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Our Man in Havana

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Our Man in Havana

By: Graham Greene
Narrated by: Jeremy Northam
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Discover Graham Greene’s blackly comic and timely espionage thriller, set amid the vice and squalor of pre-revolutionary Havana.

'Graham Greene had wit and grace and character and story and a transcendent universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature' John Le Carré

Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in a city of power cuts. His adolescent daughter spends his money with a skill that amazes him, so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra income he's tempted. In return all he has to do is carry out a little espionage and file a few reports. But when his fake reports start coming true, things suddenly get more complicated and Havana becomes a threatening place.

©1970 Graham Greene (P)2020 Penguin Audio Classics Espionage Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense Fiction Suspense
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A great and wryly amusing story by Greene, and a decent performance by Jeremy Northam, but annoyingly marred by excessive musical breaks. They were so frequent and often lengthy that they seemed like padding to make the product longer. They were unnecessary from a story or ambiance perspective, and really grated after a short time listening. If I want to listen to music I'll subscribe to something else.

Annoying music

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Excellent reading and obviously a Greene classic but every chapter begins with exactly the same cheesey salsa music which serves to vex rather than tickle the imagination.

Why the cheesey salsa?

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Satisfyingly fun and satirical tale. Hijinx subterfuge and pathos in a stereotypical 1950s Cuba.

Good narration

vacuum cleaner salesman turns spy 🕵️‍♂️

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Greene is a great writer and so kept the attention, but this was quite a dull book about somewhat stereotypical characters set in a rather cliched backdrop. Perhaps the book led to the cliches, but this did give the feel of being somewhat dated, in a way I never felt with The Quiet American. There were some very funny moments but it took getting a quarter way through before realising it was a comedy, only for Greene to seemingly back out of that and return to a form of absurdist realism that left the characters half-drawn.

The narration was excellent, but the musical interludes between chapters was misconceived.

Comedy gone slightly stale

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Good story and narration marred by a terrible production decision to add inauthentic and bad 'latin' music between every chapter, of which there are many. Please someone at penguin, edit these out.

Needs a recut

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Greene is a master story teller.This entertaining novel has heavy doses of irony and cynicism but balanced by personal interest with one man trying to beat the system and protect his daughter. Loved the narration but not the music which is too loud and too long; must have been made as a radio serial. On to The Comedians next.

Comical and dramatic

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Like the UK reviewer I have advised Audible of this production error.
1 star is to draw your attention
Chapter 21 should be around 5 mins in length
Please follow the subsequent reviews which may reflect their issue of a new download.
In the meantime please be aware
I’m sure it will be 5 stars when fixed
Penguin Audio should not have issued the file in this condition.

Where is Chapter 21? It’s 18 secs long Needs a fix

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This is an incomplete audio book. Chapter 21 is only 18 seconds long and misses an important character’s proper introduction. This really should be rectified.

The plot has intrigue and humour and farce, but spy elements of this story are a total letdown. The character developments really carry the enduring consequence.

Incomplete product

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