Our Man In Havana

Loved reading this !

This has to be one of the best books I have read. You will smile at how simple the plot is and then again wonder how funny it is overall. There is an element of mystery as well which makes it such a good read. And of course, the cover of the book is so cool.

One of the most enjoyable book I have ever read

I simply love the way Graham Greene weaves a story—how he builds atmosphere, sketches characters, and lets small mishaps spiral into something far larger. Everything feels effortless, yet meticulously controlled. Although this novel was written in a bygone era, it remains strikingly relevant. Greene’s insight into bureaucracy, self-deception, and institutional absurdity feels anything but dated. One can’t help but think that, were these events not presented as fiction, they would seem entirely plausible. That is Greene’s quiet brilliance: the world may change, but human folly, ambition, and irony do not.

I recently watched the film of this book, starring Alec Guinness, for which Graham Greene wrote the screenplay, and struggled to follow the plot. So I thought it would be a good idea to read the book in the hope of gaining a clearer understanding. This is one of those books that I am glad to have read, and enjoyed reading, but do not intend to read again. It is well-written and carries you along. Having started, I certainly wanted to finish the story. It is a satire on the murky activity of spying but it is not humorous and not even witty. In fact it is one of the most dreary novels I have ever read. I was unable to identify with any of the characters. The lives of Wormold and the other principal characters appear to be fuelled by whisky and rum. Wormold’s spoiled daughter Milly attends a convent school and practises the externals of Catholicism assiduously but she seems to regard her faith as a sort of fairy godmother. She says two novenas and two Masses to buy a horse which her father cannot afford and declares how wonderful it is, ‘…you always get what you pray for.’ This novel is not a good advertisement for Roman Catholicism. The Vintage edition has an Introduction by Christopher Hitchens which I dutifully read first. This was a mistake. It gave me too many clues about what to look for. It would have been better to have read the book and formed my own conclusions, leaving the Introduction until later.