I like this protagonist more but I still want Katya to kick him in the balls

Actually, the afterword on The Russia House about le Carré being followed around Gorbachev's Moscow on his first post-Communist trip in 87 is the funniest and most memorable thing I've read by him so far (though admittedly much less thrilling than his novels).

There's a great opportunity for humor there that in his fiction is usually only visible at its darkest, but one shouldn't forget that most of the time it's more The Death of Stalin than Smiley's People.

my earnest hope is that the entire remainder of my existence will be one round of unruffled monotony

‘This’ll last you, what? I mean, you won’t need any more excitement for months and months and months.’

‘Mr Wooster, my earnest hope is that the entire remainder of my existence will be one round of unruffled monotony. To-night I have seemed to sense the underlying horror of life.’

—PG Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves