Our Man in Havana (Penguin Classics) | Graham Greene | Entertainment but biting entertainment

Our Man in Havana (Penguin Classics) | Graham Greene | Amusing

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Our Man in Havana ...

	Our Man in Havana (Penguin Classics) Graham Greene Penguin Classics, 2007 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 64 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Entertainment but biting entertainment

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.

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Amusing

Amusing This is really a funny book to read. Greene makes light of spying during the cold war. Wormold a vacuum cleaner dealer is recruited as a spy for a British secret - organisation in Cuba. He invents all his information to keep the government money coming for his daughter who has expensive wishes. Wormold turns in drawings of vacuum cleaner parts as part of an imaginary secret installation in Cuba and invents agents that all have to be paid. During the whole story nobody remarks, that he is all the time telling lies and still at the end as they know it, they can't do anything because he would show off the secret-agency. Good stuff!

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A very funny story

Wormold is only a normal trader in Havanna and he sells vacuum cleaners. Suddenly, he becomes a British agent. But I think, Wormold is not a real agent at the beginning and often it is very funny, when he writes false reports to London, like the drawings from one of his the vacuum cleaners. The text ridicules the British secret service. The book isn't like a "James Bond movie", Wormold is not the real agent, he only take the money he is offered by the secret service, but he does not help much. Still he has to defend himself at the end of the story when his life is at stake. It's a good comedy, and it is very interesting to read this book. I can recommend it to people who like to read amusing stories

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Highly intelligent humor

Very funny, smart and good writing style. A masterpiece of saying more with fewer words. Wish I could write even a quarter as good.

Like a guy I know

I read this book lying on a beach in Mallorca over the course of two days. It's an easy and amusing read. I liked the main character Wormold. He's so laid back and lets events overtake him and take control of his life. Not unlike a few real life characters I know! Anyone who can "fall" into the role of a secret service agent and then believe he can fool them with plans of vacuum cleaner instead of a weapon is clearly off his head. What makes the character funnier is that he thinks that he will get away with it and it is an earnest attempt to fool them that he is doing something meaningful. There is nothing sinister in his deception - just a naive desire to please and get by in life as quietly as possible. As you will find out in this book, the quiet life is something that he fails to achieve.

The only reason why it doesn't score 5 points is that it's a bit light weight. It's over all to soon. - Perfect for the beach though.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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