Graham Greene in Havana

Certain book titles — such as Catch-22 and Brave New World — become a permanent part of the language, used by people who have never even read the books. Another example is Graham Greene's influential Our Man in Havana. Many of us have probably used some witty variation on that title in our conversation.

Now Christopher Hull uses it in the title of his own book, Our Man Down in Havana, managing to be neither witty nor clever. Still the title does describe what his book is about: Graham Greene's many visits to Cuba, both before and after the Fidel Castro-led revolution.

Greene had long experience on the fringes of British espionage, both during the war and afterward. He knew and at one time worked closely with Kim Philly, the infamous Soviet spy who betrayed the British and cost the lives of many agents. Greene had long kicked around an idea for a novel about an inventive British spy in a far-off place and had considered  other locales before a visit to Havana led him to believe Cuba would make an ideal location. It was, as it turned out. Much of what Greene wrote in his novel seemed to foretell the future after the revolution, which occurred just after the novel's publication, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

But the novel, while important to Hull's book, is hardly its only focus. Just as important is Greene himself, his importance as a writer, his many romantic affairs and his constant roaming around the world, especially to dangerous places. Greene famously played Russian roulette several times in his youth, and his travels are seen as a more sophisticated version of that deadly game.

Havana before the revolution appealed to Greene because of its wide-open atmosphere that included rampant gambling, prostitution and graphic sex shows in the nightclubs. Greene seemed torn after Castro came to power. As someone who hated the United States and leaned left politically, he welcomed Castro's turn to socialism, yet he thought Castro went too far in many respects. And he missed the more dangerous, wide-open Havana of old.

Hull's book, despite interesting subject matter, proves disappointingly dull. I lost confidence in the author early on when he describes five P.G. Wodehouse novels read by Greene as "Jeeves and Bertie Wooster adventures." In fact, none of those mentioned are Jeeves and Wooster novels. If he is so blatantly wrong about that, what else is he wrong about?