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Our Man in Havana
Graham Greene's classic Cuban spy story, now with a new package and a new introduction
First published in 1959, Our Man in Havana is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire that still resonates today. Conceived as one of Graham Greene's "entertainments," it tells of MI6's man in Havana, Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesm...more
First published in 1959, Our Man in Havana is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire that still resonates today. Conceived as one of Graham Greene's "entertainments," it tells of MI6's man in Havana, Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesm...more
Paperback, 228 pages
Published
July 31st 2007
by Penguin Classics
(first published 1958)
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Uncorrected Transcript of Oral Evidence
Taken before the Intelligence and Security Committee Tuesday 15 July 1958
Members present:
Mr. Paul Anderson, in the Chair
Mr. Jonathan Blakeley
Mr. Richard Cunningham QC
Witnesses: MR. JAMES WORMOLD, O.B.E., former SIS operative in Havana, Cuba, 1955-1957; and MRS. BEATRICE WORMOLD (NEE SEVERN), formerly a secretary at the SIS headquarters.
Q1 Chairman: Mr. a...more
Uncorrected Transcript of Oral Evidence
Taken before the Intelligence and Security Committee Tuesday 15 July 1958
Members present:
Mr. Paul Anderson, in the Chair
Mr. Jonathan Blakeley
Mr. Richard Cunningham QC
Witnesses: MR. JAMES WORMOLD, O.B.E., former SIS operative in Havana, Cuba, 1955-1957; and MRS. BEATRICE WORMOLD (NEE SEVERN), formerly a secretary at the SIS headquarters.
Q1 Chairman: Mr. a...more
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A well-written, perfectly plotted, political, prescient "entertainment" that, while reading, I didn't feel at all the implausibility of the recruitment by the British Secret Service of a vacuum-cleaner salesman living in Cuba or that of the courting of his Catholic teenage daughter by a Cuban policeman/enforcer. The humor in the dialogue and elsewhere is dry and funny in a-wink-and-a-nod kind of way.
I had disliked the similes in the otherwise-wonderful The Human Factor, wh...more
I had disliked the similes in the otherwise-wonderful The Human Factor, wh...more
Admittedly, I hadn't finished the book yet at the time I wrote the below -- I was about halfway through -- but since I've seen the movie, I feel confident enough to extrapolate. Barring, of course, one of those Sense and Sensibility "Willoughby's back -- and he's DRUNK?!" surprises. Somehow I don't think ol' Graham is the type.
And it's a crying shame I'll probably never get to see the movie again. It was a particularly good one, and now that I've found the book is particula...more
And it's a crying shame I'll probably never get to see the movie again. It was a particularly good one, and now that I've found the book is particula...more
Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana is a delightful farce that manages to be serious and laugh out loud funny at the same time. It follows the unfortunate Wormold, a British vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana whose shortage of funds finds him willing to accept an offer to join the British Intelligence Service. As a generally inept and careless person, he can do any actual spying, so he ends up sending fake reports back to London so that he can use his expense fund to pay for his daughter's many exp...more
Given the supposed military intelligence that led to the war in Iraq, it's tempting to look to books such as "Our Man in Havana," Graham Greene's comic spy novel about the Cold War, for parallels to our current situation. (In the book, drawings of pieces of a household vacuum cleaner are passed off as schematics for sophisticated weaponry.) Rather than there being any direct correlation, however, it brings more to mind that quote sometimes attributed to Mark Twain about how history may...more
When my fiance answered my request for mystery thrillers by returning from the library with both The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith and Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene, I was extremely surprised. Before this, my only previous experience with Greene's work was The Quiet American, which I didn't particularly care for, or find remotely thrilling. And indeed, at first Our Man in Havana seemed like another dense and soporific Greene tale of Western men who have inscruta...more
Graham Greene is such a good writer. Even in this book, clearly one of his "entertainments," where he starts out so much in the tone of a spoof, he just does not waste words. Within a few pages while Mr Wormold is being recruited for an English spy, in Havana, (profession: unsuccessful vacuum cleaner salesman); in those few pages the reader has the physical description and make-up of three or four major characters, the setting in Havana and the unsettled feeling that Mr Wormold is head...more
By now, I should have learned to behave like a “serious adult”. I should check the cryptic acronyms and arrows of the stock market; I should concentrate my senses and intellect on analyses of our complicated modern world; I should approach daily life with a stoic manner of a network newsman or Roman senator.
And yet I’m drawn to books like Our Man in Havana. Books that seem to titter in a Puckish tone: “lord what fools these mortals be!” Books that create a cast of tightly-wound charac...more
And yet I’m drawn to books like Our Man in Havana. Books that seem to titter in a Puckish tone: “lord what fools these mortals be!” Books that create a cast of tightly-wound charac...more
Aside from my continually enjoyable romp through Graham Greene's "entertainments" (how did I miss out on Greene for so many years?) I decided to read Alan Furst's Top 5 Spy Books of All Time. OMIH comes in at #1. Here's what Furst has to say about it:
Graham Greene’s work must be included in any survey of top-rank spy novels, and “Our Man in Havana” may be his best. The problem here is Hollywood: Just as you can’t read Greene’s “The Third Man” without thinking of Orson Wel...more
Graham Greene’s work must be included in any survey of top-rank spy novels, and “Our Man in Havana” may be his best. The problem here is Hollywood: Just as you can’t read Greene’s “The Third Man” without thinking of Orson Wel...more
Mr. James Wormold lives in Cuba (before Castro took over) during the Cold War. He is a vacuum cleaner salesman who is moderately unhappy and not especially successful, though he does make enough to keep himself and his daughter afloat. Then he is approached by an agent of the British Intelligence Service and, before he really knows what is happening, finds himself recruited as a spy. He dutifully accepts the job; then he realizes that the British Intelligence Service actually wants information. ...more
Jim Wormold has a teenage daughter, Milly, who spends money he hasn’t got. Hawthorne approaches him with a solution too tempting to pass up. However, Wormold is better at finding banana skins than secrets.
Jim Wormold was divorced by Mary because of his indecision and dithering. He was left to raise their daughter Milly, who has learnt to capitalise on her father’s indecisive nature and buys what he cannot really afford. His inability to say no also eventually leads him to accept ...more
Jim Wormold was divorced by Mary because of his indecision and dithering. He was left to raise their daughter Milly, who has learnt to capitalise on her father’s indecisive nature and buys what he cannot really afford. His inability to say no also eventually leads him to accept ...more
Jim Wormold est un paisible vendeur d'aspirateurs de La Havane, en cette période de Guerre froide et de début de la révolution castriste.
Et Wormold a un problème : sa fille, Milly, qu'il adore, est à la fois catholique et extrêmement dépensière au regard des modestes revenus de son père.
Aussi quand on propose à Wormold de devenir agent des Services secrets britanniques, il y voit surtout l'opportunité de revenus rapides.
Et comme l'espionnage ne le passionne...more
Et Wormold a un problème : sa fille, Milly, qu'il adore, est à la fois catholique et extrêmement dépensière au regard des modestes revenus de son père.
Aussi quand on propose à Wormold de devenir agent des Services secrets britanniques, il y voit surtout l'opportunité de revenus rapides.
Et comme l'espionnage ne le passionne...more
Acquired this for free at some time or another. Picked it up after judging it by its cover. Very hip 1960 edition with goofy illustration and shady looking spy-type on the cover. I was expecting a great read, and that's what I got! The binding was about to fall apart, but it held up for a 3 day binge read in which I couldn't put it down. It doesn't read so much like a novel as it does a play. Lots of quick, smart dialogue and a fast-paced plot. Feels considerably different than the short ...more
I really enjoyed this book. I had read it previously some time ago & wanted to revisit to see if I still liked it as much. I really like Graham Greene's novels in general. This one falls into the category of an 'entertainment' and has a lot of elements of a comedy of errors. Written in 1958 some of the language jars a little now - specifically the n-word. I don't remember noticing this the first time round and I think it's indicative of how social mores change over time. Greene's writing surpass...more
This farce holds the same canny and clever delight as the Pink Panther, Dr. Strangelove and The Comedy of Errors, with dialogue and pacing to which David Mamet is clearly indebted. I could almost see the smoke from Graham Greene's typewriter keys swirling in the air as he tore through sheets of erasable bond, churning out this crazy, wonderful and utterly a propos satire of spies.
It's the mid 1950's when we meet our man, Jim Wormold, a milquetoast British expatriate who moved to Hava...more
It's the mid 1950's when we meet our man, Jim Wormold, a milquetoast British expatriate who moved to Hava...more
It is fascinating how many people can write reviews of the same book and apparently have read an entirely different text. Graham Greene’s novels are especially prone to this phenomenon, particularly the ones with a political theme such as Our Man in Havana and The Quiet American.
It is surely the sign of a good story that we each read in it what we need through the filter of our experience. This generation can compare Wormald’s vacuum cleaner diagrams with the recently bombed powder ...more
It is surely the sign of a good story that we each read in it what we need through the filter of our experience. This generation can compare Wormald’s vacuum cleaner diagrams with the recently bombed powder ...more
This Graham Greene classic tells the story of Jim Wormold, who sells vacuum cleaners in pre-Castro Havana. He's a simple man, struggling to support a materialistic teenage daughter on his own. When the British Secret Service approaches him about being their "man in Havana", he can't turn down the extra cash. But he's also incapable of doing what they ask. Jim muddles through being a spy the best way he can, but one lie leads to another and suddenly his whole world is endangered.
...more
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In this comedic espionage story, Mr. Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana, is inexplicably hired by MI6 to keep tabs on events in Cuba. Batista is still in charge of the island, but communist rebels are rumored to be in the mountains. Upon the advice of a friend, Wormold makes up phantom agents, and pockets the money the government sends him to pay the fictional agents. However, when his made up reports get into the wrong hands, people who resemble his phantom agents, along with Wormo...more
So alarmingly funny. Why do we enjoy the rise, fall and redemption of the piddling spirit of Mr. Wormold? Because it's precisely that sort of sloshing simpleness we want to be the most indomitable of all types of man, because those persons are vulnerable to only one sort of greatness: love.
'You should dream more, Mr. Wormold. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.' [10:]
'You can't love and be as confident as he was. If you love you are afraid of losing ...more
'You should dream more, Mr. Wormold. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.' [10:]
'You can't love and be as confident as he was. If you love you are afraid of losing ...more
Our Man In Havana is a farce set in Cuba during the Cold War. The central character is a shonky character who lucks into the spy business. He uses his wits and guile to stumble through the dangerous world of spies. Graham Green doesn't want to over do the comic aspect of the story, funny as they are. It's more an examination of a shifty character skirting around the moral ambiguity in spying. Even a "good" spy is breaking some moral codes. The spy here is a very bad one, but not for th...more
A fun read from a wonderful novelist. This is easily the funniest of Greene's books that I've read, the plot reading like something out of a middle-aged man's fantastical nightmares: the British government recruits a Havana vacuum salesman to spy for them, even though he knows nothing about espionage. Greene uses this fun idea for a plot not only to mine a few laughs, but to level the boom at Cold War governments pursuing every shred of mysterious information with reckless abandon--no matter the...more
Similar to The Comedians but less good. The characters are a bit deeper than the caricatures that are Brown, Smith, and Jones, but I somehow like Brown, Smith and Jones more. The setting is very similar, but Greene spends more time developing and describing Haiti than Cuba, which is disappointing. The main draw of Our Man in Havana is its deftly woven spy story. Wormold starts as a vacuum cleaner salesman with no interest in espionage, and he's initially quite unwilling to take on the assign...more
Jennifer
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
vacuum-cleaner salesmen, whisky bottle collectors
I stumbled upon a list of the Top Five Spy Novels of all time (Wall Street Journal) and this book was number one. I've enjoyed other Greene books, so was compelled to read this one immediately. It is simultaneously hilarious, dark, and intelligent with a dash of light romance. If your dad happens to work in a vacuum cleaner shop--as mine does, and as does the hapless titular protagonist--it's even funnier. It manages to satirize the spy novel genre while at the same time creating a real mood...more
I am loathe to disagree with Christopher Hitchens, who wrote the introduction to this book, but as difficult as it is to denounce the opinion of a man who most certainly knows better than me -- I'll do it.
Our Man in Havana centres around British expatriate and vacuum salesman Mr Wormold - seldom referred to as Jim, even his nearest and dearest. Struggling to care for his 17 year-old, devout Catholic daughter, Wormold is head-hunted by the British secret service. In order to maximize ...more
Our Man in Havana centres around British expatriate and vacuum salesman Mr Wormold - seldom referred to as Jim, even his nearest and dearest. Struggling to care for his 17 year-old, devout Catholic daughter, Wormold is head-hunted by the British secret service. In order to maximize ...more
Like many part-time nihilists, I am occasionally prone to catch myself in the act of despising a thing or person of beauty for no other reason other than that the accursed artefact is beautiful. While it could be argued it is in many cases quite reasonable to disdain something because of the company of adjectives it keeps, I find on those occasions of malevolence, I usually wonder how odd it is that beauty is one of these mots dangereux.
There are noticeably two side effects of my irra...more
There are noticeably two side effects of my irra...more
Our Man in Havana is about an average man who finds himself suddenly, and accidentally, a secret agent.
The story is often entertainingly absurd, yet rooted in a realistic and believable enough world to implicitly comment about how that very absurdity is a feasible product of non-fictional (and potentially dangerous) reality. The absurdity can result in serious consequences. A primary theme appears to how mere belief in something can, by a chain of assumed and real causes, make it ...more
The story is often entertainingly absurd, yet rooted in a realistic and believable enough world to implicitly comment about how that very absurdity is a feasible product of non-fictional (and potentially dangerous) reality. The absurdity can result in serious consequences. A primary theme appears to how mere belief in something can, by a chain of assumed and real causes, make it ...more
Nicholas Kristof, one of my favorite NYT op/ed writers, created a list of summer reading on themes related to social justice, and this book was on it. I went through a brief Graham Greene stage a number of years ago - Quiet American, Power and Glory - and really liked him. It was nice to revisit. This book has many of the same themes as A Quiet American - cultural ignorance, the arrogance of power, individual vs institution - but with more absurdist overtones. The tale is of a vacuum salesma...more
Good read. Sort of a police/detective/spy novel. Greene pokes fun at the world of spies and at the genre of detective/spy writing.
Wormold, a British vacuum cleaner salesman in the Havana of the 1950s, somehow gets tangled up with the British secret service as a spy. Instead of performing his job as a spy, he decides to make up his own stories which he then transmits to the secret service. The British decide he needs reinforcement because they suspect something big is about to happen in Cu...more
Wormold, a British vacuum cleaner salesman in the Havana of the 1950s, somehow gets tangled up with the British secret service as a spy. Instead of performing his job as a spy, he decides to make up his own stories which he then transmits to the secret service. The British decide he needs reinforcement because they suspect something big is about to happen in Cu...more
Greene is pretty entertaining, and his books fly by because they're typically very short. This one is about a mild-mannered shop owner in 1950's Havana (on the eve of revolution) who's recruited by MI6 to build a team of agents and provide London with info on what's going on in Havana. He has no idea how to recruit real agents, so he just makes them up - falsifies an entire network of agents and send phony reports to his spymaster. Funny thing is, it works for a while - he gets to pocket mone...more
I've been trying to read a chunk of Graham Greene over the last year, and this is the third novel I've finished in that span. Like Travels with My Aunt, Our Man in Havana is one of what Greene called his 'entertainments', as opposed to a literary novel. And it is certainly entertaining! In the introduction to the Vintage Classic version that I read, Christopher Hitchens explains that this novel came out before any of Ian Fleming's Bond stories. Greene's protagonist is a spy who – unlike Bond – d...more
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Graham Greene was an English novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenplay writer, travel writer and critic whose works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world. Greene combined serious literary acclaim with wide popularity.
Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a “Catholic novelist” rather than as a “novelist who happened to be Cath...more
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“I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations...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?”
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“Christmas it seems to me is a necessary festival; we require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our human relationships: it is the feast of failure, sad but consoling.”
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