Underestimated

The Honourable Schoolboy is a long, complex novel. Positioned between Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People, it’s often underrated, unjustly so. Despite its length and slow pace, it deserves to be seen as one of le Carré’s most important works.
The plot is obscured and remains unclear for a long time. As a reader, like the characters, you have to piece things together yourself. Le Carré shows how slow and difficult real intelligence work is, with no sudden breakthroughs, just weeks of digging through archives, following dead ends, and eventually stumbling upon something without even being sure what it is.
The structure, balancing the political manoeuvring in London with Westerby’s field mission in Asia, works well. The interplay between these two perspectives gives the book depth. Smiley stays mostly in the background, which sets this novel apart from the others in the trilogy.
The style is notable, with lots of dialogue, little exposition, and fragmented prose. It requires attention, making it more challenging than Tinker Tailor, but in some ways also richer.
Le Carré doesn’t write heroes. All characters are flawed or morally ambiguous. Westerby is ultimately driven more by personal motives than duty. Smiley, as always, is caught between humanity and the interests of the service.
The book could easily have been 100 pages shorter, as some sections add little and could have been trimmed.

4,5 stars