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A review by jibraun
Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is my first Graham Greene novel, but it certainly won't be my last. Greene, a famous 20th Century British novelist, delivered possibly the most British and most satirical novel I have read in Our Man in Havana. Greene bifurcated his books into "novels" (read: literary) and "entertainments" (read: more fun). This falls into the latter, while still managing to have literary flourishes dropped in throughout the work -- showing that Greene can become literary when he wants.
Greene creates the character of James Wormold, a British expatriate, living in Havana, Cuba immediately prior to the Cuban revolution. Greene published this novel mere months before Fulgencio Bautista resigned on New Years' Eve 1958, an historical event immortalized on film in The Godfather Part 2. Greene's novel contains many prescient predictions, including the impending fall of the Bautista regime, that many of Bautista's supporters would flee to Miami, and the Cuban missile crisis.
But this work doesn't only standout due to its predictions. Greene penned a taut novel full of satire about the global espionage game during the Cold War, lampooning the masters all the way at the top and the agents like Wormold all the way to the bottom. Greene's work is full of symbolic jabs at MI6, the nuclear arms race, those involved, etc. But he also managed to throw in several one-liners that actually made me laugh, a rare feat when I'm reading.
I did find the love story to be a little ham-fisted and rushed. But my appreciation for the satire, the historical setting, the plot-driven spy story, and fantastic prose won me over. This was the rare fun novel that managed to be literary and insightful at the same time. Point being, while Greene may have called it "entertainment," I think it rises above that level, being something more of a summer blockbuster with an important thematic message behind it.
5 stars.
Greene creates the character of James Wormold, a British expatriate, living in Havana, Cuba immediately prior to the Cuban revolution. Greene published this novel mere months before Fulgencio Bautista resigned on New Years' Eve 1958, an historical event immortalized on film in The Godfather Part 2. Greene's novel contains many prescient predictions, including the impending fall of the Bautista regime, that many of Bautista's supporters would flee to Miami, and the Cuban missile crisis.
But this work doesn't only standout due to its predictions. Greene penned a taut novel full of satire about the global espionage game during the Cold War, lampooning the masters all the way at the top and the agents like Wormold all the way to the bottom. Greene's work is full of symbolic jabs at MI6, the nuclear arms race, those involved, etc. But he also managed to throw in several one-liners that actually made me laugh, a rare feat when I'm reading.
I did find the love story to be a little ham-fisted and rushed. But my appreciation for the satire, the historical setting, the plot-driven spy story, and fantastic prose won me over. This was the rare fun novel that managed to be literary and insightful at the same time. Point being, while Greene may have called it "entertainment," I think it rises above that level, being something more of a summer blockbuster with an important thematic message behind it.
5 stars.