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.

George Smiley

George Smiley, a veteran of the British intelligence services who is assigned to rebuilding spy networks after the exposure of Bill Haydon, a “mole” working for the Russians. Haydon has compromised British agents all over the world, and Smiley’s job is to unravel Haydon’s treachery and rebuild the confidence not only of his government but also of the Americans—or, as the British call them, “the cousins”—who are reluctant...