A new BBC adaptation of a John Le Carré spy thriller – the first by the corporation for nearly 30 years – will be the “most radical ever done”, according to the author’s son. Featuring George Smiley, The Honourable Schoolboy is the second installment in the renowned Karla Trilogy, the follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which was the inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Gary Oldman as George Smiley, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy. In 1977, the book won the Gold Dagger award for the best crime novel of the year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Hong Kong, the one remaining colony, is the only forward base of operations left. P. G. Wodehouse was a very advanced case of arrested development. The Honourable Schoolboy makes a great show of being realistic about Britain’s plight and the consequently restricted scope of Circus activities. The Honourable Schoolboy, second in the Karla Trilogy, coming after Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and before Smiley's People, is all a More, I nominate The Honourable Schoolboy as the best spy novel ever written, and the author himself doesn't put it in his top four. Smiley's People, originally published in 1979, is the third and final novel of John le Carré's Karla trilogy, following Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy. Sadly they skipped over 'The Honourable Schoolboy' arguably the most exciting of the three. Among the agents sent East to "shake the tree" is the aging honourable schoolboy, Jerry Westerby, called in from pasture in Italy to assume his convenient cover—hack journalist ("Seven-day coverage, wars to tit-shows") for the London rag that his father founded. His investigation leads to an old nemesis, the Soviet spymaster known only as "Karla". Although this novel is technically superb, in my opinion it is a little too long and lacks some of the drive and tension of the other books in this series. George Smiley must reconstruct an intelligence service in order to run a successful offensive espionage operation to save the service from being dismantled by the government. The Honorable Schoolboy. About The Honourable Schoolboy. With Alec Guinness, Eileen Atkins, Bill Paterson, Vladek Sheybal. I found Eileen Atkins' Ostrakova to be wildly miscast, physically, but masterfully acted, so … Schoolboy has begun to recede within the Smiley canon. Not as far back as, say, The Looking Glass War, but it is often overlooked. There is no money to spend. Find out when The Complete Smiley: The Honourable Schoolboy is on TV, including Episode 1. The Honourable Schoolboy (1977) is a spy novel by John le Carré. 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