Title: Incredibly dull book by an incredibly good author
Product review: I love John Le Carré's writing. "Smiley's People" has gone on my list of all-time favorite books. So I snatched up "The Honourable Schoolboy" eagerly at the library, plunged into it, and ran out of steam about a third of the way into it. Jerry Westerby's quest all over East Asia for not even he knew what and his bull-headed stupidity all the way through bored and frustrated me. I loved the sections about George Smiley's slow, careful investigation in England, but the writing style that worked so well in the England sections just got boring in Hong Kong and Laos. Le Carré said he wished he'd kept Smiley out of the book because he detracted attention away from the main character, Westerby. That's only because Westerby, after a promising beginning, became such a dull and muddy-mettled wanderer that I longed for him to go away and for fascinating, clever Smiley to come back.Thus far this is the only Le Carré book I have not enjoyed.
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