Book Structure
This book takes the reader from the protagonist’s public school days to his life as an adult: Adrian Healey is "the liar" spoken of in the title. The early chapters are not in strict chronological order, but are interlaced stories from three periods of the protagonist's life, namely, as a public school pupil, as a Cambridge student and as a "spy".
The espionage period differs from the other two in that initially it is written in italics and precedes chapters 1 to 8, but not 9 to 14. The sections in italics stop when the university narrative becomes the espionage narrative, upon Adrian's graduation. The characters are referred to by their clothes as the narrator appears objective (i.e. a spectator), but is actually omniscient, e.g. David Pearce's annoyance at Dickon Lister's ignorance of the story of Helen of Troy — starting with chapter 4, in keeping with spy games, the characters refer to each other by code names (a "tradecraft" as Adrian later calls it), in this case, the names are from the Trojan War.
Read more about this topic: The Liar (novel)
Famous quotes containing the words book and/or structure:
“In the learned journal, in the influential newspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener some monied corporation, or some dangler, who hopes, in the mask and robes of his paragraph, to pass for somebody. But through every clause and part of speech of the right book I meet the eyes of the most determined men; his force and terror inundate every word: the commas and dashes are alive; so that the writing is athletic and nimble,—can go far and live long.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. With Shakespeare it is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)