2019/35: The Honourable Schoolboy -- John Le Carré

Yet it’s not for want of a future that I’m here, he thought. It’s for want of a present. [p. 577]

A long and complex novel which I will summarise very briefly: Smiley's team investigate Soviet money laundering in Vietnam and Hong Kong near the end of the Vietnam War. Likeable journalist / spy Jerry Westerby is sent to Hong Kong to track down the recipient of Soviet funds, a businessman named Ko; falls for Ko's beautiful girlfriend Lizzie Worthington; unravels some opium-smuggling which might implicate a competing faction in the Circus (the British espionage establishment); but is not successful at balancing his emotions, his mission, and the intelligence provided to him.

On one level I enjoyed this a lot: Jerry's adventures in Vietnam were gripping reading, and Le Carré's prose -- especially his descriptive passages -- is as addictive as ever. But I did find myself losing track of the story, and of who knew what key fact at which point. Poor Lizzie, the world's worst intelligence agent, felt like a pawn in a greater Game -- and so did Jerry, who was far too honourable for Smiley's purposes.

Smiley himself, who I find hard to warm to as a character, is nevertheless still fearsomely competent, bland and polite and steel-spined. As is the authorial voice, intervening to note salient points: to tell us why some scene is important, to foreshadow grim developments in flatly unsentimental language. 'The last they saw of each other, in any mutual sense ...' [loc. 504] It is a measured novel, despite the action scenes: and it took me over a week to read, which may be why I struggled with retaining key details.