Our Man in Havana
by Graham Greene · first published 1958
47% recommend53% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A light, witty spy novel with irony and gentle humor. It is fun without being heavy, making it a good entry point to Graham Greene for new readers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Wormold's daughter had reached an expensive age - so he accepted a mysterious Englishman's offer of extra income. All he has to do is run agents, file reports, and spy. But his fake reports have an alarming tendency to come true.
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Mentions per year
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…I realise that he may have been looking across the decades at me as he might have been himself (the architecture and uniform hadn't changed much). If you're looking for a light read then I recommend "Our Man in Havana" as a taster of Greene. It's amusing and less imbued with the claustrophobia of his more serious novels.
on “The paradox of Graham Greene” ↗This is the main topic of Graham Greene's excellent Our Man in Havana. I doubt much has changed in the competency stakes between then and now.
on “Sorry, NSA, Terrorists Don't Use Verizon. Or Skype. Or Gmail” ↗Exactly. I hadn't read any Graham Greene previously. I went and bought "Our Man in Havana" and "The Quiet American" because of this submission, and threw in a copy of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" because it was suggested by Amazon and a pal of mine raves about it. This is what I like…
on “Agents of Betrayal: A Reconsideration of Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana” ↗Just about any Graham Greene book: The Power and the Glory. The Quiet American, The Ministry of Fear, The Comedians, Our Man in Havana etc.
on “Ask HN: What are some great fiction reads for someone that reads non-fiction” ↗…you meant the reverse. But still a poor assumption to think the fiction ever got it right, starting with the confusion over what an “agent” is but including everything else. Excepting Graham Greene’s “Our Man in Havana” and “The Quiet American,” which I suspect nailed the respective damnfool incompetence and arrogant ignorance of a certain type of mid-century patriot keenly. “Harlot’s Ghost,” though mystical, may also…
on “CIA director says he is escalating efforts to solve 'Havana Syndrome'” ↗…summary, they are not often light reading, though he does spice the stories with little jokes. A sense of doom and unease just comes with his world view I think and you can never escape that in his novels. Our man in Havana is quite fun without being too heavy, so that might be a good place to start. The Quiet American is also good and concerned with the end of another empire (the French colony in Vietnam), and the sharp…
on “Unmasking Graham Greene” ↗…Some of his other books are quite different. Had I started with one of these ^ I might not be able to recommend those -> I have loved ; The Human Factor, The Captain and the Enemy, The Honorary Consul, Our man in Havana, The Tenth Man ...
on “Unmasking Graham Greene” ↗Our Man in Havana is a very good book about the topic. Secrets are a dark illiquid market where there’s high demand for things that don’t exist. So naturally there’s a lot of supply for that information. The fact that…
Reminiscent of the comedic Graham Greene novel "Our Man in Havana" from the 1950s!
on “'Say hello to my little vacuum cleaner': US DEA puts spycams in cleaner's kit” ↗…and supervisor), Greene was the only notable British figure to visit the disgraced Philby in Russia, or attend his funeral in 1988. As Beatrice Severn declares near the end of Greene’s funniest novel, Our Man in Havana (1958): “I don’t care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations.… Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?” Yeah sounds like…
on “Graham Greene Against the World” ↗…Elizabeth: Deception on His Mind - Gerritsen, Tess: Gravity - Golding, William: Lord of the Flies - Gray, Muriel: Furnace - Greene, Graham: A Gun for Sale (aka This Gun for Hire) - Greene, Graham: Our Man in Havana - Halberstam, David: The Fifties - Hamill, Pete: Why Sinatra Matters - Harris, Thomas: Hannibal - Haruf, Kent: Plainsong - Hoeg, Peter: Smilla’s Sense of Snow - Hunter, Stephen: Dirty White…
on “Stephen King: Can a Novelist Be Too Productive? (2015)” ↗Add Nouriel Roubini [1] and at least 2 other CEOs that are not listed. It feels like we're living in Graham Greene's "Our Man In Havana" [2]. [1] http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/06/30/274571/from-roubi... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Man_in_Havana
on “Russian Spy’s Connections to Silicon Valley” ↗Apparently Greene learned about García while working for MI6 and it inspired Our Man in Havana! https://earlybirdbooks.com/our-man-in-havana-excerpt
on “WWII: Failed novelist becomes a spy for Germany, makes up a fake spy network” ↗Reminds me somewhat of Graham Greene's "Our man in Havana". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Man_in_Havana
on “The Tailor of Panama movie review (2001)” ↗It sounds as if somebody has been reading Our Man in Havana.
on “Conspiracy theorists mistake guitar pedal diagram for “5G Chip”” ↗