Apparently, many people read John Le Carré’s spy novels for a glimpse at what the world of international espionage is really like; in other words, they read them like a kind of journalism about the shady world of Intelligence Services. And there certainly is something to it – we’ve grown used to a more realistic perspective on secret services, but we can still imagine what it must have been like to read a novel like The Spy Who Came In from the Cold for someone whose idea of spy thrillers were Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Le Carré profoundly debunked the myths about the spy trade, showing it to be a world not of elegant womanizers lounging in luxurious surroundings, but of middle-aged men holding bureaucratic meetings in dull offices, not of noble deeds and lofty aims but of petty infighting and political maneuvering. The novels of Le Carré were filled with detailed descriptions and precise observations, and had authenticity written all over them and thoroughly destroyed any conception of glamour clinging to the spy profession – today, nobody would consider a James Bond novel anything but fantasy.The Honourable Schoolboy lends itself with particular ease to such a journalistic reading due to the place and time it is set in: a very large part of the novel takes place in Hong Kong and South-East Asia during the retreat of the United States from Vietnam and a lot of room is given to highly atmospheric descriptions of the situation, of the feelings of uncertainty, unrest and frustration pervading the area during that period – making this by far the longest book of Le Carré’s so far. Even though Le Carré’s account is fictional, he appears to have done an impressive amount of research for it, and I doubt any journalistic, presumably non-fictional report could do a better job at painting a picture that is both authentic and immersive.Therefore, one might consider The Honourable Schoolboy worth reading on those merits alone. But Le Carré’s ambition for this and his other novels does not extend to merely being reportage, this novel, like his previous ones, aims for something more, and I think that it is this which makes them stand out. And this is not just true for the novels’ content but for their form, too – quite often, the apparently realistic exterior of Le Carré’s spy novels conceals inner mechanisms that do not run by the same rules governing realistic narratives but are structurally quite experimental. The Honourable Schoolboy is another example of this – its main thematic concern is with truth and its uses, and the novel’s forms reflects this, even if it is by adding its own distortions in the process.Towards the end of the novel, one of the characters quotes from a poem by John Donne:On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will Reach her, about must and about must go, And what the hill’s suddenness resists, win so.This, even if it comes late in the novel, after its plot and its protagonists have taken many turns about and about, constitutes something like the motto for The Honourable Schoolboy. Indeed the whole novel could be taken as a variation on the poem those lines comes from, Donne’s Satire III, to the point where it feels that one might place both works next to each other and draw in the correspondences. Correspondence is part of the novel’s theme, too, as it is set not just in Asia but has London as a major setting too, and the events in both spheres, while never shown to result from each other immediately, do influence each other in oblique ways that had me think more than once of the Renaissance alchemy concept of correspondence, where things not directly connected still work upon each other by way of mystic similarities. Except, of course, that there is nothing mystical at place here, but the driving forces are mostly political in nature – but not really any less obscure for that.There is a recurring image in the novel of truth as a small circle or kernel, surrounded by layers upon layers of untruth that grow steadily larger, up to the outer ring which is a vast area of rumour and obfuscation. The novel in fact starts with out rumours, and continues to refer to them, in the plot and by way of its anonymous narrator who tries to pierce through the mist of lies and half-truths surrounding “Operation Dolphin” to arrive at its kernel of truth. And both Jerry Westerby and George Smiley, the novel’s main protagonists, are surrounded by rumours, putting the reader in a very similar position of having to cross through obfuscation to arrive at the truth. A truth that becomes ever more elusive the further the novel proceeds, and it eventually becomes clear that for all its descriptive vividness and journalistic authenticity, the novel lets us see its kernel of truth only through a thick haze of distraction and misinformation. In fact, its undoubtedly brilliant journalistic element might constitute precisely that haze – one can hardly consider it accidental that so much of the novel takes place among journalist and that one of its main protagonists is a journalist who has no scruples to manipulate the truth when it serves his purposes and who in turn is manipulated by his employers in London. By the end of The Honourable Schoolboy it is by no means that there every was any kernel of truth at all, and if there was, it might be impossible to find – but not for epistemological reasons but because it has been so distorted and hidden under layers and layers of obfuscation by political power plays that it is simply gone, and the wanderer, when he takes that last turn that last turn that will take him up to the summit of that hill, finds himself on top of a sheer cliff, stepping off into the air.
This is one of the greatest spy novels I've ever read. It's a powerful, ambitious, satisfying sequel to the very great Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The plot concerns the Circus (British espionage unit) tracking down a Soviet operation in the far East. Smiley rebuilds the shattered agency and hurls it into the fray. Without spoilers I can assert that The Honourable Schoolboy takes place largely in south and southeast Asia, with long stretches back in London, and an ultimate focus on Hong Kong. Every locale is sharply drawn.The Asian plot plunges into major stories of former Indochina, namely the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge and the conquest of Saigon by the North Vietnamese. Those chapters would have been a standalone novel for any other writer; le Carre works them into the depths of this single book beautifully, integrating tones, themes, and action.One affecting scene has the book's lead agent, Jerry Westerby (the title is his code name), confronting an American spy right after the fall of Saigon. The somewhat terrifying, utterly depressed American demands that the Brit shake his hand:"I want you to extend to me the hand of welcome, sir. The United States of America has just applied to join the club of second-class powers, of which I understand your own fine nation to be chairman, president, and oldest member. Shake it!" (436)Without spoiling, I can view the plot as a detailed description of a single intelligence operation, from start to finish. Or as an epic of moral compromises and attempted redemptions (note the plural). Or a thick slice of a thin moment in Cold War history. The details are extraordinary, from the micropolitics of inter-governmental lobbying to the intricacies of a city quarter to many minor characters.Honourable is gorgeously written, with passages that range from lyrical to brooding, snarling to contemplative. I've been noting and reading aloud bits from throughout the novel:The tiny ponds outside the high-rise hotels prickled with slow, subversive rain. (5)Nobody learned anything, nothing changed, the offal was cleaned away in the morning. (331)First, Smiley reviewed the wreck, and that took some while, in the way that sacking a city takes some while, or liquidating great numbers of people. (54)[L]ittle ships, as Craw knew very well, cannot change course as easily as the winds that drive them. (192)[Smiley]These people terrify me, but I am one of them. If they stab me in the back, then at least that is the judgment of my peers. (533)Talking of others, old men talk about themselves, studying their image in varnished mirrors. (236)While the Americans are adding another five metres of concrete to the Embassy roof, and the soldiers are crouching in capes under their trees, and the journalists are drinking whisky, and the generals are at the opium houses, the Khmer Rouge will come out of the jungle and cut our throats. (346)[Smiley again] To be inhuman in defense of our humanity, he had said, harsh in defense of compassion. To be single-minded in defense of our disparity. (460)On Britain's elite:[Jerry Westerby] had never seriously doubted, in his vague way, that his country was in a state of irreversible decline, or that his own class was to blame for the mess. (449)On getting into something incredibly dangerous:Sometimes you did it to save face, thought Jerry, other times you just do it because you haven't done your job unless you've scared yourself to death. Other times again, you go in order to remind yourself that survival is a fluke. But mostly you go because the others go - for machismo - and because in order to belong you must share. (341)Reading matters a great deal, as is usually the case (every medium calls out to itself). Westerby chooses Conrad over Voltaire, just before heading into the fall of republican Cambodia.(328) He's a failed novelist, but very skilled in espionage, arguably as a kind of sublimation. An American spy compares one account to espionage fiction, to "something out of Phillips Oppenheim" (171)When I finished the book I reread the last two pages several times, teasing out implications, savoring phrases, and letting the mixture of triumph and melancholy wash over me. Then I started to read the whole book from the first chapter, and only now have forced myself to stop in order to write this review. Enough.I really, really want to read Smiley's People, the next book in this sequence, but am going to let some time pass in order to give The Honourable Schoolboy richly deserved space to breath in my memory and imagination.
What do You think about The Honourable Schoolboy (2002)?
I read this along with the other two volumes of the Smiley trilogy when they were first published. I found I couldn't remember this one, or imaging why it hadn't also been made into a movie. Now I know. One tip-off was how hard it was to find. I eventually got a large-print copy out of the public library. I needed the large print, because this is a slog. There are a lot of pages of arch language which gets old very fast, many more pages of sneaking up on an unintelligibly complicated scheme which ought to have been lucidly explained in two. Le Carre's distinctive spy jargon is not simply embedded in the text and allowed to explain itself, but pedantically explicated. Under the slog there is a decent story, with some poignant moments and characters major and minor worthy of sympathy. Smiley, however, is not at his best. He is podgier and pontificates far more than in necessary to position him as an unlikely spymaster and hero. Worth reading, but below the other two in the trilogy, which are masterpieces.
—Charles
With this book, LeCarre bring Smiley and the British spies he calls the Circus into the Vietnam era. So, what difference does a decade make? Mostly, I think, that Smiley is not the only one who's feeling anguished about the things they have to do for a cause that seems more and more sordid. It's a post-Watergate novel, and even though the Americans in the book are still mainly cowboys, the cynicism that Nixon's fall brought about in the U.S. has infected more and more of the Brits. The plot is set almost entirely in Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong), and we get a lot of detail about local scenery and customs. Perhaps too much. The book could probably have been fifty pages shorter without losing anything significant. Jerry Westerby, the title character and the man in the field, is basically a spy who came in from the cold (only he's a journalist who does occasional work for the intelligence services, but that's a distinction without a difference). The book also contains lots of references to the Russian master-spy Karla, but he doesn't make an appearance. All in all, worth reading, but if you haven't read Tinker, Tailor, read that before picking up The Honourable Schoolboy.
—Dennis Fischman
It's a long while since I read 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' and so approached this book with something resembling trepidtaion, in case I was required to remember huge amounts of knowledge from the earlier book. Fortunately Le Carre is a strong enough writer to allow even the neophyte reader admittance. However, and I don't think my memory is playing tricks on me here, this volume is nowhere near as strong as its predecessor.The plot concerns Smiley setting up plans to catch an Asian spy from London, while occasional spy Jerry Westerby - the honourable schoolboy of the title - is his man on the ground in Hong Kong and the surround. As usual, the Smiley parts are excellent. His sections crackle with excitement even when they are confined to meeting rooms. The book's problem is that it's far more focused on Westerby, and Westerby is a character who never really becomes clear to the reader - with the result that you don't understand why he does the things he does. This is a shame as some of the descriptions of South East Asia would match anything in Graham Greene, so there is some excellent writing in those parts. But when you can't understand the motivations of one of the major characters in a thriller, then the thriller is obviously in trouble.The book is worth taking the time to read - no horrible disappointment lies withing - but it cannot be said that it stands shoulder to shoulder with Tinker Tailor...
—F.R.
