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The Honourable Schoolboy

(George Smiley #6)

John le Carré

3.95 · Rating details · 17,860 ratings · 984 reviews

Featuring George Smiley, The Honourable Schoolboy is the second installment in the renowned Karla Trilogy, the follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which was the inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, and Tom Hardy.

As the fall of Saigon looms, master spy George Smiley must outmaneuver his Soviet coun ...more

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Kindle Edition, 611 pages

Published June 7th 2011 by Penguin Books (first published September 1977)

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May 01, 2019 Candi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: espionage, favorites, mystery-crime, thriller, chunksters

"What a man thinks is his own business. What matters is what he does."

This quote seems fairly elementary in substance, and I can’t help thinking how much this seems to reflect the basic expectation of the intelligence agents in this novel. A man or woman is given a set of orders, and those orders should be followed through with no exception. Associations with other human beings and emotions should not come into the equation. They do not belong in the world of espionage. Stopping to question cert "What a man thinks is his own business. What matters is what he does."

This quote seems fairly elementary in substance, and I can’t help thinking how much this seems to reflect the basic expectation of the intelligence agents in this novel. A man or woman is given a set of orders, and those orders should be followed through with no exception. Associations with other human beings and emotions should not come into the equation. They do not belong in the world of espionage. Stopping to question certain morals is a major blunder. A bit of a fairy tale, I think, because when you insert a human being into the lives of others, not everything is black and white. That gray area in between can be quite confounding and rather perilous at times.

The Honourable Schoolboy is the second book in John le Carré’s Karla trilogy. After rooting out a Russian mole in the British intelligence agency, George Smiley is trying to pull his team back together and pick up the pieces of a broken service. A picture of Karla, his archenemy in the Russian service, hangs in his office serving as a constant reminder of his greatest objective – to remove this plague from not just the world at large, but from his own tormented mind.

"Smiley perceived in himself the existence of a darker motive, infinitely more obscure, one which his rational mind continued to reject. He called it Karla, and it was true that somewhere in him, like a left-over legend, there burned the embers of hatred toward the man who had set out to destroy the temples of his private faith, whatever remained of them: the service that he loved, his friends, his country, his concept of a reasonable balance in human affairs."

While I thought Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was my favorite le Carré thus far, I’d have to say this one exceeded even that! Admittedly, starting out, I struggled just a tad, but more as a result of my own decreased attention span given some external distractions. These books demand your full concentration. You don’t want to miss a beat! Eventually it was a full sprint to the end and I couldn’t read fast enough. Here we are taken into Southeast Asia in the early 1970s. Jerry Westerby, newshound and sometime-British secret agent, is plopped down right in the midst of a hornet’s nest. Danger lurks in every corner. The energy and glamour of Hong Kong and the turmoil-ridden landscapes of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are remarkably depicted. The threat of Red China to the interests of the rest of the continent is a major force to be reckoned with. The settings alone were enough to hold me captive; then throw in the rapid pace and exceptional characterizations and I was completely ensnared. What I particularly appreciate in this series of ‘spy’ novels (they are so much more than just that) is that we get to spend time in the gray area I mentioned above. Exploring the psyches of these characters is a major part of the attraction for me. I loved it!

"A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world." ...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Warwick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, espionage, china, folio-society, laos, cambodia, hong-kong

Popular opinion has it that this is the weakest of the three Karla novels. I thought it was a masterpiece, and a more ambitious novel than Tinker, Tailor.

It is very different from the last book: suddenly there is this unexpectedly huge scope of Southeast Asia to go alongside the muted meetings in grey London office rooms. I can well understand how some readers might have felt it was two books jammed together, but for me the contrast worked perfectly and I was riveted by how brilliantly Le Carré Popular opinion has it that this is the weakest of the three Karla novels. I thought it was a masterpiece, and a more ambitious novel than Tinker, Tailor.

It is very different from the last book: suddenly there is this unexpectedly huge scope of Southeast Asia to go alongside the muted meetings in grey London office rooms. I can well understand how some readers might have felt it was two books jammed together, but for me the contrast worked perfectly and I was riveted by how brilliantly Le Carré unfurls the story. The writing here is simply incredible. I can't think of another writer who could have me on the edge of my seat with a twenty-page description of an interdepartmental meeting, but somehow that's what we get here. Here's the halfway point of the meeting, after several pages of close, detailed description: just admire how easily he suddenly slips into this spare, witty style:

‘Lunch,’ Martindale announced without much optimism. They ate it upstairs, glumly, off plastic catering trays delivered by van. The partitions were too low and Guillam's custard flowed into his meat.

The Southeast Asia sections are wonderfully accomplished. We have thumbnail sketches of the Laotian capital, the Cambodian Civil War, rich descriptions of pre-handover Hong Kong. Jerry Westerby, the hack reporter who doubles as an occasional stringer for British Intelligence, is a character who will ring true to anyone who's worked in journalism. As a reporter myself, I've never yet read a better description of why journalists do dangerous things for so little money – why they get out of the car, cross the road, head towards the gunshots:

Sometimes you do 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.

Oh that's wonderful (and practically thrown away in the middle of a paragraph). This comes in a long, virtuoso section which sees Jerry digging up information on a contact under cover of writing a story on frontline fighting in Cambodia. The book is full of such delights: everything from tiny foreign airline lounges to fashion shows to opium dens have an air of truth to them. I don't know if Le Carré is drawing on personal experiences, or if he just writes so well that I believe anything he says. Either way it makes this book a pleasure.

There are flaws. The final third is less good than what comes before, and the one main female character is too much of a damsel-in-distress, who has really no reason except convention for falling for our antihero. But I'll take that, for the joys of reading a spy novel I can actually believe, with some descriptive set-pieces of ‘The East’ that are unmatched. ...more

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Feb 26, 2018 Jaline rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: xx2018-completed

In the review I wrote for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I mentioned that it took me a while to accustom myself to the spy jargon as well as many of the British idioms. It gave me a very strange feeling to start reading this episode (# 6 in the George Smiley series) and discover: (1) the British idioms are offset by the fact that the Circus (centre of espionage in London) is balanced, and often explained by the Cousins (their American counterparts, based in Langley, Virginia); and (2) the definiti In the review I wrote for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I mentioned that it took me a while to accustom myself to the spy jargon as well as many of the British idioms. It gave me a very strange feeling to start reading this episode (# 6 in the George Smiley series) and discover: (1) the British idioms are offset by the fact that the Circus (centre of espionage in London) is balanced, and often explained by the Cousins (their American counterparts, based in Langley, Virginia); and (2) the definitions of the spy terms are woven seamlessly into the narrative itself. So we not only know who the Circus and the Cousins are, but we also know what Housekeeping is, what the Nursery is, and the many other phrases for departments within the British secret service.

This novel takes place largely in China – Hong Kong, for the most part. However, it also takes us to other parts of Asia and there are a few side-trips to London where George Smiley has been doing everything possible to pull together a stronger team after exposing the mole Russia had planted high in the ranks of the Circus. (See Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy for that story). While he is busy ensuring all bugs are cleaned out and missing records are cobbled together out of the pieces that remain, an entire Chinese development is underway.

Coordinating the new development as well as wrestling some order and security back into being is a huge connected project for any one person. With his usual calm and quiet, but sharp intelligence, George Smiley is pulling everything together successfully, despite potshots from the Cousins and even some of his own team. How this all plays out is a credit to the author’s amazing storytelling.

John Le Carrè’s writing in this book is simply outstanding. The characters were all well-developed – some of them I loved, some of them disgusted me, some of them I felt deep empathy for, and there were some that I just didn’t know how I felt about them. Some had crystal-clear motivation, some had mixed motives, and some didn’t know what they wanted for themselves or what they wanted to accomplish.

The descriptive parts of the book were also excellent. In his introductory piece, John Le Carrè writes that he spent some months in China researching for this book. He traveled around with a group of journalists and also spent time getting to know the hang-outs for many different classes of people. His research is woven so smoothly into this novel that I felt like I was there myself. This is what great writers can achieve: carry us along on a journey we might never be able to take in real life, but create it so well and with such detail that we live it, too.

If you enjoy great storytelling, tangible atmosphere, plots with multiple threads that twine themselves together into an absorbing pattern, and fascinating characters, I can happily recommend this book to you. ...more

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Jun 21, 2012 Feliks rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: brit-lit-modern, favorites-all-time, genre-thrillers

I'm a longtime reader of the espionage genre --beginning as just a lad--and although I massively enjoyed all of John LeCarre's earlier works and particularly his George Smiley series--I must call out "The Honourable Schoolboy" for especial recognition.

This penultimate work of that series is really the triumph of LeCarre's career; the point at which he reached the full breadth and scope of his powers. Afterwards--although he enjoyed further achievements--I suggest that he never again eclipses th ...more

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Oct 17, 2014 E. G. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: le-carré, fiction, uk-ireland, own, 4-star

Acknowledgments
Map

--The Honourable Schoolboy

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Oct 12, 2011 Darwin8u rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

“I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
― W.H. Auden

“Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.”
― John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

description

Well sport, this was a messy, sometimes uneven AND occasionally a plodding novel but I absolutely loved every single word of it. This is the second book of le Carré's Karla trilogy. Perhaps, the greatest spy trilogy ever. While more people focus on the first ...more

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May 27, 2011 Sara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: spy-thriller, asia, favorites, cold-war

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return. - W.H. Auden

What if you devoted your entire life to something because you thought it was the right thing, the good thing, the moral thing, and then you ended your life wondering if you had been completely wrong? It happens to a lot of people, particularly because things shift on us as the years go by and change in ways we do not notice or acknowledge, and because with age comes wisdom, or if not wisdo I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return. - W.H. Auden

What if you devoted your entire life to something because you thought it was the right thing, the good thing, the moral thing, and then you ended your life wondering if you had been completely wrong? It happens to a lot of people, particularly because things shift on us as the years go by and change in ways we do not notice or acknowledge, and because with age comes wisdom, or if not wisdom, perhaps just clearer vision.

MacArthur famously said, “Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away.” Perhaps the same can be said of old spies, cold wars, and people who live on the fringe of society, just clambering for survival. And, if they have not died, but are only faded, can they be restored?

These were some of the thoughts I had while reading this novel, because John le Carre is one of those who sees the underbelly of life, and the betrayals it contains, and does not flinch. The time is 1974-75, Vietnam is falling from the hands of the Americans, Southeast Asia is a hotbed of activity, legal and illegal, the British still exercise control of a sort over Hong Kong, and all the major powers are jockeying for power. The Russians are actively working the Asian world for intelligence, and Karla, Smiley’s nemesis is playing cards that the British and Americans don’t even know he is holding.

Enter George Smiley, an aging British spy, who still carries the moral code and convictions of World War II, but must try to fit that image of the world into a more cynical, less forgiving, reality. He releases into this malestrom a seasoned operative by the name of Jerry Westerby, a man who seems so isolated and lonely that he made me ache, another man who has given his life to an occupation that breeds doubt and insecurity in men who are so seemingly strong and fearless. And, another man who is questioning what it has all been about.

Peter Guilliam sums it up rather well, I thought, and in doing so lays out the basic premise of the entire book:

One day, thought Guillam, as he continued listening, one of two things will happen to George. He’ll cease to care or the paradox will kill him. If he ceases to care, he’ll be half the operator he is. If he doesn’t, that little chest will blow up from the struggle of trying to find the explanation for what we do.

This is the sixth book in the Smiley series, and the second in the Karla Trilogy, and what I have observed in reading them is that George Smiley’s struggle to reconcile the job he does--the terrible consequences that often go with it, the deception and the sacrifices--is constant, never-ending, and personally costly. That he survives at all is miraculous, but he does, because he is the heart and conscience of the Circus, and eventually the heart is needed or the body dies.

One last thought, if anyone can write a more complex, intricate, entangled plot without failing to leave even the slightest element dangling, I have never encountered them. This is a spy novel, of course, but it is oh so much more. When you close the book, you will not leave the characters or the story behind, and you will see parallels all around you in our own society, in the duplicitousness of government, in the way some people play chess with other people’s lives, in the way sometimes everyone loses.
...more

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May 04, 2016 Mizuki rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-fictions, disappointment

One of the few bright spots is how the author wrote the 1970s colonized Hong Kong, I also enjoy how the author described the international spy network and how those spies work, but all the good things I have to say about this book end here. The characters are rather flat, the plot and the war among spies slow paced and uninteresting. In the end I don't care what might happen to any of those characters. So it's a disappointed 2 stars. ...more

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Apr 04, 2020 Bill Kerwin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-c-brit, spies-intrigue

There is a passage more than halfway through The Honorable Schoolboy which discusses the reading material that Jerry Westerby—the “schoolboy” of the title, about to embark for Phnom Penh—has brought with him on the plane.

He read the Jours de France to put some French back into his mind, then remembered Candide and read that. He had brought the book-bag, and in the book-bag he had Conrad. In Phnom Penh he always read Conrad; it tickled him to remind himself he was sitting in the last of the t

He read the Jours de France to put some French back into his mind, then remembered Candide and read that. He had brought the book-bag, and in the book-bag he had Conrad. In Phnom Penh he always read Conrad; it tickled him to remind himself he was sitting in the last of the two Conrad river ports.

I smiled when I read this, for I had been thinking of Conrad for the last hundred pages or so. Most of Le Carre makes me think of Conrad. A career in espionage is—in its way—as isolating and maddening for the spy as the sea is for the sailor, as a far-flung colonial outpost is for the civil servant. Each of these remote milieux calls forth the uniqueness—and the oddness—of the lone individual, who, deprived of society’s customary comforts and restraints, may be seduced into making rash, irretrievable choices. This is perhaps doubly true of the secret agent, whose tasks require a counterfeit identity, the maintenance of which demands some degree of self-deception. Such a double life intensifies loneliness and may well lead the agent to disaster.

Thus it is for Jerry Westerby, the “honourable schoolboy” of the title. In 1974,George Smiley, spymaster of “The Circus,” intent on rebuilding the agency’s reputation after the discovery of a highly placed mole, believes the exposure of the purposes of a recently detected “gold seam”—a laundering operation of money through Laos in which the Soviets have a hand—may be just what the Circus needs to restore credibility. So Smiley sends Westerby—under cover as a sportswriter—to track the “gold seam,” determine its route of travel, its beneficiary, and its purpose. Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Laos provide Westerby with the answers, but they also change him personally, profoundly, leading him toward his own Conradian tragedy.

This is a rich, unsettling novel. Like Conrad’s heroes, Le Carre’s Westerby faces ambiguous moral choices, but in a post-Vietnam world filled with machinations and deceptions—both between and within governments—Smiley’s and Westerby’s moral charts seem more convoluted, less navigable—if it be possible—than Marlow’s and Lord Jim’s. ...more

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Aug 12, 2012 rameau rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rating-meh, manually-added, read-in-2012, language-finnish-translation

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a tough act to follow, but I must admit I was expecting more. At first, I thought that’s exactly what I was getting but then the mind-numbing second third happened and I was lost in a way I never was in Tinker Tailor. I still don’t have a clear understanding of what happened—in the book or with my interest in it.

All I know is that I got sick of reading about Jerry. I got sick of Guillam’s overdone fawning. I got sick of the female characters—including Connie—portraye ...more

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Apr 01, 2021 Woman Reading rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller-or-suspense, 4-stars-very-good, asia-setting

4 ☆
In this life you can give yourself or withhold yourself as you please, my dear. But never lend yourself. That way you're worse than a spy.

The spy business is indeed rough and dirty. George Smiley successfully flushed out the longterm sleeper agent, the Russian mole, from the Secret Service (aka the Circus) in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. He was then immediately tasked with rescuing the Circus from an ignominious demise and dealing with the growing mistrust from both Whitehall and the Ameri 4 ☆
In this life you can give yourself or withhold yourself as you please, my dear. But never lend yourself. That way you're worse than a spy.

The spy business is indeed rough and dirty. George Smiley successfully flushed out the longterm sleeper agent, the Russian mole, from the Secret Service (aka the Circus) in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. He was then immediately tasked with rescuing the Circus from an ignominious demise and dealing with the growing mistrust from both Whitehall and the American "Cousins" (ie. the CIA). Fearing the corrosive reach of the mole, Smiley wielded not a scalpel but an axe. The Circus' staff is now one quarter of its "pre-fall" size and Smiley has admitted only 4 persons into his inner circle. Connie Sachs and Doc did Salis are old-hand analysts respectively in charge of intelligence for Russia and China, the two biggest Communist threats. After months of meticulous research into the traitor's past actions, Smiley has devised a plan of attack.

Never had Smiley gone into battle knowing so little and expecting so much. He felt lured, and he felt pursued. Yet when he tired, and drew back for a moment, and considered the logic of what he was about, it almost eluded him. He glanced back and saw the jaws of failure waiting for him. He peered forward and through his moist spectacles saw the phantoms of great hopes dancing in the mist. ... Yet he advanced without ultimate conviction.

It's mid-1974 and the battle arena encompasses Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Hong Kong has another twenty-plus years as a part of the British empire, which has been cut down in size as much as the Circus but for different reasons.

We colonise them, Your Graces, we corrupt them, we exploit them, we bomb them, sack their cities, ignore their culture, and confound them with the infinite variety of our religious sects. We are hideous not only in their sight, Monsignors, but in their nostrils as well—the stink of the round-eye is abhorrent to them and we’re too thick even to know it.

With much of the Circus' old networks blown, Smiley turns to the Honourable Jerry Westerby, journalist and "occasional" agent, to be his man in the field. Westerby has spent time reporting in war zones, and he'll need those hard-won skills as Smiley directs his steps into the tumultuous Southeast Asia of 1975. The Khmer Rouge is gearing up to create their killing fields in Cambodia while the US is in its last inglorious days before pulling out entirely from Vietnam.

In the East, sport, survival is knowing what you don't know.

Published in 1977, The Honourable Schoolboy feels different from its predecessors; this isn't a criticism. My only quibble was that I
wasn't entirely convinced about the motivation for the protagonist's course of action in the final chapters. Around 1974 or so, John le Carré had traveled in the company of a journalist throughout Southeast Asia and Hong Kong to capture the feel of the times. The place descriptions are strongly evocative. The speech of Westerby and his journalist colleagues are heavily peppered with the idioms of the decade. Excluding Smiley and his chosen, the characters in this international cast reflect the racist and sexist attitudes of their period (which probably still exists today albeit better masked).

But when I look at the themes, this novel is unmistakably by le Carré. There's a pervasive sense of diminishment or of loss - not only experienced by the Circus, by the British empire, but also by Western political philosophy. As Smiley plots in order to save the Circus, he will find more than two players on the gameboard. Worse, Smiley may not realize in time just which game is actually in play. Who else will need to be sacrificed?

To be inhuman in defence of our humanity . . . harsh in defence of compassion. To be single-minded in defence of our disparity.

... I chose the secret road because it seemed to lead straightest and furthest toward my country's goal. The enemy in those days was someone we could point at and read about in the papers. Today, all I know is that I have learned to interpret the whole of life in terms of conspiracy.

... 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.

The Honourable Schoolboy can be read as a standalone. But if you haven't yet picked up Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, then read these two books in their proper sequence. ...more

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May 26, 2013 Vit Babenco rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

John le Carré calls Hong Kong the world capital of espionage of the seventies. There on the invisible battlefields the unseen combats are being fought… But the invisibility doesn’t make the mêlées less cruel. Clandestinity just makes spy battles much more psychologically complex.
“A redhead, which was half-way to whoredom for a start. Not enough breast to nurse a rabbit, and worst of all a fierce eye for arithmetic. They said he found her in the town: whore again. From the first day, she had not John le Carré calls Hong Kong the world capital of espionage of the seventies. There on the invisible battlefields the unseen combats are being fought… But the invisibility doesn’t make the mêlées less cruel. Clandestinity just makes spy battles much more psychologically complex.
“A redhead, which was half-way to whoredom for a start. Not enough breast to nurse a rabbit, and worst of all a fierce eye for arithmetic. They said he found her in the town: whore again. From the first day, she had not let him out of her sight. Clung to him like a child. Ate with him, and sulked; drank with him, and sulked; shopped with him, picking up the language like a thief, till they became a minor local sight together, the English giant and his sulking wraith whore, trailing down the hill with their rush basket—the schoolboy, in his tattered shorts, grinning at everyone, and the scowling orphan, in her whore’s sackcloth with nothing underneath, so that though she was plain as a scorpion the men stared after her to see her hard haunches rock through the fabric. She walked with all her fingers locked round his arm and her cheek against his shoulder, and she only let go of him to pay out meanly from the purse she now controlled. When they met a familiar face, he greeted it for both of them, flapping his vast free arm like a Fascist. And God help the man who, on the rare occasion when she went alone, ventured a fresh word or a wolf call: she would turn and spit like a gutter-cat, and her eyes burned like the devil’s.”
The language is outright juicy.
“Sam had ranged a little wider in his enquiries than Head Office had sanctioned. Hard pressed, he had gone to the pedlars rather than file a nil return. He had fixed himself a side-deal with the local Cousins. Or the local security services had blackmailed him—in Sarratt jargon the angels had put a burn on him—and he had played the case both ways in order to survive and smile and keep his Circus pension. To read Sam’s moves, Smiley knew that he must stay alert to these and countless other options. A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.”
All's fair in love and espionage…
The Honourable Schoolboy has its special stress not on spying but on the psychological subtleties of undercover affairs. ...more

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Mar 06, 2017 Nigeyb rated it liked it · review of another edition

I'd wanted to read the George Smiley books since watching the BBC adaptation of 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' back in the 1970s. I also subsequently loved the 2011 film adaptation directed by Tomas Alfredson, which I saw in the cinema, and rewatched recently.

Everything I had heard about the source material suggests joy and wonder would await and, I’m pleased to report, that’s exactly what I have found so far.

I have read the series, up until 'The Honourable Schoolboy', in quick succession…

'Cal

...more

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Nov 21, 2008 Bryan Alexander rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: spy, historical-fiction, vietnam, mystery

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. E ...more

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May 25, 2017 Michael rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I love le Carre, and I love the other two books in the Karla Trilogy, but for some reason this one didn't do it for me. I found the writing flat, devoid of le Carre's usual angry incisiveness, and the characters seemed more like wooden dolls than people. Maybe I'll revisit it some day, but let's just say, I'm in no rush. ...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Nilesh rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The Karla Trilogy is not a true trilogy but a marketing spin and this book proves it in more ways than one.

To start with, this book has little connection with the Karla-Smiley story of Tinker, Tailor. Yes, Karla is mentioned as linked to the spies being chased but with no other role whatsoever. Smiley team is there but more as a sideshow to the juvenile story of a fringe spy falling in crazy love over a single meeting, his Southeast Asian ventures and a complex capture tale where one is never cl The Karla Trilogy is not a true trilogy but a marketing spin and this book proves it in more ways than one.

To start with, this book has little connection with the Karla-Smiley story of Tinker, Tailor. Yes, Karla is mentioned as linked to the spies being chased but with no other role whatsoever. Smiley team is there but more as a sideshow to the juvenile story of a fringe spy falling in crazy love over a single meeting, his Southeast Asian ventures and a complex capture tale where one is never clear what the entire fuss is all about.

Positively, the book vividly describes the expat life in early Seventies in HK, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand etc. It takes a while to overcome the inherent biases, but when one moves beyond what was an acceptable behaviour of so called heroes of the time, the book provides a good narration of interplay between people of various races then and there.

That said,there is no intrigue of the previous book. The twist of the tale never materialises. Too many characters are presented as caricatures of various stereotypes. The know-all Smiley himself never really crafts anything ingenious. And to top it all, the end is too incomplete even though realistic, one never knows whether Nelson, the chief villain, really mattered in the tiniest to Karla, China or the West. One is equally dark about the true nature of feelings between Jerry and Lizie, and if this was supposed to be the pinnacle of the retiring Smiley, it was simply too sad.

The book may have had more meaning in the Seventies when political events of Asia were momentous, the Cold War for all its inaction appeared thrilling and not much was known in the West about people and cities discussed here. Most of this appears less appetising now.

Second reading review:

I have decided to go through the entire le Carre collection and was least excited to pick this one up given the first reading impressions. I found the East Asian life descriptions more interesting than the first time. The story read as meaningless as the first time, although I had far more appreciation of the 1970s spycraft described the second time. If I were to change my rating, on second reading, the book is a three star. ...more

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Jun 13, 2016 Bradley West rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers, favorites

After Tinker, Tailor, le Carre's fans waited many years for the follow-up The Honourable Schoolboy. When I first read the book 35 (!) years ago I recall being a little disappointed that the book wasn't more Smiley-centric, but in retrospect le Carre's shift in focus from treachery within the Circus to the exotic East was what the series needed lest it choke on its own incestuous fog.

The Hong Kong of the early 1970s in the book wasn't very different from the Hong Kong I encountered in the early 1 After Tinker, Tailor, le Carre's fans waited many years for the follow-up The Honourable Schoolboy. When I first read the book 35 (!) years ago I recall being a little disappointed that the book wasn't more Smiley-centric, but in retrospect le Carre's shift in focus from treachery within the Circus to the exotic East was what the series needed lest it choke on its own incestuous fog.

The Hong Kong of the early 1970s in the book wasn't very different from the Hong Kong I encountered in the early 1980s. Many, many fewer skyscrapers than today and much less prosperity, but the same feverish pace, crowding and squalor (outside Central) persisted. Le Carre's eye for Hong Kong is spot on, while his caricatures of journalist Richard Hughes as Old Craw and the Foreign Correspondents Club are gems. No one does atmosphere like le Carre, and that's further evident when the author takes us to Cambodia-under-fire at the end of the Vietnam war, then up country to northern Thailand where Westerby is on the trail of Ricardo, an absent aviator and romantic rival.

Meanwhile, le Carre unfolds the principal espionage plot beautifully. There's a gold seam out of Indochina, then the whiff of Karla and, perhaps, a mainland KGB spy who is seeking to escape China. Smiley's and Connie's scenes are strongly written, with the gradual unveiling of the mole leaving me whipping through the side stories in order to get back to the latest information on the deep penetration agent.

Jerry's infatuation with Lizzie struck one of the only discordant notes. Le Carre invested a lot of effort fleshing out Jerry's character, and considerable time on Lizzie's, too. Lizzie's actions rang true, while Westerby always seemed a bit off (even the second and third time through the book). So the ending wasn't wholly satisfying, but that mild disappointment wasn't enough to reduce the rating.

* * * * *

I've read two of le Carre's novels three times, Smiley's People for its virtuosity, and The Honourable Schoolboy for setting and plot. So rather than nitpick, I'll conclude by saying that it's a great spy novel, a fantastic tour of Indochina and Hong Kong, and a pretty good character analysis of an unhappy middle-aged spy trying to do the right thing. ...more

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Aug 18, 2020 Barbara K rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: smiley, spy-thriller, enrichment

The second volume in le Carre's fabled Karla spy trilogy, The Honourable Schoolboy is a significant departure from the five Smiley books leading up to it. It's the longest of all the Smiley novels, and the only one where the action takes place outside of Europe.

The plot centers on people and events in Southeast Asia, and Hong Kong in particular. In the mid-1970s the area was a cauldron of conflict, pitting East against West, communism (both the Russian and Chinese varieties) against capitalism/ The second volume in le Carre's fabled Karla spy trilogy, The Honourable Schoolboy is a significant departure from the five Smiley books leading up to it. It's the longest of all the Smiley novels, and the only one where the action takes place outside of Europe.

The plot centers on people and events in Southeast Asia, and Hong Kong in particular. In the mid-1970s the area was a cauldron of conflict, pitting East against West, communism (both the Russian and Chinese varieties) against capitalism/democracy, and factions vs factions within individual countries.

Once again the core of the plot is a mole planted, this time in China, decades before by Karla, the Soviet counterpart to Smiley, head of the Circus, the British Secret Service. In the previous volume Smiley had unmasked a Karla mole hidden deep in the Circus, but by then serious damage had been done, and Smiley is now charged with restoring the honor of the organization he has cherished his entire life.

But the effort to identify the mole and leverage his position is only part of the story le Carré wants to tell here. Another is to describe the feel of Southeast Asia at the time, something he does vividly. Although I'd known a fair amount about area, whether from reading current events or history, I found a new appreciation for the day to day existence of the innocent local residents, treated as pawns going back even before French colonization.

The last part is an exploration of the extent to which it is possible for a spy, professional or "semi-pro", to disassociate from normal human connections. This is actually an expansion of an idea le Carré introduced in The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. In that case the relationship was more tender, it seems to me, than in this book, where an overwhelming lust seems to be the driving force.

All in all another extremely satisfying offering from the Master of the espionage tale. Three more to go in the Smiley series - I should be able to make my goal of finishing them by year end. ...more

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Oct 11, 2019 Roman Clodia rated it liked it · review of another edition

These people terrify me but I am one of them

This follows pretty much straight on after Tinker, Tailor... Smiley is trying to re-build the Circus after the gross betrayal of the previous book and uncovers a money trail to Hong Kong. He recruits Jerry Westerby, an 'occasional' spy to go out to investigate not expecting Jerry's own romantic 'schoolboy' values to be his nemesis.

This feels like a book of transitions: Smiley, with that picture of Karla hanging over his desk, isn't quite the man he
These people terrify me but I am one of them

This follows pretty much straight on after Tinker, Tailor... Smiley is trying to re-build the Circus after the gross betrayal of the previous book and uncovers a money trail to Hong Kong. He recruits Jerry Westerby, an 'occasional' spy to go out to investigate not expecting Jerry's own romantic 'schoolboy' values to be his nemesis.

This feels like a book of transitions: Smiley, with that picture of Karla hanging over his desk, isn't quite the man he used to be, and the Service itself is changing away from the 'old school' Eton/Cambridge triad. To parallel these internal transformations, we're no longer just in grey London as half the story takes place in Hong Kong under the shadow of China, with Vietnam and Laos in the background, and the increasing presence of the Americans, nominally 'the Cousins' but with their own agendas at play.

Le Carré's plot, as ever, is winding and serpentine with his trademark relentless human betrayal, but I struggled with the slowness in places and especially with many of the scenes set in Hong Kong - the rowdy journalists, especially, who take up far too much page space. I also found Westerby unconvincing as a character, not least his white-knight persona and his romantic naivety which sits somewhat uneasily against his supposed smartness as both a journalist and a part-time spy. I can see where le Carré wanted to go with him: the 'honourable' old boy betrayed by the up-and-coming 'new men' but it's rather crudely done which is rare for le Carré. And the end is still moving as human connections and love are shown to be no match against expedient politics.

Interestingly, the book ends with a letter from Smiley to Guillam letting us into the former's head, a rare thing - and we find that Smiley has himself been touched by the events we've just read. So a much looser, if more politically ambitious, book than Tinker, Tailor... though certainly one which expands its bleak vision of the world. Smiley's People next... ...more

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Jan 14, 2014 Larou added it · review of another edition

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 I 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. ...more

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Feb 18, 2020 Jack Horan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Bit daunted by how long this was as Le Carre's books can be v confusing, but this is class, couldn't put it down. Also fair play to him for making the head of British intelligence a sympathetic character, because these are all badmen. ...more

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Aug 27, 2020 Paul Ataua rated it liked it · review of another edition

Yet another of the Smiley books. Not one of the better novels in the series, but still quite entertaining. There is something magical about these books, but the characterization and story were less sharp than the preceding ones. Still worth reading!

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Oct 04, 2012 Leelas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: spies

A John le Carre novel set in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia? Yes, please!

This is the second volume in the Karla trilogy, and as such is the direct sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Do not expect more of the same, however. This is, after all, John le Carre, and he rarely, if ever, writes the same novel twice.

The le Carre novels that I have read tend to make use of two general frameworks. There are the 'whodunit' style stories, set primarily in London, such as Call for the Dead and TTSS. These ar A John le Carre novel set in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia? Yes, please!

This is the second volume in the Karla trilogy, and as such is the direct sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Do not expect more of the same, however. This is, after all, John le Carre, and he rarely, if ever, writes the same novel twice.

The le Carre novels that I have read tend to make use of two general frameworks. There are the 'whodunit' style stories, set primarily in London, such as Call for the Dead and TTSS. These are, effectively, murder mysteries dressed up in espionage clothing. Then there are the operational stories, following daring missions into hostile territory, such as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and The Looking Glass War.

The Honourable Schoolboy has elements of both categories. It is definitely an operational story, following an offensive by the Circus aimed at capturing a high-ranking Soviet agent. At the same time, an air of mystery hangs over the whole procedure, and it has all the investigations and interrogations of its predecessor.

The story is told via two main characters. The first is George Smiley, who is mainly followed through the eyes of Peter Guillam, who plays the Watson to Smiley's Holmes. Smiley has a dark, ruthless side to him which tends to come out when he plays a supporting role. This side is evident here, but not dominant. Overall, this is the jaded yet likeable Smiley of TTSS. The second main character is Jerry Westerby, the 'honourable schoolboy' of the title, and the Circus's man on the ground in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. The psychological contrasts of these two characters are central to the story's development and conclusion.

The best part of the story by far, aside from the magnificent and tragic conclusion, is Westerby's sojourn through Southeast Asia. The story takes place between 1974 and 1975, and Westerby visits Phnom Penh, Battambang, Saigon, and Vientiane, witnessing life in these cities under siege on the very brink of the Communist victories. For these passages, the mysteries are put on hold, and the adventure kicks into high gear, with Jerry risking life and limb on the front lines as he pursues and interviews the lost souls that make up the novel's supporting cast.

As a Southeast Asianist and a fan of le Carre, this book is personally a dream come true for me. I recommend it to anyone looking for a good spy novel, or interested in the events that shook Southeast Asia and the world in the mid 1970s. ...more

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Oct 11, 2020 Jason Koivu rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: spy, fiction

Phew! That was a long one. Lots of players on stage requiring backstory and motivation. It has it's exciting moments, but does feel a bit unwieldy at times. Though there are a number of Chinese and Americans represented, this feels very English in that old school stiff-and-reserved sense. So much of the action is cold and calculated. And yet, love plays a part in the resolution, as it does with so many of John le Carré's spy novels. Good stuff as always. A pleasure to read, exorbitant length and ...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Stuart Ayris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This the second in the Smiley/Karla trilogy - the only one (as far as I'm aware) that hasn't been dramatised and as such the least known of the three. Yet it is my favourite by far.

The main character is not George Smiley (although he is present in much of the novel) but Jerry Westerby, one of the Occasionals as they are referred to - foreign correspondents who do a little spying on the side. As such, it is altogether more human than either Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or Smiley's People - the r ...more

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Sep 25, 2020 Leif Quinlan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I'm of two minds about this book. One one hand, I want to praise le Carré for being able to keep a 600 page book interesting and compelling enough to finish; however, as I was reading and certainly after I finished, I wondered just how interesting the book actually was and if what I found to be compelling about it had more to do with my own expectations rather than le Carré's story. The plot of this book reads as if it will be an exceptional spy thriller ripe for le Carré's unique psychological I'm of two minds about this book. One one hand, I want to praise le Carré for being able to keep a 600 page book interesting and compelling enough to finish; however, as I was reading and certainly after I finished, I wondered just how interesting the book actually was and if what I found to be compelling about it had more to do with my own expectations rather than le Carré's story. The plot of this book reads as if it will be an exceptional spy thriller ripe for le Carré's unique psychological and conversational treatment and while reading (even right up to the end, after I absolutely knew better) I kept hoping to be inspired. Sadly, it just never happened. In a book that (at least tangentially) contains multiple murders, double-crosses, a femme-fatale (sort of), globe-trotting spies, conflict between nations, secrecy, stake-outs, &c., why am I left so cold? Why am I left wondering why I just read 600 pages where little to nothing actually happened? Where plot hangs on incomprehensible details (the Soviets are taking the risk of exposure to set up payment of $500k to a source whom is already a millionaire many times over? What??)? I think the answer is that le Carré actually doesn't do much with those details. They are all softly told or hinted at, off to the side and out of focus. His main thread, the one that he sticks to the most is of George Smiley being smarter than everyone else and securing a massive intelligence get. Sounds great right? Well, we get almost no Smiley throughout the book, and we get even less examples of him being smarter than everyone else. We get the final thrill of the story being that of London securing... a former Chinese national whom we the reader know next to nothing about. What does this actually have to do with the USSR? How will this help England and the United States in their Cold War with the USSR? What does the person actually know? We don't know, we don't know, we don't know. And furthermore, the main character suddenly flips at the end and tries to stop the handoff for the amazingly plotted reason(s) of... um... never explained. And finally, after all of it, Smiley has been out-thought and marginalized while also having been put out to pasture once again. What a massive disappointment this book was
Woof

...more

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Nov 02, 2017 Bevan Lewis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A superb story, multifaceted with wonderfully evoked characters and settings. The pinnacle of the Smiley books thus far. Michael Jayston's narration is flawless as always in the Audible version. ...more

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Jun 27, 2016 Dillwynia Peter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I have read two classical espionage novels this year that puts into play the canon that would follow: Ashenden by Somerset Maughan and The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich. From these two novels it went two ways- glamourous settings & people, and heroic deeds; or covert activities, lots of watching and reporting and a dark side involving governments and betrayal. The former style is admirably covered by James Bond, or The Saint; the former became the style favoured by LeCarre.
I like LeCarre a lot. He att I have read two classical espionage novels this year that puts into play the canon that would follow: Ashenden by Somerset Maughan and The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich. From these two novels it went two ways- glamourous settings & people, and heroic deeds; or covert activities, lots of watching and reporting and a dark side involving governments and betrayal. The former style is admirably covered by James Bond, or The Saint; the former became the style favoured by LeCarre.
I like LeCarre a lot. He attacks the ethical and moral issues to espionage and asked deep philosophical questions such as when does espionage overstep its bounds and when do you stop before you become as grimy as the criminal. This is the 1st of Le Carre’s novels to leave Europe. In the preface he acknowledges the assistance of people in Hong Kong and it is obvious that he took in a lot when re researched the novel. I felt like I was back in the dying days of the Vietnam War and the repercussions it had on South East Asia overall.
The story, as per LeCarre is dirty, grimy and full of opportunistic and unscrupulous criminals. It is also the centre book of a trilogy and unlike others which have lot of filler and are bland compared to the 1st and last books, this is almost a stand alone novel. Knowing what happens in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy helps understand why the London office is dysfunctional and essentially broken. Unlike most espionage novels, LeCarre’s are always character driven. I suspect some readers wouldn’t enjoy this, but I did. The characters had many aspects, very 3-dimensional and I loved their strengths and flaws as they played out through the narrative.
Others have commented on a two novel rolled into one issue, but I didn’t feel this. Rather, I felt like the severe issues and problems in London generated both unique opportunities that our hero exploited, and allowed important and thrilling aspects to occur as a result of their fumbling. The use of the CIA and the political machinations between British parliamentarians and the CIA (due to a perceived non functioning MI6) were masterfully done.
My only complaint has been – to date, as I read him in chronological order – is that LeCarre tends to kill off his anti-hero. It happened in The Spy who came in from the Cold & here and I didn’t think it strengthened the story. Our hero could have retired – he was actively contemplating this.
The language – oh the language! A Goodreads friend has commented on this & he is so right. The witty juxapositions, the language to describe scenery and situations and emotions was just exquisite. No sow’s ears came anywhere near this silk purse.
...more

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Feb 11, 2018 Neil rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018

164, 164, 228, 340, 433, 686.

This is the sixth in the tentative Smiley series (I say tentative because the "series" is mostly a marketing trick) and the second of the Karla Trilogy within that (also a marketing ploy although more believable).

The numbers above are the page counts (in the editions I read) of the six books so far. It doesn’t take a mathematician to spot a trend!

It is clear that THS is substantially longer than everything that has led up to it. And I have to say that I am not comple 164, 164, 228, 340, 433, 686.

This is the sixth in the tentative Smiley series (I say tentative because the "series" is mostly a marketing trick) and the second of the Karla Trilogy within that (also a marketing ploy although more believable).

The numbers above are the page counts (in the editions I read) of the six books so far. It doesn’t take a mathematician to spot a trend!

It is clear that THS is substantially longer than everything that has led up to it. And I have to say that I am not completely sure this is a good thing. My perception as I read this was almost as if I was reading a book by several different authors: much of it felt like Le Carré, but then other bits were like Ian Fleming and others like Graham Greene and yet others had at least a setting like a Joseph Conrad novel. In fact, the New York Times, I have just discovered, wrote "John le Carré seems to have gotten tired of being compared to Graham Greene, and decided instead to be Joseph Conrad."

The story picks up from Smiley’s uncovering of a spy in The Circus (no names in case I spoil Tinker, Tailor… for someone, although I guess everyone knows by now!). Smiley continues to investigate the service (of which he is now in charge). He discovers evidence of possible involvement by Karla in an operation in Laos. Jerry Westerby (who has been a bit part player in the series so far) is recalled by Smiley and sent to Hong Kong. From there, the plot unfolds. The book is far more about Westerby than it is about Smiley as Westerby goes on the run in the "Far East".

It has to be said that it is quite hard to keep track of the twists and turns of a 686 page story, especially when there are sections of that story that are not quite such gripping reading as "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" or "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy". I have to admit that there were times when I struggled to maintain concentration and suddenly realised I might have missed a key plot point or connection.

Not my favourite Smiley novel, but mainly, I think, because of its length. Not that I mind long books, but they need to be long for the right reasons. ...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Nick Baam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Crime noir been given its due, with Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain all winning Nobel prizes (haven't they?) (read Cain's Serenade), I nominate for the award the spy genre's only serious candidate, John le Carre. More, I nominate The Honourable Schoolboy as the best spy novel ever written, and the author himself doesn't put it in his top four.

The Honourable Schoolboy, second in the Karla Trilogy, coming after Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and before Smiley's People, is all a ...more

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Espionage Aficion...: 'Old Craw'	4	17	Nov 16, 2020 02:47PM
Did Smiley order the death that closes the action?	7	146	Feb 25, 2020 05:53PM
Two questions	3	18	Jan 02, 2019 01:35PM
Why Did They Let Westerby Go?	11	157	Apr 19, 2018 06:32PM
Espionage Aficion...: the 1963 coup d'etat in South Vietnam	4	18	Oct 26, 2017 04:42PM
it is hands-down, the best ever written	17	78	Nov 23, 2014 01:50PM

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About John le Carré

John le Carré

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John le Carré, the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell (born 19 October 1931 in Poole, Dorset, England), was an English author of espionage novels. Le Carré had resided in St Buryan, Cornwall, Great Britain, for more than 40 years, where he owned a mile of cliff close to Land's End. ...more