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Product Reviews:
Our Man in Havana: An Entertainment (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: A Comedy of Errors
Comments: Graham Green is a masterful storyteller, and many of his novels are still as fresh and interesting as when they were 1st written, in many cases more than a half a century ago. He has drawn on his extensive experience as a World-traveling journalist and his time working for the British Foreign Service. This particular novel takes place in pre-revolutionary Cuba, when a lot of different interests were clashing on this Caribbean island. Havana of the time was a bustling city with a lot of international residents.1of them, a divorced Englishman with a teenage daughter, works as a vacuum-cleaner salesman. The business is not going all too well, and he is contemplating how he will continue to supply for the increasingly extravagant needs of his daughter. Unexpectedly he is recruited by the British Secret Service, and he reluctantly agrees to supply them with information that he will gather in the field. Unfortunately, he is really not cut out to be a spy, and in order to keep receiving payments for his services he is forced to invent a whole host of contacts and agents working for him. When a technical report that he sends to the home office becomes too important to handle, he is sent a young secretary in order to help him with his work. This infinitely complicates his deception, and he is at pains to keep the pretense going.
This is1of the more amusing of Graham Green's novels, although it presents a dark kind of humor. After all, people do get killed and tortured. These are not light matters to deal with even in a satirical work like this one. Furthermore, the book was published in 1958, just a year before the overthrow of the Cuban regime. It is hard to read this book without being mindful of all the tragedies that Cuban people have endured over the past half century. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Funny and literate
Comments: I have read a lot of literature, and get tired quickly of badly written books. I just discovered this book and I am nearly forty.
funny, literate, skilled writing. It helps1to get over oneself.
Bad reviews are probably down to people who read it and find there are no bragging rights attached to that achievement.
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Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Summary: Hilarious and Entertaining
Comments: This was the 1st Graham Greene novel for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. This book is a satirical look at the world of spying--set in Cuba just prior to Castro. The main character is a vacuum cleaner salesman who is reluctantly recruited to become a spy for British intelligence. The problem is that he is not cut out for the job so he just makes up his own spies and his own intelligence. That is comical enough until you find out the British and the Cubans both purchase into his made up stories. What happens later is alalmost all reminiscent of Inspector Jacques Clousteau. The ending is especially amusing. Highly endorseed. |
Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Summary: Pre-Castro Havana and a madcap MI6
Comments: Our Man In Havana is not so much a novel about Cuba, rather it's about MI6 attempting to employ an operative there. Mr. Wormold, a Brit ex-pat selling vacuum cleaners is recruited and the madcap story unfolds.
The UK's Secret Service is presented as altogether eccentric, ridiculous and lethal.The hero's immediate superior, is the epitome of the effete Establishment - exclusive tie, stone-colored suit, royal monogram on his silk pajamas and a cold, stiff air.
The London Chief, meticulous, romantic and fatally removed from eday realities by his literary imagination, is more concerned with trumping the Americans and Naval Intelligence than verifying his agents' reports.
Greene's ridicule is full of comic asides, from the French speaking secretary sent to a Spanish speaking country - "It's much the same. They're both Latin tongues" - to the lengthy admiration of the ingenious weapons that look just like two-way nozzles and snap action couplings1might find on a vacuum cleaner.
The book is more satirical than funny, the plot might be a little slow for some, however the characters are well-drawn and memorable. I have found all of Graham Greene's works to be exceptional and this book is no exception.
Order the DVD 'Our Man in Havana' starring the late, great Sir Alec Guinness in a role that seems to be tailor made for him. |
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Summary: Disappointment..
Comments: I tried hard to like it.. honest !!
The dialogue is underwhelming, the plot lack-lustre.. the characters hardly memorable.. after a while I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about.
I fell asleep on 6 separate occasions when reading it and yet plowed on and finished it 6 months later. Hardly gripping !!
One reason I purchased it up was that I was looking forward to a vivid reconstruction of La Habana in those days.. however again.. heavily disappointed. |
