The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré

First published: 1977

Type of work: Suspense

Time of work: The early 1970’s

Locale: London, Hong Kong, Tuscany, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam

Principal Characters:

• George Smiley, the chief of the British Secret Service
• Jerry Westerby, one of Smiley’s personally recruited and developed agents
• Drake Ko, a Hong Kong millionaire who is the trustee of his beloved younger brother’s Russian gold account
• Liz Worthington, the beautiful blonde British mistress of Drake Ko
• Nelson Ko, Drake’s brother, of whose existence few are aware
• Peter Guillam, Smiley’s assistant and protege
• Connie Sachs, a Russian specialist and Secret Service archivist, previously retired but brought back to work by Smiley

The Novel

John le Carré’s novel The Honourable Schoolboy, the second in the Karla trilogy, centers on the attempts of George Smiley, chief of the British Secret Service (or the “Circus” as it is known to insiders), to restore confidence in the Service by tracking down and capturing Nelson Ko, a Chinese official long ago recruited by the Soviets. Within five years, the “Dolphin Case,” as it has come to be known, has become a legendary problem for new Circus recruits. The nostalgic and ironic tone of the novel is partially created by the narrator, who attempts to explain objectively the failure of this operation. As in a tragedy, the narrator indicates from the first that something crucial went badly awry, and le Carré’s use of foreshadowing grows as the novel moves to its climax. Even the narrator is at a loss to explain or blame anyone for the eventual tragic outcome. Although some historical facts may be ascertained, the key characters’ motives, and hence the final mystery, remain ultimately unfathomable.

The overarching plot line of le Carré’s complex novel traces the actions of George Smiley to rebuild and revitalize the British Secret Service after the defection of its chief, Bill Haydon, to Russia. Smiley must reestablish credibility both with the English Intelligence Committee (to regain funding) and with its American “Cousins,” the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Smiley and his researchers therefore backtrack through files in London to discover when, where, why, and about what Haydon had undertaken cover-up activities. In Circus lingo they are “taking a back-bearing,” determining Moscow’s priorities and knowledge gaps by discovering what information its agent Haydon most thoroughly destroyed.

When they first find and trace cover-ups of large Russian gold payments which are found in a Hong Kong trust account, Smiley sends one of his personally groomed agents, Jerry Westerby, undercover as a journalist to Hong Kong, to flush the trustee, Drake Ko, a Hong Kong millionaire. Thus, part of the operation takes place in London, while the other half is conducted in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. The ultimate goal of both facets of the operation is the same: the apprehension of Drake’s younger brother, Nelson Ko, the man the Russians believe to be worth so much gold. He is in possession of details of all of China’s military capabilities, especially those of its navy.

While Smiley, in London, is forced into an alliance with the CIA because of the British agency’s lack of funding, Westerby finds himself in an ad hoc arrangement with Asian-affairs journalists and suspects in the Orient. When the capture of Nelson Ko is about to occur, Smiley and company, with CIA representatives, journey to Hong Kong to be present at the “kill.”

The second important strand of the plot line concerns Jerry Westerby’s archetypal journey into the wilderness on a modern Arthurian quest. Set primarily in Hong Kong, Westerby’s journey takes him through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam during the last chaotic days of the American war in Vietnam. Each place he visits reinforces the sense of the decay and doom of Western civilization’s efforts in the Asian jungle. Westerby often finds himself isolated and adrift, simply waiting for orders from London and, hampered by the loss of the local intelligence networks destroyed by Haydon, unwilling to trust the few channels that remain. He finds himself in love with a fair lady—Liz Worthington, Drake Ko’s mistress—and empathizing with Drake’s love for his brother. Westerby’s movements and interviews finally precipitate the plan of escape from China for Nelson Ko, exactly as Smiley has hoped.

When cleared for return to London, however, Westerby’s own sense of honor conflicts with his vow of obedience to the British Service and Smiley, his friend and tutor. Too many “innocents” have been killed in this operation, and Westerby believes that his responsibility is to stay. His return to Hong Kong to save the distressed Liz and Drake brings about the true crisis of the novel. Westerby pays with his life, and Smiley pays with his career: He never returns to Circus headquarters. Smiley has been betrayed by a secret pact between some ambitious Parliamentary leaders in collusion with the Americans, who whisk Nelson Ko to Langley, Virginia, for the glory and honor of the CIA. Yet the Americans’ intelligence coup is offset by their failure to control events in Southeast Asia. As one disillusioned army officer, Major Masters, comments sardonically, “the United States of America has just applied to join the club of second-class powers.” The notions of honor, duty, country, and obedience are left empty and meaningless. The big bang of le Carré’s conclusion is deliberately presented as a despairing whimper.

Le Carré’s masterful blending of flashbacks and recollections, of simultaneous actions occurring in London and in Asia, and the tone and perspective of the narrator lead the reader through the myriad conspiracies with clarity and without ever breaking the strands of suspense.

The Characters

To the villagers in Tuscany, where he makes a failed attempt to write a novel, Jerry Westerby is “the schoolboy”; as the son of a titled press baron, he merits the designation “honourable”: thus the novel’s ironic, oxymoronic title. It is a title which gains in suggestive power as the action unfolds. Like a schoolboy, Westerby quite often carries a booksack, invariably stocked with works by T. E. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, and Graham Greene—all writers who knew the heart of darkness within man and the failures of romantic idealism. Westerby is a schoolboy also in the sense that he is a product of Sarratt, the Circus’ training school for field agents. Throughout the novel, Westerby is simply a “Sarratt man,” obediently carrying out orders, always reviewing in his mind what he was taught at Sarratt before taking action. His schooling covers all contingencies until the final scenes, when his sense of remorse for the deaths he has inadvertently caused conflicts with his feelings of loyalty toward Smiley.

Smiley, on the other hand, is rather professorial: eccentric, unfathomable, solitary. He appears in control of the entire operation until he learns that he has been betrayed. Ironically, Smiley does not realize the degree to which Westerby suffers precisely because their despair stems from the same root: loneliness.

In some ways, George Smiley, in his sixties, and Jerry Westerby, fifty-three, the protagonists of this novel, are both “honorable schoolboys.” Smiley, the thinker and idealist, and Westerby, the practical man of action, together define what is best in the English character. Both aspire to the love and loyalty of a woman but fail; both are loyal to their country and its Secret Service, never questioning the price paid. In addition, the two men truly care for each other.

The difference in the width and depth of their intelligences, however, and the lack of direct communication over a long, pressure-packed time period eventually create a morass of misperceptions. By the end, Smiley can no longer anticipate or understand Jerry’s actions, and Jerry cannot trust that Smiley’s directives will be carried out. Le Carré’s narrator repeatedly points out that no one ever completely understands Smiley’s inner workings, but everyone seems to assume that Jerry Westerby is easy to understand until it is too late. As in Greek tragedy, each man’s strengths eventually betray him and others.

One of le Carré’s greatest gifts is to present the reader with a world of believable and memorable minor characters. None is a stereotype or caricature. Some, like Charlie Marshall, the half-Chinese, half-Corsican ace pilot, are talked about by others but reveal themselves primarily in long monologues. Old Pat, Westerby’s third stepmother, has only one short scene, mostly in dialogue, to establish herself. Craw, the old Australian journalist and Circus agent, recalling past services for the British, appears brusque and cynical, but his underlying compassion is revealed in a scene with Phoebe Wayfarer, a neurotic, but occasionally useful, low-level agent he has trained and developed over the years. The British missionary, his daughter, and Liz Worthington’s husband and parents all reveal themselves as they speak of others.

Critical Context

The Honourable Schoolboy is the second volume of a trilogy John le Carré has written tracing the postmodern history of the British Secret Service. George Smiley, a minor character in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), became the Western world’s most famous and believable spy in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974). The Honourable Schoolboy seems to end his career, but Smiley’s People (1980) gives him one more chance to win against his rival, Karla, of the Russian KGB.

The first and third books in the trilogy form a pair: Both center on the Circus, on England, on Smiley’s quest for Karla. These elements are significant in The Honourable Schoolboy as well, but this middle book offers a different perspective. The canvas is wider; much of the action takes place in Asia, and it is not so narrowly restricted to the shadow world of espionage. The title character is not Smiley but rather Jerry Westerby. Thus, The Honourable Schoolboy anticipates le Carré’s attempt in The Little Drummer Girl (1983) to work in an entirely different milieu.

Bibliography

Ansen, David. Review in Newsweek. XC (September 26,1977), p. 84.

Binyon, T. J. Review in The Times Literary Supplement. September 9, 1977, p.1069.

Burgess, Anthony. Review in The New York Times Book Review. September 25, 1977,p. 9.

Finger, Louis. Review in New Statesman. XCIV (September 23, 1977), p.414.

James, Clive. Review in The New York Review of Books. XXIV (October 27, 1977), p.29.

Lewis, Peter. John le Carré, 1985.

Monaghan, David. The Novels of John le Carré, 1985.