Our Man in Havana Book R (3)

Book Report
Graham Greene „ Our Man in Havana“
Liis Mägi, 12c
I chose a book by Graham Greene titled „Our man in Havana“. The reason why I decided to read exactly this book was that I found the plot introductory quite interesting and as I started reading I realised I was right. I found it quite humorous book, written in the third person and set in Havana, Cuba . The story is quite easy to follow .
The novel was written right before the American embargo and the Cuba missile crisis of the 1960’s, so the author was quite surely influenced by the political events at that time and created his own vision of the future.
The main character of this book is Jim Wormlod, who is a vacuum cleaner salesman , but is offered a job in the British secret service by Hawthorne . He has to spy on Cuba for England . Jim lives with his daughter Milly, because his wife had left them for another man. Milly is quite demanding , having many wishes and because ebeing in lack of money ,Jim decides to take the job offer . As Jim does not have any real information of the secret services, he does not want to give up his good salary and disappoint them, he decides to deceive and tells them that he acutally have a network of agents , but in reality he barely knows them.He also writes fake reports and recruits fake agents.Hawthorne begins to suspect, but keeps it as a secret and does not tell to their boss . He sends Jim an assistant, Beatrice,who falls in love with him and in the end of the book they get married . Wormlod makes up many different and silly lies during the book, avoiding being caught. Wormlod kills Captain Segurawith Segura’s own gun, an enemy spy, who wants to marry his daughter Milly.
In the end Hawthorne and the secret service are told about the decepiton, but afraid of losing the credibility, they decide to award Wormlod with the Orden of British Empire .
One of the main themes in this book was certainly loyalty, because Wormlod is faced between the loyalty to his country and the loyalty to his friends and family. It is very substantial for him that his loyalty must go to his daughter. He is living a double life, because actually he is a vacuum cleaner salesman, and knows nothing about drawing sketches. The central topic is that an average person can fool the whole agency with a punch of lies.
Reading this book was quite interesting. For me it is important , that the action would not take long to begin and I have to mention that it did not. Also there were some really funny places , which made the book a good entertainment sometimes. It was thrilling to read how an average person can fool cleverly professionals. I am sure this book would be an interesting one to read for everyone, who are looking for excitement and good humor.