Our Man in Havana: An Entertainment (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)

This is perhaps the most enjoyable Graham Greene novel I have yet read. Greene dubs it one of his "Entertainments" and it certainly IS entertaining. I am a huge Ian Fleming fan and Greene covers some of the same territory here: British spies in exotic locales. In fact, both Fleming and Greene worked for the British Secret Service around the same time. However, whereas Fleming is sympathetic to the Secret Service, Greene is more severe. The story concerns a vacuum-cleaner salesman in Cuba named Wormold. One day, he meets a very eccentric man from MI6 who wants Wormold to be Britain's man in Havana. Wormold takes the job in order to get money for his daughter. However, he is not very adept at being a spy, so he starts making up the reports...which suddenly begin to come true. Greene portrays the British Secret Service as a bunch of fools who are ready to believe whatever Wormold tells them. It is a typical Greene story in that it deals with the moral ambiguities of life and it has an extremely flawed hero. This is one of the best spy novels I've ever read.

I first read this book several years ago when it was titled "The Tailor Of Panama" and written by John le Carré. I finally realize why I enjoyed that earlier book so, in that le Carré modeled the work so directly (and with proper acknowledgement) on this 1958 masterpiece.Le Carré's effort isn't bad, but its often-maudlin tone detracts from the humor of the situation. Not so Greene, who subtitled his book "An Entertainment" and meant it. He doesn't waive all suspense and tragic overtones in search of punchlines; one of the chief joys of this book is how well it works as a spy novel. But unlike heavier Greene works like "The Power And The Glory," "Our Man" plays in a kind of high-adventure, almost Ian Fleming kind of way.Greene's novel concerns a struggling British vacuum salesman living in Cuba, Jim Wormold, recruited by U.K. espionage to provide intelligence on the local scene as it becomes a hot spot in East-West relations. Wormold can't resist their money, but decides that instead of giving honest information, he will make up stories with the "assistance" of a stable of recruited agents he invents on the spot."Just lie and keep your freedom," advises Wormold's best friend, an old German doctor with a mysterious background named Hasselbacher. "They don't deserve the truth...They have no money, except what they take from men like you and me."So Wormold does exactly that, for the benefit of his blossoming daughter, the flower of his heart whose faith in him and God he seeks to preserve though he doesn't share either belief. The result is a tangle of tall tales about alcoholic pilots and Mata Hari (...) he basically makes up as he goes along.At one point, he wonders whether he pushed his luck when he presents the plans for one of his vacuum cleaner models as a secret Soviet base, but he's hopelessly addicted to his fiction almost as much for the pleasure of creation as for the financial reward: "It astonished Wormold how quickly he could reply to any questions about his characters; they seemed to live on the threshold of consciousness - he had only to turn on a light and there they were, frozen in some characteristic action."Wormold is playing a dangerous game; in addition to snookering his own country, he is also attracting the notice both of the rival camp and the Havana police in the intimidating person of Captain Segura, a rumored torturer who covets Wormold's daughter. But in oddly detached fashion, perhaps because his life lost much of its purpose when his wife left him years ago, Wormold improvises his way through with cosmic aplomb.There is a deeper meaning to this book, based on Greene's belief that neither East nor West deserved any special allegiance during the Cold War. One character puts it this way: "They haven't left us much to believe, have they? Even disbelief. I can't believe in anything bigger than a home, or anything vaguer than a human being."It's possible to take issue with Greene's value-neutral attitude, but his execution is

This 1958 novel was a complete surprise to me. I'd read three books by this author before and found them dark and introspective. But "Our Man in Havana" is a satirical spoof and I found myself giggling throughout. It deals with a theme that Greene has revisited on many occasions - that of a spy in a foreign country. But this time, it's all in fun, although between the 220 pages of this slim volume, he manages to say a few important things about social class, the Catholic Church, and the absurdity of international relations.The hero of the story is Jim Wormold, a divorced vacuum cleaner salesman from England in pre-Castro Cuba. His 17-year-old daughter is growing up fast and he finds he needs money. So when the British Secret Service recruits him, he invents a whole world of secret agents and intrigues just to keep the money flowing. He is even sent a secretary, which introduces a bit of romance to the outrageous plot. All of a sudden, the lies he has invented seem to be coming true and the plot thickens, moving along at a breakneck pace. I was totally involved, and found myself laughing out loud at times. What a delightful read! Highly recommended.

In this novel, set in Cuba in the days before Castro, Mr Greene is at his most ironic. He tells the tale of Jim Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman who lives quietly in Havana and worries about his devoutly Catholic teenage daughter whom he is raising as a single parent. He is unexpectedly recruited, in a public toilet, by the British Secret Service to "keep an eye on things" in Cuba. When no obvious "things" present themselves, Wormold decides to invent agents and situations to pad his reports. But then things start to go wrong and reality begins to mirror fiction.Graham Greene captures the sleepy, sensual heat of the Caribbean perfectly. His characters are extraordinarily vividly painted and the book lurches wildly from comedy to tragedy to farce, damning the bureaucrats, the police and the sinister, grey men of the secret services along the way. With The Comedians and Brighton Rock this must surely rank as one of Mr Greene's best entertainments.

If you've got Scotch miniatures at home, you are bound to be reminded of this book pretty often.This is one of Greene's lightest, but best novels.Brilliantly crafted characters and a fabulous storyline make this a joy to read. The unworldy air of the events and a grand climax grips the Greene fan and the uninitiated alike.The conflict present in Greene's characters is present here as well -Wormold,the vacuum-cleaner seller cum spy struggles to keep his life in check and conscience within bounds. Greene himself was an MI-6 agent.Is he trying to put across something about MI-6 or the secret services in general?Apparently Greene once acknowledged this fact. A must-read.