accepts Billy's imagination. However, she has more courage and confidence than Billy, as shown by her willingness to leave her home town and enjoy new and different experiences. Under pressure, Billy ends up making dates with both Barbara and Rita to meet each one on the same night at the same local ballroom. There, the two girls discover the double engagement and begin fighting with each other. All of Billy's lies seem to catch up with him as it's announced publicly that he is moving to London to work with Danny Boon, and Billy's friend scolds him for lying to his mother. Everyone loves Billy Liar, that classic 60s British picture directed by John Schlesinger, starring Tom Courtenay as Billy himself – the bright, cheeky lad, daft as a brush, lost in his own Walter Mitty fantasies.

Billy Liar: Books - AbeBooks Billy Liar: Books - AbeBooks

Waterhouse was of the mimetic school of writers, managing to capture the unique patter of his Yorkshire dialect and local turn of phrase without becoming exclusive or alienating those of us who aren't local or even reading 53 years after publication. It is this quality that stands Billy Liar head and shoulders above others of the time, it hasn't dated because at its heart there are no politics, young men still struggle with their identity and purpose in life and suffer from being misunderstood by those closest to them. The film also starred Julie Christie making her first major film role. Julie only took the role, of Liz, after the first choice, Topsy Jane, had to drop out because of illness. All the scenes she had appeared in had to be re-done. An interesting feature of this film is that it was made when they were shooting the original version: it is Topsy Jane and not Julie Christie who is with Tom Courtenay at the top of Leeds Town Hall steps – an early scene in the film. Playing entirely different kinds of characters, Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie also appeared together two years later in Dr Zhivago. A British sitcom in 1973 and most improbably an American TV show starring Steve Guttenberg(!) as Billy followed, achieving nothing more than to help Keith Waterhouse accumulate wealth I'm sure.In 2004, Total Film named Billy Liar the 12th in its list of the greatest British Films of all time.

Billy Liar (film) - Wikipedia Billy Liar (film) - Wikipedia

For example, anticipating some tragic news, Billy’s internal monologue is “I prayed: please, God, let me feel something.” But when the news is delivered, he continues internally, “I examined what I was feeling and it was nothing, nothing.” I thought I was the only one who did this. The interior secondary monologue for my own amusement, since when I manage to say out loud what I think is great fun and such an amazing observation--it turns out I am as alone as the little prince on his lonely planet.A brilliant novel, in language fresh and sweet, with characters vivid and singular in an inventive and dynamic story. It teems, it bursts with originality.’ - Saturday Review

Billy Liar - Penguin Books UK

Grouped with the Angry Young Men of British letters, who came to prominence in the late 50s and early 60s, Waterhouse's most famous creation is less angry with the status quo of post-war Britain than Arthur Seaton and Jimmy Porter, instead finding an escape from his frustrations by living in a dream world half of the time. Billy Liar is a short book. Joyce’s Ulysses is longer. But they both inhabit similar territory in that they follow a principal character through one day’s eventless events. Viewed in this light, Billy Liar becomes potentially much more than a comic romp through northern English quaintness. In 1999, the British Film Institute named Billy Liar number 76 in its list of the top 100 British films. Find sources: "Billy Liar"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( May 2013) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

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I wished I’d written Keith Waterhouse’s first novel; and now, even more, I wish I’d written his second . . . Billy Liar is very funny: funny in a wild and sardonic and high-spirited way without malice or cruelty.’ - John Braine, author of Room at the Top A Yorkshire "Catcher in the Rye", only funny. Billy Fisher is a 19-year-old boy trapped in a small town in Yorkshire, desparate to escape to London. His life is divided between fantasy and anxiety (about his family, about his love life (including his multiple fiancées) and about his job (and whether or not his employers will find out about certain... misdemeanors...)), the latter largely self-inflicted as a result of his tendency to lie continuously and blatently. Billy feels as though he is drowning in the inauthentic cliché and rote behaviour that surrounds him, but struggles to find any response to it all beyond sterile absurdism. Some people may feel that "Billy Liar" is nothing but a comic diversion. How could a novel about a rather bumbling and ineffectual dreamer with a tendency to twist the truth be a mirror reflecting the issues and concerns of an entire generation? In my opinion, that is exactly what Keith Waterhouse managed to do here.