After the Fall
It occurs to me I should actually get a post for The Honourable Schoolboy up before I finish Smiley's People (I'm about two-thirds of the way through, I've been trying to take it slow).
"the selfless and devoted way in which we sacrifice other people"
The Honourable Schoolboy is the second book in the Smiley (or Karla, depends on who you're talking to) Trilogy. It follows Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and is followed by Smiley's People.
And it follows pretty close on the heels of Tinker, Tailor. Which brings me to the first point I want to make. I love it when authors do what le Carre did here. Write the follow-up for an epic plot. Tinker, Tailor dealt with uncovering a mole at the highest level of the British secret service. Honourable Schoolboy deals with an agency that's struggling for respect, funding, and just basic survival in the wake of that. A good part of the book at the beginning is devoted to pointing out all the problems that were caused by having such a mole, and how difficult it is to even start to fix them once they're all found. I really believe that authors tend to skip over reconstruction too often, failing to see all the potential for drama that's there. One of the reasons I was kind of disappointed when Lirael came out was because if there had to be a sequel to Sabriel, I wanted it to be about how Sabriel and Touchstone rebuilt the Old Kingdom, not just about another terrible threat to it.
Honourable Schoolboy is about an indirect war. It's about the Circus dealing a blow to Moscow Centre by taking out one of Moscow's key men in a completely foreign country, and by that dealing a blow to all those people at home who say that the Circus is dead and should be buried.
And that completely foreign country happens to be China.
Le Carre actually did visit the locations described here, from Hong Kong to Cambodia, so the atmospherics are superb. Hell, he's even got street names for Hong Kong, you could do an "Honourable Schoolboy Walking Tour" (assuming the names weren't changed after the handover to the the Chinese).
But more than atmospherics, le Carre excels at characterization. In fact, I think his books are much more character studies than they are spy antics. While the case is important, what's more important is the kind of lives the case makes the people involved lead. And that is especially true of Honourable Schoolboy, because while much of the book is focused on the struggle of an agency to resurrect itself, even more of it is about the toll that the work to resurrect an agency exacts on an experienced fieldman- Jerry Westerby. We also get glimpses into Smiley's life, of course, and there's a significant portion from Peter Guillam's point of view (as there was in Tinker, Tailor), but this book is really Jerry's. It's about what happens when you live a lie for years, and thus really are always living alone. It's about what happens when you don't know what's really going on. It's about what happens when your priorities start to change.
The more I read of le Carre, the more I agree with the assessment that he is, in his way, a successor to Conrad. He even has Jerry reference Conrad here. But there are a few scenes in here that had a Conradian vibe, notably a dinner in an embassy where the English and Americans joke about native superstitions while there is literally a war going on a few yards from the room they're in.
Le Carre's endings also bring this point home to me. Let me just say this- that was not what I expected.
On the not as impressive side, le Carre is showing a definite tendency to include romantic/sexual relationships with age differences that squick me out. And he sometimes acknowledges the Freudian aspects, which is honest, but...ew. Thankfully, it's relationships that are much more complex than that which take the fore here (and yes, Jerry and Lizzie's relationship really is much more complex, especially towards the end).
I'm also not certain about the "relaying a history for you" tone that's taken in this one. It works, most of the time, and is a nice framing device, but it makes it seem a little like le Carre can't let the characters and events speak for themselves, when they're more than strong enough to do so. It does lead to some great bits of writing, but...it's also a little didactic.
I would probably have more coherent thoughts on it overall if I hadn't read it over about half a year (damn you, school). But it is a marvelously crafted piece of plotwork, layers peeling away like an onion, and it's an even better look into what it's like to live on "the secret road." Definitely recommended, though not quite as much as Tinker, Tailor is. The number of pages I dog-eared so that I can find significant passages again is a strong recommendation.
"the selfless and devoted way in which we sacrifice other people"
The Honourable Schoolboy is the second book in the Smiley (or Karla, depends on who you're talking to) Trilogy. It follows Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and is followed by Smiley's People.
And it follows pretty close on the heels of Tinker, Tailor. Which brings me to the first point I want to make. I love it when authors do what le Carre did here. Write the follow-up for an epic plot. Tinker, Tailor dealt with uncovering a mole at the highest level of the British secret service. Honourable Schoolboy deals with an agency that's struggling for respect, funding, and just basic survival in the wake of that. A good part of the book at the beginning is devoted to pointing out all the problems that were caused by having such a mole, and how difficult it is to even start to fix them once they're all found. I really believe that authors tend to skip over reconstruction too often, failing to see all the potential for drama that's there. One of the reasons I was kind of disappointed when Lirael came out was because if there had to be a sequel to Sabriel, I wanted it to be about how Sabriel and Touchstone rebuilt the Old Kingdom, not just about another terrible threat to it.
Honourable Schoolboy is about an indirect war. It's about the Circus dealing a blow to Moscow Centre by taking out one of Moscow's key men in a completely foreign country, and by that dealing a blow to all those people at home who say that the Circus is dead and should be buried.
And that completely foreign country happens to be China.
Le Carre actually did visit the locations described here, from Hong Kong to Cambodia, so the atmospherics are superb. Hell, he's even got street names for Hong Kong, you could do an "Honourable Schoolboy Walking Tour" (assuming the names weren't changed after the handover to the the Chinese).
But more than atmospherics, le Carre excels at characterization. In fact, I think his books are much more character studies than they are spy antics. While the case is important, what's more important is the kind of lives the case makes the people involved lead. And that is especially true of Honourable Schoolboy, because while much of the book is focused on the struggle of an agency to resurrect itself, even more of it is about the toll that the work to resurrect an agency exacts on an experienced fieldman- Jerry Westerby. We also get glimpses into Smiley's life, of course, and there's a significant portion from Peter Guillam's point of view (as there was in Tinker, Tailor), but this book is really Jerry's. It's about what happens when you live a lie for years, and thus really are always living alone. It's about what happens when you don't know what's really going on. It's about what happens when your priorities start to change.
The more I read of le Carre, the more I agree with the assessment that he is, in his way, a successor to Conrad. He even has Jerry reference Conrad here. But there are a few scenes in here that had a Conradian vibe, notably a dinner in an embassy where the English and Americans joke about native superstitions while there is literally a war going on a few yards from the room they're in.
Le Carre's endings also bring this point home to me. Let me just say this- that was not what I expected.
On the not as impressive side, le Carre is showing a definite tendency to include romantic/sexual relationships with age differences that squick me out. And he sometimes acknowledges the Freudian aspects, which is honest, but...ew. Thankfully, it's relationships that are much more complex than that which take the fore here (and yes, Jerry and Lizzie's relationship really is much more complex, especially towards the end).
I'm also not certain about the "relaying a history for you" tone that's taken in this one. It works, most of the time, and is a nice framing device, but it makes it seem a little like le Carre can't let the characters and events speak for themselves, when they're more than strong enough to do so. It does lead to some great bits of writing, but...it's also a little didactic.
I would probably have more coherent thoughts on it overall if I hadn't read it over about half a year (damn you, school). But it is a marvelously crafted piece of plotwork, layers peeling away like an onion, and it's an even better look into what it's like to live on "the secret road." Definitely recommended, though not quite as much as Tinker, Tailor is. The number of pages I dog-eared so that I can find significant passages again is a strong recommendation.