Customer Reviews

Honourable Schoolboy

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4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've just finished reading SCHOOLBOY for perhaps the fifth time & find myself enjoying it just as much as I did to begin with. Part of the pleasure of a good LeCarre is the remarkable depth of his characters -the feeling that one is dealing with real people with all their faults and strengths. Beyond this however is the feeling of authenticity that leCarre brings to his landscapes and to his times. Here we can feel that we are actually in London, and Hong Kong, and Cambodia during that strange Spring of 1975 when thirty years of war were finally drawing to their chaotic close. In Smiley LeCarre has created a truly remarkable figure -at once remote in his brilliance and yet at the same time so human in his flaws and failures. here is a man who will read Goethe in the original to his cheating wife, smoke out a Russian spy in China, salvage a failing Secret Service, and yet try & fail to keep to his diet. Jerry Westerby, The Honourable Schoolboy of the title is in many ways the Everyman of the piece, we side with him, root for him, fear for him, and at the end, well I won't give it away! This is a Thinking Person's spy novel that will do just fine as "aeroplane reading" or as a serious glance back at those awful 1970's...

John Le Carre's mistakes (e.g., "Naive and Sentimental Lover") are more interesting than most other writers' crowning achievements, but "Schoolboy" is as good an intrigue and adventure novel as one will ever find.

Le Carre is the bravest popular novelist around. He panders to no one's politics; he doesn't care how much work a reader might normally choose to invest in a book; and he adheres to no formulae. You either trust him utterly, and let him take you where he's going, or you read Grisham.

"Schoolboy" features a Le Carre regular character, George Smiley, and centers on a bit character from earlier work, Jerry Westerby. In a sense, the novel is a contrast between, on the one hand, the bluff, hearty, athletic, noble, and, well, superficially superficial Westerby; and on the other, the deepest and most complicated character in the genre, George Smiley. But there's so much more here: the contrast between Eastern and Western cultures; between England in its late-twentieth century posture and the then-seeming decline in influence of the U.S.; between the young Turks at the Circus and its old guard.

What unites it all is Le Carre's remarkable gift at storytelling, dialogue, and character development.

I read many authors in the intrigue, mystery, and crime fields. But they're all just faint echoes of Le Carre. If you want real gold, and not just cheap imitation, he's your man.

Like most of the best-selling works that come from the unchallenged master of the intelligent spy thriller John LeCarre, this is a fictional but absorbing treatise on the hidden and conflicted corners of the human heart, the many ways in which our own natures feed into and extend the darker impulse of a society bent on pursuing the secrets and treachery that ever lurks for the unsuspecting victim. Here, in the second of three best-selling novels tracing the pilgrim's progress of George Smiley, the intrepid and unlikely hero of the post-industrial Western world, LeCarre continues his marvelously convoluted narrative tracing the continuing history of the Smiley chronicles, a three volume spy novel treatise detailing the perfidy and treachery of the world of British intelligence.

In "The Honourable Schoolboy", the instrument of Smiley's revenge against the legendary Karla, the Chief of the Soviet espionage effort, is one Jerry Westerby, a man who comprises such an amalgam of honor, evil, and rage that he is perhaps one of the most complex and yet completely believable characters to pop from LeCarre's fertile mind. Westerby is the old hand in the Far East, Smiley's eyes and ears, and the man George has placed to push the first domino spinning toward the eventual collapse of all the others in the vast Soviet spy network. Smiley is spinning the network in the aftermath of the uncovering of a Soviet mole deep within the Circus, the code name within the trade for the center of British Intelligence. As he probes the various aspects of the British network to discover the loci of damage and infiltration, Smiley picks the point of entry as Hong Kong, and no one is better suited to Smiley's complex undertaking that Jerry, a complicated, immensely intelligent, and yet absolutely dangerous and committed cold warrior who can be counted on to go the extra mile for the team and for Britian and the Queen.

The plot is ingenious, intricate, and horrific in its human toll, played out against a landscape of the far-flung persons and places of the former British Empire. With Westerby, the `honourable school boy' of the title, we embark on a cautious yet beautifully choreographed adventure into the heart of darkness of ourselves, and we shouldn't be surprised to find some scar tissue and broken bones as we descend deeper into the tortuous caverns we keep hidden in our subconscious realms. LeCarre is nothing if not a superb chronicler of the ways in which our own natures become a battle ground for the struggle between good and evil, the good we can be for others, and the evil we do to them and ourselves by subscribing to ideologies, almost any ideology, that finally forces us to choose between our values and our duty. This is a marvelous book, an entertaining read, and a stunning example of the sophistication, complexity, and sheer intelligence of the author in detailing the subterranean world of international espionage. Enjoy!

The Honourable Schoolboy is the fifth Le Carre novel featuring the enigmatic George Smiley. After unmasking the mole in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Smiley is put in charge of the Circus, a position he should have had years ago based on merit. It appears that Smiley is one of many who were put out to pasture by Bill Haydon's nefarious activities over the previous years. Smiley, starting with his closest circle, must work backwards ruthlessly discarding people with questionable loyalty or little competence and finding others like himself who were purged by Haydon. In the process he finds Jerry Westerby living quietly in Italy. Westerby is resurrected and sent to Hong Kong to foil Smiley's arch-nemesis Karla. The result is an epic tour de force with Westerby's journeys throughout South East Asia presenting a fascinating counterpoint to Smiley's group working inside the Circus.

The Honourable Schoolboy contains a cast of fascinating characters. Smiley himself is the classic anti James Bond. He is middle-aged, plump and bespectacled. Unlike Bond he is not a ladies' man. In fact, his wife is serially unfaithful to him. In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy his wife's infidelities were used by Karla to undermine him. Smiley has sacrificed whatever he had of a marriage to remove his vulnerability. Westerby is a stark contrast to Smiley; tall, athletic and a womanizer. In contrast to Smiley he lets his own torn emotions affect the way he does his work. There are also large assortments of supporting characters who are naive or scheming. It also features two of the most vicious characters ever employed in novels; Fawn and Tiu. Le Carre rarely showing any of their direct handiwork accentuates their viciousness.

The novel has Le Carre's usual themes; betrayal, misdirected love and the use of an opponent's human vulnerability against him. The betrayals in The Honourable Schoolboy towards the end are perhaps the most multi-layered and intense of any Le Carre novel. If the reader wants a James Bond type ending with Bond having killed the enemy and gotten the girl, The Honourable Schoolboy should be skipped. Le Carre's novels are of "the no good deed goes unpunished school". However, he is extremely adept at revealing the story details much like peeling the layers of an onion. His characters whether good or evil, most being somewhere in between, are fascinating and believable. The insider's knowledge of espionage shines through as always. The Honourable Schoolboy also contrasts the East with the West. The fall of Cambodia and Vietnam are especially poignant backdrops to the story.

Perhaps it is difficult to understand in this day what the cold war environment was like. It's instructive to read a novel like The Honourable Schoolboy that was written a quarter of a century ago to understand. The novel contains a lot and probably requires several readings to thoroughly appreciate all the nuances. However, based on the first reading The Honourable Schoolboy is superb.

I read this novel for the second time recently and having the purpose and plot of the novel clear in my mind all the extra dimensions in the novel immediately revealed themselves. I previously saw Jerry Westerby as sympathetic but slightly pompous and contrastd with Smiley my opinion of him wasn't especially high (unlike other charactrs like Alec Leamas and Smiley himself) but then again contrasted with Smiley not many people really stand out. However, Le Carrè gets the balance right in this novel. The balance between writing his characters out so well yet keeping the plot going at a good pace.

Th Circus is a "sinking ship" wih Smiley as it captain. Like a father, Smiley has to pick up the pieces of his broken children and put them back together. Apart from the worry of rejuvenating the Circus, Smiley must also deal with his own past and with his own personal loves and hates including his unfaithful wife. As such Smiley by day spends his time purging the Circus of the evils with which it has been infected by the mole (who was unmasked in the previous novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and by night takes long walks in a bid to purge his own devils. These apart, Smiley must also battle the Whitehall barons and control a great operation in the Far East in order to capture two great Russian spies who are also brothers, an operation headed by Jerry Westerby.

And what a character Westerby is, I realised on my second reading. Le Carrè describes his loneliness and the purpose behind his vices so well yet in such short bursts, we feel we are in the shoes of Jerry. And despite knowing that some of his actions are wrong, we still will him to go on and feel that we would do the same were we in his place.

The backdrop is described better than any novel I have read about the region. Simply using this period and hopping around from war-torn city to war-torn city, Le Carrè encompasses al the futilities of war without once morally judging them and speaks about sacrifice which is a major theme. A newspaper (the name of which escapes me) described The Honourable Schoolboy as "simply on of the finest novels of the seventies" which is a fitting subtitle to the novel as it encompasses it and describes it all well.

Another issue which Le Carrè brings to the forefront painfully well is that of the moral ambiguities of life and of the spy profession. At the end of the novel, just before the prologue chapter, all of hiscomes into contex in the last few sentences of the chapter. Westerby, Ko, Lizzie, Smiley, Luke all come into context as we imagine the scene moving in almost slow motion.

It is very hard to decide but I feel that of all the Le Carrè novels I have read, this is probably my favourite. If you read it, you would know why.

"The Honourable Schoolboy" is the middle book in British spymeister John LeCarre's great Smiley-Karla trilogy. As such, it suffers one of the great problems of middle children everywhere; it's frequently ignored, compared to its two famous, highly-lauded, successfully made into British Broadcasting Company television series bookends, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," and "Smiley's People." The supposed explanation of this oversight: this book's setting, Hong Kong, is too expensive a place to film.

To begin with the book at hand, Jerry Westerby, spy-journalist whom we've met before, is the 'honourable schoolboy' of this title. It also brings back some of our favorite characters in LeCarre's fictional British spy organization, known as "the circus." Smiley, of course, Peter Guillam, Sam Collins, Oliver Lacon, Saul Enderby, Tobey Esterhase, Connie Sachs, and "Doc" Di Salis. Also Tufty Thesiger, who ran the spy shop in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, as it was then. Through no fault of his own, he's been blown by Bill Haydon, the mole, or Russia's spy inside the London organization, whom Smiley exposed in "Tinker." Therefore, Thesiger must leave the colony, and the Brits close up shop there. But Smiley soon gets a sniff of something interesting happening in H.K., and sends Westerby, an Asian specialist, out.

So far, so good, and, as ever, LeCarre's spycraft and wit can't be faulted. He has, once again, given Westerby a father resembling his own, one of his trickster fathers: made a great success in the newspaper business, and then lost every penny: as ever, this material resonates. And the author has certainly come up with one of his complex and gripping plots.

However, some pretty high-brow critics have noticed that as LeCarre wrote more, he got more talky, and the speech of his characters got more mannered. This book, at 532 pages, is certainly a good illustration of that. Rather than opening with one of the author's great setpieces, as so many of his books do, it opens with a discussion of people talking about talking, that is, "there was argument about where the Dolphin case history should really begin," and who was entitled to tell it, and how. Later, LeCarre mentions the 'Belgravia Cockney,'or upper-class imitation of lower class speech, in which it pleases his high-born characters to talk. He further mentions that, "in the old days, when the circus had a natural noncommissioned class, Jerry would have counted on some amiable small talk. No longer." LeCarre's a bit of a snob, you see, and he hates to see his kind of people lose control of the organization's chat. Be that as it may, chat everybody does, and not until literally half-way through this long book, with "Part III, Shaking the Tree,"does the talking actually stop and the action start. It's riveting from there on in, heading straight to another of the author's engrossing setpiece closings, but not everyone will read 260 pages before getting to the action.

Something else that probably impacts the book's popularity is, it's a downer. The secret services of Britain and the United States are shown to be populated almost entirely by self-interested careerists. The book's quite nihilistic, in fact: the bad guys win. Smiley, whom the author quotes as having once said the choices in intelligence work come down to "to be inhuman in defence of our humanity," or "harsh in our defence of compassion," allows himself to become so wrapped up in the Dolphin case that he fails to notice the murky bureaucratic infighting around him. He will pay dearly for his distraction.

Near the end of this book,the most important Chinese characters tells Westerby, the honourable schoolboy, " A political settlement, Mr. Westerby? With your people? I made many political settlements with them. They told me God loved children. Did you ever notice God love an Asian child, Mr. Westerby? They told me God was a 'kwailo,' (a westerner) and his mother had yellow hair. They told me God was a peaceful man, but I read once that there had never been so many civil wars as in the kingdom of Christ." This angry speech is one no lesser writer could pull off, and evidently reflects a lot of its author's own feelings. It foreshadows his post-cold war works, in which he will show himself to have a great concern for 'the brown babies,' as Ingrid Bergman's character so memorably put it in the movie of Agatha Christie's "Orient Express." Never mind, John LeCarre may sometimes take too long to say it, but at least the man's got a lot on his mind.

It might help readers if I own up to something right at the beginning: I consider John Le Carre (the pseudonym for David Cornwell) one of the finest writers of our generation. I love this book and come back to it time and time again.

The enduring qualities do not lie simply in the complex and superbly interwoven plots, the vivid senses of place and location, or the carefully crafted excellence of Le Carre's writing. In addition to these there is the opportunity to engage with very real characters and to accompany them through their difficulties and concerns.

To say that John Le Carre writes "spy books" is possible only if you have never read him. He uses espionage as an effective backdrop for developing his characters and exposing the paradoxes and conflicts in their lives. He does this masterfully. Yet, "The Honourable Schoolboy" is not JUST a psychological study, it is also a wonderful and expansive yarn - a tale told by one of the most accomplished storytellers ever. The action is fast-paced, the locations are beautifully detailed and - as in spying - what you see is not inevitably what you get: there are always twists and turns.

You cannot read Le Carre without being conscious of the complexity and multi-layered aspects of his writing, his stories, and his characters. "The Honourable Schoolboy" is no exception; it is mature and brilliantly written Le Carre. If you have read Le Carre you will appreciate this book, it is arguably one of his finest. If you have not yet been introduced to the author this is an excellent work to begin with. It is a book that I hope you will read and enjoy. It may also be one of those books that you will come to revisit time and time again and find on each reading something new and magical that just did not seem to be there last time. That certainly has been my experience.


David S-G

Having been a long time fan of John Le Carre's books, I looked forward to enjoying another leisurely voyage into the hearts and minds of his fascinating characters.

The Honourable Schoolboy lived up to my expectations, yet in some ways it disappointed me. The plot is complex enough to keep the reader thoroughly engaged, yet not get lost in Byzantine characterizations.

The Setting-Great Britain: George Smiley, fresh off the discovery of a "mole" inside the hallowed halls of the British Intelligence Service-affectionately dubbed "The Circus" has been tasked with repairing the damage and restoring the tarnished reputation of the service he so loves. In addition, he must find a way to restore relations with their American counterparts known as the "Cousins".

Operating with a limited budget and a skeleton staff, George, between making certain no remaining saboteurs are still operating, is desperately seeking a goldmine to kick start the process of rehabbing his agency. Calling his most reliable people out of "mothballs", he tasks them with following certain leads.

Hong Kong: A lazy Sunday, and a group of journalists are sitting idly, waiting for something-anything, to happen. The startling news that High Haven, the British Intelligence house is empty, all gone- no goodbyes-nothing, sets off an unexpected chain of events, creating a rollicking good tale. Only one of those present will discover a truth that leads to the biggest find in terms of intelligence in a very long time. And the chase is on.

Italy: Jerry Westerby, the impoverished son of an aristocrat and a British intelligence agent, is working fruitlessly on his novel, and chafing under the idleness of forced exile. Yet when a telegram arrives summoning him "home", he has mixed feelings about what this might mean.

The characters in The Honourable Schoolboy are rich and fully realized for the most part. Jerry Westerby-The Honourable Schoolboy, is basically a noble man with very human failings. As an agent, he possesses superb talent and an innate sense of what matters. Even though he must do distasteful things in order to complete his missions, Jerry never loses his sense of humanity. He is George Smiley, fully realized.

Peter Guillam as George Smiley's cupbearer, is a very flawed human being. What matters to Peter is purely political and involves protecting Smiley and himself from disgrace.

Old Craw- an old Hong Kong hand, journalist and agent for the Circus is one of the best in the book. In his speech he gives to young trainees at the school for agents, he demonstrates a clear understanding of how a real field agent handles his assets.

George Smiley. Here is one of the areas that fell down in my opinion. George come across as souless, humorless and very one dimensional. His character is almost robotic, unlike prior novels that featured him. To George anything and everyone is expendable in his quest for the truth. He comes across as a zealot without scruples.

Unlike the other characters I've mentioned, the American "Cousins" are depicted in hard flat emotionless planes. Since even the villains of this work have humane sides, I feel Le Carre allowed his personal dislikes to color his depictions here.

The Honourable Schoolboy is a thoroughly enjoyable read, encompassing much of Asia: Hong Kong, China, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. It is a cynical commentary on how our intelligence agencies operated in a pre-9-11 theater, and a sad commentary on how we treat each other.

Le Carre wrote lots of spy novels, but look no further: this one is his masterpiece. The horrors of Cold War espionage - deception, blackmail, torture and murder - are all here, along with one of the most unlikely love stories anywhere. The reader is slowly and relentlessly drawn in as loyalties are gradually stretched beyond the breaking point.

At the center of it all: Jerry Westerby - the unforgettable war correspondent/spy whose choices lead the reader to a place where we don't know who to root for anymore.

Le Carre's descriptions of Hong Kong, Tuscany, London and Vientiane offer an evocative portrait of the mid-1970's, but it's the moral ambiguities of his shadow warriors and the choices they face - those are what keep you turning the pages.

Highest recommendation. A deeply satisfying, entertaining and thought-provoking novel.

This is the second volume in the Smiley trilogy, and it's rather darker than the first. The Hon. Gerald Westerby, journalist and overseas correspondent ("hack for a comic," as he calls himself) was a very minor character in the first book, but this one is very much his story, set in Vientiane and Bangkok and London, but mostly in Hong Kong. George Smiley, having rid the Circus of its mole, is determined to make the Service great again, and he proposes to do it by identifying whatever Bill Haydon had tried hardest to conceal. Drake Ko, Chinese tycoon, becomes the focus of George's efforts, and Jerry Westerby is resurrected and sent out East as the key field agent in the operation. The plot is a masterpiece of Le-Carréan complexity. The characters are clearly drawn and their motivations are carefully worked out. And the suspense of the final couple of chapters will keep you up late to finish it -- even though the ending is rather sad. I'm going straight on to the third volume.