Written in 1958, Our Man in Havana is a secret service comedy based on Greene's own stint with MI6 in West Africa. Set against the absurdities of the Cold War, it tells the blackly comic tale of Jim Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman recruited into the Secret Service. Needing money but having no real information to offer, Wormold lets his imagination run wild, claiming expenses for fictional agents and sending false drawings of non-existent secret installations (based on parts of a dismantled vacuum cleaner!). However Wormold's scheme unravels with darkly humorous consequences when MI6 and other agencies start taking his activities seriously. Our Man in Havana was originally intended as a screenplay but permission was denied from the censors, who stuffily informed him that any play poking fun at the work of the Secret Service was damn unpatriotic.
Like his other, earlier comedies and thrillers, Our Man in Havana always took second place in Green's own mind to his later 'catholic' novels. That's probably true. While Our Man in Havana was good, blackly comic in places and an enjoyable read, it wasn't especially memorable. Our Man in Havana is the only Greene novel I'd read so far but my Dad, who went through a Graham Greene phase when he was in sixth form, reliably informs me that his other novels have a much greater impact.
Read On Other novels by Greene include The Heart of the Matter, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory and The Human Factor
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