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“Death from a Salesman: Graham Greene’s Bottled Ontology”

Hitchens’ introduction to Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene again. Hitchens goes through an almost breathless walk through the action with criticisms of plot, theme and writing quality as he goes. He summarizes his opinion by saying, “If, in his infrequent confessions, he might have mentally reclassified some offenses as venial rather than mortal, something of the same analogy holds throughout his work“ and, in closing, “Writing to his mistress Catherine Walston in 1956, Greene told her that Our Man in Havana was potentially a ‘very funny plot which if it comes off will make a footnote to history.’ I feel almost as if I owe an apology for having taken so long to illustrate his elementary point.” Not sure why Hitchens thinks he owes it to us to write some much about an author he clearly doesn’t like.

I actually found his recap and quotes hilarious. These on Scotch, “The burned-out figures of British intelligence in The Human Factor (1978) seem at times to be engaged in some sort of contest to amass the greatest number of ‘blend’ labels, from J& B to Johnnie Walker, and even to create a new pseudo-scotch by mixing White Label and Johnnie Walker on the grounds that ‘they’re all blends anyway’” and “There is always time for a Scotch” from Our Man in Havana.

And this very funny dialogue from Our Man in Havana:

“What do you mean I wouldn’t exist?”

“You exist only in my thoughts, my friend. If I left this room…”

 “You’re nuts.”

 “Prove you exist, then.”

 “What do you mean, prove? Of course I exist. I’ve got a first-class business in real estate: a wife and a couple of kids in Miami: I flew here this morning by Delta: I’m drinking this Scotch, aren’t I?” The voice contained a hint of tears.

Also, find it interesting that Graham seems “to have an almost spooky prescience” having written Our Man in Havana three months before the Castro revolution, The Quite America “just before Dien Bien Phu” and The Comedians “in the midnight of…Duvalier’s Haiti.”

If I read a Greene book, it will definitely be Our Man in Havana, sorry CH.

A lot of the acton evidently takes place in Sloppy Joe's, the Havana bar that later gave it's name to Hemingway's famous haunt on Key West. Strange coincidence that the one in Key West is on the corner of Greene Street. 

New Learning: “…a Soviet cosmonaut took Our Man in Havana into outer space.”

New word: ontology = a branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being