Billy Liar (Penguin Decades)

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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.

Billy Liar (Penguin Essentials) by Keith Waterhouse | Goodreads Billy Liar (Penguin Essentials) by Keith Waterhouse | Goodreads

This marvellous little novel covers a momentous Saturday in the life of nineteen-year-old Billy Fisher in a small town in Yorkshire. It’s 1959, and Billy’s lower-middleclass family wallows in the unchallenging comforts and conformity of dull, mediocre Stradhoughton. Everything is routine and predictable, which to the intelligent and creative Billy is unbearable, and he constantly retreats from the tedium into his inner fantasy world – Ambrosia – where he is a hero in the tradition of Thurber’s Walter Mitty. In 2007, Empire praised Tom Courtenay for the main role stating: "Skulking between temerity and timidity, callousness and innocence, Tom Courtenay dominates the picture, whether defrauding his employers or duping his trio of girlfriends. But the most memorable moment remains the sight of Julie Christie on the train to London, watching Courtenay shrugging on the platform and settling for the mediocrity he despises and probably deserves." [8] He manages to sabotage his engagement to Barbara (aka "The Witch") by borrowing her engagement ring, supposedly to take it to the jeweller's "to be adjusted", and giving it to his other girlfriend Rita! Oh, and then there's Liz as well...This distinguishes Billy Liar from another contemporary coming-of-age novel, The Catcher in the Rye. The latter is a frame story in which Holden Caulfield starts the novel in an institution (jail? Mental health facility?) from which he’s due to be discharged, and he reflects on events since the previous Christmas. But while Billy and Holden are each confronted with their failures and choose to flee, their outcomes and trajectories are very different. One suggests growth and maturation, the other suggests recidivism. As you can see there is a rather large and influential history behind this book and having finally gotten around to reading it I can see why. Despite taking place over just the one day this is still a coming of age tale, it brings us in to Billy's life as he becomes aware that he has to make changes and the events that transpire in that day are enough to help him work some things out in his mind, if not necessarily making those changes. I've seen comparisons to The Catcher in the Rye and I would definitely agree with those only Waterhouse gives us a wonderful almost python-esque comedy at the same time making for a much more enjoyable and accessible read. 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. Billy aspires to get a more interesting job as a scriptwriter for comic Danny Boon ( Leslie Randall), but when Boon comes to town, he is not interested in Billy's overtures. However, Billy tells everyone that Boon is very interested in his stories and that he will be moving to London very soon. Whenever Billy experiences something unpleasant, such as his parents scolding him or his boss harassing him, he imagines himself to be somewhere else. His fantasies generally involve himself as a hero with everyone very pleased with him. However, Billy shows himself to be happier fantasizing about being a great success than actually taking a risk to make something of himself. But Billy doesn’t change: he remains destructively irresponsible, with a childlike immaturity that seems incapable of recognising the inescapable consequences of his actions. In the real world, liars get caught out; thieves get caught; two-timers get dumped. Far from growth, all we see is moral and psychological stagnation. He’s a disaster waiting to happen: he’ll end up in jail or in a psych ward.

Billy Liar: Waterhouse, Keith, Bentley, Nick: 9781939140302

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. 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. Billy nearly emerges into the real, adult world when he’s on the moors with Liz, but he can’t seem to take the next step from “OMG, she really understands me” to “I’m in trouble Liz: all my lies are catching up with me; I’m doomed.” Perhaps his retreat from that step is simply psychological self-preservation, since the reality of his situation could easily lead to despair and depression (for which those with NPD are at higher risk). We shouldn't forget that young males 18-25 have the highest suicide rate in many Western countries.

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The music video for the song " The Importance of Being Idle" by Oasis contains scenes based on scenes from Billy Liar, although most of it is based on the video for the Kinks' Dead End Street. Billy is "just about thraiped wi' Stradhoughton" He tells everyone that he is off to London. But when he tries to resign from his job as an undertaker's clerk - a job he is dying to leave of course, there is a complication: the small matter of some calendars he was supposed to post nine months earlier. Like a lazy postmen hiding mail in his shed because he can't be bothered to do his rounds, Billy has stashed them all under his bed and embezzled the postage money. His hopeless attempts at getting rid of the calendars - by trying to flush them down the loo at work, for example - are comical. 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.”

Keith Waterhouse - Wikipedia Keith Waterhouse - Wikipedia

His career began at the Yorkshire Evening Post and he also wrote regularly for Punch, the Daily Mirror, and latterly for the Daily Mail. He initially joined the Mirror as a reporter in 1952, before he became a playwright and novelist; during his initial stint, he campaigned against the colour bar in post-war Britain, [2] the abuses committed in the name of the British Empire in Kenya [3] and the British government's selling of weapons to various Middle Eastern countries. [4] Subsequently, he returned as a columnist, initially in the Mirror Magazine, moving to the main newspaper on 22 June 1970, [5] on Mondays, and extending to Thursdays from 16 July 1970. Extracts from the columns were published in the books Mondays, Thursdays and Rhubarb, Rhubarb and Other Noises. A funny and poignant look at a young dreamer in a provincial Yorkshire town at the beginning of the huge social upheaval that was the 1960s. 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. Some have described Billy Liar as a coming-of-age novel. This is true in the sense that Billy certainly falls within the age group transitioning from teenage innocence to adult responsibility. However, it’s no Bildungsroman , which Wikipedia defines as “a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is important.”Billy Liar is a 1959 novel by Keith Waterhouse [1] that was later adapted into a play, a film, a musical and a TV series. The work has inspired and been featured in a number of popular songs. 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. 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 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 is the story of an undertaker’s clerk, Billy Fisher, who longs to escape his monotonous existence for the bright lights of London to become a scriptwriter. But his life is one long round of tightly knotted, but steadily fraying lies. Ever the dreamer, Billy weaves an ever-growing web of deceit as his outrageous fantasies spiral out of control. The film was shot on location in Yorkshire between October and December, 1962.