OUR MAN ON THE GROUND: the drawings of Constantin Luser

Drawing by Constantin Luser

...In Graham Green's 1958 novel Our Man in Havana the protagonist attempts to justify his time and job position as an intelligence officer, pre-Cuban Missile Crisis. It is his duty to make himself invaluable to the British Security Service back at home as a sort of under qualified but enthusiastic spy in Havana, ferreting out military secrets, weapons arsenals and troop activities. He is failing grossly in his attempts to find any sort of real military threat. What he does find is a vacuum cleaner (he is a vacuum cleaner salesman). And what he does do is to dissect the vacuum cleaner and draw its parts to a different scale while adding threatening numbers and possibilities—all unknown, but suggested. The imaginations of the head honchos back in the UK are engaged. Our protagonist is encouraged to stay on the job and investigate further. The whole ordeal is a farce but a lovely poetic delving into wartime fear and paranoia, the power of visual suggestion and man's ability to exploit, encourage and persevere. It is about the full potential of the ingenious imagination. There is sympathy in this story to Luser’s own work. Creating a need where none exists—arguably, like all artists—to convey urgent information...