Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene (1958)

To complete my mini-unit of spy/espionage thrillers, I couldn't resist rereading this cynical dark satire by Graham Greene, one of the 20th century's greatest writers. His reluctant secret agent is Mr. Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman in 1950s Cuba, who is approached by the British Secret Service (MI6) to be "our man in Havana." Because he badly needs money to support the extravagance of his beautiful teenage daughter, he takes the job, submitting reports of information he has gleaned from newspapers. When that ceases to satisfy his far-away bosses, he resorts to just making things up, inventing many sub-agents who also need to be paid and even given bonuses for daring exploits. In an especially creative move, he provides drawings of the parts of a secret military weapon which is supposedly being assembled in the jungle, using as his model the parts of his company's Atomic Pile Vacuum Cleaner.

But then real people start getting killed.

The first time I read this, many years ago, I perceived it only as a very, very funny black comedy. The second time I read it, I was more appreciative of the clever satire of politics and government bureaucratic ineptness. Only with this reading did I understand how truly cynical Greene is, even going so far as to disparage nationalism. In an impassioned speech to the Chief of MI6, Wormold's secretary says, "And we don't believe you any more when you say you want peace and justice and freedom. What kind of freedom? You want your careers."

As with all really good books, this novel can be appreciated on many levels, with something new emerging with each rereading.


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Interesting fact: Graham Greene was himself employed for a time by MI6.