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velcrovan 's review for:
The Honourable Schoolboy
by John le Carré
At first I hated it, then loved it, then by the time I was done I was somewhat disgusted with it again.
For starters, whereas Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy treats you like a grown-up, The Honourable Schoolboy (THS) starts off sounding very much like a Nancy Drew sequel -- patiently laying out plain explanations for every term of likeable Circus jargon (and making it seem rather flat and lifeless in the process), as well as offering facile re-introductions for all the characters.
Things really get underway in the middle, but the plot has a much lower "thread count" than does Tinker Tailor, and there really aren't many surprises in it. The narrative is good but whenever it gets close to Smiley and the Circus, it suddenly gets much more hurried and caricatured. I later read that Le Carre was afterwards in doubt about whether he should have included Smiley at all since he felt people were getting needlessly distracted from the "real story" around Jerry Westerby -- which explains his seeming impatience and lack of attention when writing those scenes.
The summary of this book would give you to understand that this is the book where Smiley "gets revenge" on Karla. This pretty much destroys the book's enjoyability for me; it ultimately doesn't develop the story or the characters of the previous book: it spins their wheels before leaving them in the ditch.
The scenes set in the Orient and in the warfare in Cambodia were interesting and vivid. I can bring myself to enjoy this book if I'm looking for a sequel to Joseph Conrad's dank and unquiet "Heart of Darkness", but not if I'm looking for more of what I loved in Tinker, Tailor.
For starters, whereas Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy treats you like a grown-up, The Honourable Schoolboy (THS) starts off sounding very much like a Nancy Drew sequel -- patiently laying out plain explanations for every term of likeable Circus jargon (and making it seem rather flat and lifeless in the process), as well as offering facile re-introductions for all the characters.
Things really get underway in the middle, but the plot has a much lower "thread count" than does Tinker Tailor, and there really aren't many surprises in it. The narrative is good but whenever it gets close to Smiley and the Circus, it suddenly gets much more hurried and caricatured. I later read that Le Carre was afterwards in doubt about whether he should have included Smiley at all since he felt people were getting needlessly distracted from the "real story" around Jerry Westerby -- which explains his seeming impatience and lack of attention when writing those scenes.
The summary of this book would give you to understand that this is the book where Smiley "gets revenge" on Karla.
Spoiler
In fact, Karla barely figures at all except as a name, and Smiley ends the book having achieved precisely nothing. After all is said and done, all the good people are out on their ear again and the world moves on indifferently. The people who "won" succeed by stealing successes worked for by others, and the only other lingering feeling about the success of the main operation was how tragic it truly was for its targets, and for the main character, Jerry.The scenes set in the Orient and in the warfare in Cambodia were interesting and vivid. I can bring myself to enjoy this book if I'm looking for a sequel to Joseph Conrad's dank and unquiet "Heart of Darkness", but not if I'm looking for more of what I loved in Tinker, Tailor.