Our Man in Havana (Vintage Classics)

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Our Man in Havana is a satirical novel about the absurdities of espionage and in particular the problems caused when fabrication of intelligence by sources meets uncritical evaluation in intelligence agencies.

And then things get even worse as real people with the same names as Wormold’s fictitious agents start dying. Despite the murders, this is a very funny book! Dry humor, but really good! I especially liked the scenes where Wormold went to warn a couple of ‘agents’, their lives might be in danger. Greene was superb. Mr. Wormold: I ran a vacuum cleaner shop, sir. We carry the finest, most modern machines such as the Atomic Pile Suction Cleaner, the Midget Make-Easy Air Powered Suction Small Home Cleaner and the Turbo, which is the no. 1 brand in Cuba for four years running. We are Phastkleaners’ sole agent for the whole of Cuba. The title uses a classic title archetype, the Protagonist, being a reference to Wormold, who MI6 think is ‘their man in Havana’. Savidge Reads (24 October 2010): Our Man in Havana – Graham Greene – Review by Simon Savidge. Retrieved 2011-08-31 It’s the 1950s. James Wormold is a British vacuum cleaner salesman in Cuba, who can’t say no to his beautiful but wilful daughter, Milly. Her extravagances are driving him to bankruptcy, so, when an MI6 agent, Hawthorne, approaches him with an offer of spy work, he accepts and receives the code name 59200/5.

Paula James

Well pleased with their man in Havana, these rajahs decide to expand his operation and to send over a secretary and a radio operator to Wormold, threatening his carefully build yet teetering house of cards. This is the funniest novel by Graham Greene that I have read so far. He has a great sense of timing in witty repartee and in screwball situations, but the major note of the story is satirical. These barbed arrows are aimed directly at the secret services of various nations engaged in the Cold War and in particular at the British spies, of which secret organizations the author was himself a member. So I can trust him that he knows what he is talking about when he exposes the incompetence, the arrogance and the self delusions that resulted in so many internal scandals. Mrs. Wormold: Let’s just say that if you have any trouble with your fuse box at home, you can give me a call. Milly is a good/bad adolescent girl who is a staunch Catholic on one hand and can be a bit of a "tart" on the other. I simply have to recommend this book to fans of John Le Carre's style of thrillers. There are no fancy gadgets, car chases, femme fatales but you get a good story and some fine writing.

Wormold is a lot like Henry Scobie in Greene's The Heart of the Matter. He is a middle aged man who does not know what he is to do with the rest of his life. How will he go on? How will he fund the exorbitant lifestyle of his Catholic daughter Milly? He drifts through life, drinking daiquiris with another dejected British expatriate Dr. Hasselbacher at Havana's numerous bars. But when he is assigned the job of a spy by Hawthorne ( the British intelligence agent who arrives as a customer at Wormold's shop), there is something to do. He begins to make money. He makes up fake events and people in his dispatches to the intelligence agency. But then his dispatches begin to come true. What do you mean prove? Of course I exist. I’ve got a first-class business in real estate: a wife and a couple of kids in Miami: I flew here this morning by Delta: I’m drinking this Scotch, aren’t I?” Patriotic Englishman. Been here for years. Respected member of the European Traders’ Association. We must have our man in Havana, you know. Submarines need fuel. Dictators drift together. Big ones draw in the little ones." Robert Royal (November 1999). "The (Mis)Guided Dream of Graham Greene". First Things . Retrieved 2 June 2010.Very soon the little fraud by Wormold escalates in to something dangerous and people start dying. Betrayal, deception, subterfuge, greed, confusion, manipulation - the elements have so nicely used by the author. There is a scene -involving a certain man and his "lady" problems which was actually hilarious.

I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organisations ... I don't think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren't there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?" So: Wormold is a bad vacuum-cleaner salesman as spy. But he’s not quite a spy. And Lamb’s Tales of Shakespeare is not really quite Shakespeare. The lust that Chief of Police Segura has for Millie is not quite love. The truths in Havana emerge out of shadows. We or they can’t always tell the real from the artificial. These twists and turns make their way into turns of phrase, told in the form of oxymoronic ironies and contradictions: Greene’s Catholicism is fairly tangential in this one, but there are a few in jokes. Wormold is a non-believer, but his daughter says her novenas to get a horse. She also tells her father that he doesn’t need to become a Catholic as he is already “invincibly ignorant”. One of Wormold’s friends Dr Hasselbacher has the following exchange with a stray American in a bar, they are talking about the next day’s lottery which Hasselbacher imagines he has already won: I loved this book. It’s a pleasure to read, and parts of it are just hilarious. Our Man in Havana: The Movie

Our Man in Havana: Title

The revolutionary government of Cuba allowed the film version of Our Man in Havana to be filmed in the Cuban capital, but Fidel Castro complained that the novel did not accurately portray the brutality of the Batista regime. The score is geographically two-tone – mambo and rumba rhythms for locals, such as the twice-reprised The Streets of Havana – and Noël Cowardly recitative and patter for Nigel Lister’s imperfect spy James Wormold. As Milly, the teenager whose shopping and equestrian bills lead her divorced father to trade falsehoods, Daniella Agredo Piper appropriately moves between the musical dual nationalities. Our Man in Havana was written in 1958, and set in Cuba before the missile crisis of 1962. In some ways the book feels very reminiscent of spy stories dating from World War II, and in others, such as the parts of the plot about missile installations, it seems to anticipate coming events. Chairman: I think that I can speak for this Committee --- on the balance, Mr. and Mrs. Wormold’s actions had brought us more benefits than disadvantages, although it must be said that we have some concerns about the sheer amount of invention that was involved. But such is the nature of intelligence work. It is in our national interest that we concur with the conclusion of the SIS’ internal inquiry: Mr. Wormold deserves his O.B.E., and Mrs. Wormold does not deserve to be sent to Jakarta. Our Man in Havana’ is very well written as you would expect from Graham Greene and is certainly very entertaining, very funny throughout. The plot is ostensibly based on the farcical premise of an English vacuum cleaner salesman stationed in a pre-revolutionary Havana, being recruited by the British Secret Service, leading to the subsequent ‘reports’ and ‘actions’ that he takes in fulfilling his new espionage role. As such, the story often has very much the feel of a traditional farce to it – albeit an intelligent and very funny one and one contains many elements in it that feel to the reader almost feasible, almost believable!

The edition I got from my library contained an introduction by Christopher Hitchens. Reading this introduction I got some insights about the author and how his childhood and beliefs influenced his works. Hitchens also says that John Le Carre had been influenced by Greene. Q13 Chairman: Since you seem to be exceedingly eager to speak, Mrs. Wormold, let’s commence with your part. Who sent you to Havana?Mrs. Wormold: Actually, those were the drawings of the parts of the Atomic Pile Suction vacuum cleaner. My favorite moment in the story comes when Wormold, busily inventing actions for his fictitious sub-agents to get up to, muses on the creative process: We understand that some audience members may feel more comfortable attending a performance with more space between themselves and other audience members, so we are pleased to offer socially distanced performances for OUR MAN IN HAVANA. Audience members will be required to wear a face covering (unless exempt) when attending a socially distanced performance.