The Honourable Schoolboy

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The Steering Committee (authorising further operations after the Ko bank account papers are obtained) 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. I've never felt the need to apologize for preferring Le Carre's more recent novels to his cold war classics; The Honorable Schoolboy is the best of both worlds, and cements my belief that he was at his best when exploring the world beyond Moscow. urn:lcp:honourableschool00lecarich:epub:8a08d2d9-6c21-4b8a-954a-8bcabfb259ef Extramarc Columbia University Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier honourableschool00lecarich Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t9668xm1z Isbn 0394416457

A complete masterpiece and my favourite in the series to far. It is also the first of the Karla Trilogy. A joy from start to finish. 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. 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. There was a day when Smiley generated less of a nimbus. But that was a day when le Carré was more concerned with stripping down the mystique of his subject than with building it up. In his early novels le Carré told the truth about Britain’s declining influence. In the later novels, the influence having declined even further, his impulse has altered. The slide into destitution has become a planned retreat, with Smiley masterfully in charge. On le Carré’s own admission, Smiley has always been the author’s fantasy about himself—a Billy Batson who never has to say “Shazam!” because inside he never stops being Captain Marvel. But lately Smiley has also become the author’s fantasy about his beleaguered homeland. It was Smiley, we now learn, who buried Control, his spiritual father. (And Control, we now learn, had two marriages going at once. It is a moot point whether or not learning more about the master plotter of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold leaves us caring less.) We get the sense, and I fear are meant to get the sense, of Camelot, with the king dead but the quest continuing. Unfortunately the pace is more like Bresson than like Malory.Some fieldmen, and particularly the clever ones, take a perverse pride in not knowing the whole picture. Their art consists in the deft handling of loose ends, and stops there stubbornly.” 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. Anyway, there I was, reading the Schoolboy in St-Sauveur. It was a pure pleasure to own such an exalted anodyne to stress!

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 this colossal, supreme effort of authorship. I name it the single greatest espionage novel ever penned. Pound-for-pound (in any one-on-one matchup versus any other 'stand-alone' title) it has no peer. Read on if you wish to learn why. If, with James Bond, Ian Fleming gave us a pop-up Kennedy, all Fifties flash and missile crisis, for the Seventies Mr. le Carré has George Smiley waiting for Godot. 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 reader is engaged on an emotional level even though it is perhaps the most complex of the three books in terms of plot. A terrific story, it goes without saying. For one thing, it comes from the golden age when le Carré still cared about plot. But it’s his gift for dialogue that electrifies all his books.” Readmore... 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.The usual snafu. Bad guys are too weak to take the towns, good guys are too crapped out to take the countryside and nobody wants to fight except the Coms. Students ready to set fire to the place soon as they’re no longer exempt from the war, food riots any day now, corruption like there was no tomorrow, no one can live on his salary, fortunes being made and the place bleeding to death. Palace is unreal and the Embassy is a nut-house, more spooks than straight guys and all pretending they’ve got a secret. Want more?” Smiley’s fitting opponent is Karla, the KGB’s chief of operations. Smiley has Karla’s photograph hanging in his office, just as Montgomery had Rommel’s photograph hanging in his caravan. Karla, who made a fleeting physical appearance in the previous novel, is kept offstage in this one—a sound move, since like Moriarty he is too abstract a figure to survive examination. But the tone of voice in which le Carré talks about the epic mental battle between Smiley and Karla is too sublime to be anything but ridiculous. “For nobody, not even Martello, quite dared to challenge Smiley’s authority.” In just such a way T.E. Lawrence used to write about himself. As he entered the tent, sheiks fell silent, stunned by his charisma. Spying/Terrorism Thriller - Yes Cloak & Dagger Plotlets: - stopping a saboteur/spy Kid or adult book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Jonathan Powell, producer of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979), said the BBC considered producing The Honourable Schoolboy but a production in Southeast Asia was considered prohibitively expensive and therefore the BBC instead adapted the third novel of the Karla Trilogy, Smiley's People (1979), which was transmitted in 1982. [2]

Need Jerry have ever gone to Ricardo in the first place? Would the outcome, for himself, have been different if he had not? Or did Jerry, as Smiley’s defenders to this day insist, by his pass at Ricardo, supply the last crucial heave which shook the tree and caused the coveted fruit to fall? You said they were friends, Mr Worthington. Sometimes third parties become intermediaries in these affairs.’ On the word affair, he looked up and found himself staring directly into Peter Worthington’s honest, abject eyes: and for a moment the two masks slipped simultaneously. Was Smiley observing? Or was he being observed?” To be inhuman in defence of our humanity . . . harsh in defence of compassion. To be single-minded in defence of our disparity. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2009-07-22 20:30:46 Boxid IA101413 Boxid_2 CH129925 Camera Canon 5D City New York Containerid_2 X0008 Donor 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.John le Carré lays bare snobbery, vanity, a sense of denial and delusion, repressed emotions, faded dreams, and incompetence. It's palpable, and often hard to read, but remains grimly compelling throughout. It’s exactly what he set out to write: a more truthful novel that captured the internal politics, the little Englander mentality, and the complacency of the mid-60s UK intelligence service. And we all know Kim’s story, alas, a stern taboo to those of my ilk. Loose lips sink ships. But in old age I like my truths mollified, thanks very much! But I’m also fascinated by the novel’s beginning and ending at a boys’ prep school. One of the spies is sent there to lie low and recover after nearly being killed. These sections are largely told from the perspective of an isolated new student whom the wounded teacher deploys as his assistant and spy. This connection between two loners has the most transformative arc of all the novel’s relationships. Although tangential to the plot, le Carré uses it as a frame, contrasting the easy loyalty of youth with the jaded mistrust of adult men. Those sections read almost like a middle-grade novel, with a brighter tone and sensibility. Le Carré infuses warmth into this harsh cold war tale but, instead of romance, he uses the optimism of intergenerational found family. First: it is a lengthy book; much longer than most others in the genre--and written with rich, subtle prose. Prose honed by two decades of LeCarre's experience with the novel form. Every chapter is liquid, supple, silky. His best writing in a long time. Splendidly restrained, tempered, calm, and observant throughout. It's a sustained exercise in pacing and suspense which exists nowhere else in the genre, handled as finely.

It says so much about LeCarre's ability that he was simply able to go travel to Hong Kong like this, do all this research and on the very first try concoct this gigantic novel with all the smoothness as if he was still in London writing about the Circus. Think about how rare that is: a novelist taking on a distant, exotic foreign culture and getting it right on the first try. In the aftermath, it is revealed that the British government (Lacon, Collins and Saul Enderby) made a deal behind the scenes where the CIA will interrogate Nelson alone, freezing out Smiley and the Circus. The success of the operation yields top promotions for Enderby, who becomes Chief, and Collins, who becomes Head of Operations. Smiley and Connie Sachs are retired and most of the older generation of Circus personnel are moved on. In the aftermath of the debacle, Peter Guillam contemplates the possibility that Smiley allowed the CIA to gain the upper hand so as to have himself removed as head of the Circus. 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) Your Graces,” said old Craw, with a sigh. “Pray silence for my son. I fear he would have parley with us. Brother Luke, you have committed several acts of war today and one more will meet with our severe disfavour. Speak clearly and concisely omitting no detail, however slight, and thereafter hold your water, sir.”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) 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: And the huggermugger is appropriately elaborate. To act is to betray, either the self or someone else, or the past or the idea of civilization. In Smiley's metaphysical scheme, Karla is the great red whale. According to Jerry, as to Ko, one honors What did he do in 'Schoolboy'? He was running out of grand, unifying plots and he needed one which would still seem fresh. He couldn't do another 'mole' story. There is always the possibility that in those of its activities which do not come to light the Secret Service functions with devilish efficiency. But those activities which do come to light seem usually on a par with the CIA’s schemes to assassinate Castro by poisoning his cap or setting fire to his bread. Our Man in Havana was probably the book which came closest to the truth.