The Godfather: 50th Anniversary Edition

Very well written and extremely entertaining. Keeps you on the edge of your seat as plots unfold throughout the novel.

The writing is great and the story engaging. Just read it and don’t worry about the world for a while.

The classic is timeless. And while the movies (1 & 2) were great, like 99% of them based on books, there is no comparison. The Godfather novel is one of the finest books of fiction I've ever read. A copy belongs in every serious library.

TL;DR: a good read, if not entirely to my taste.(SPOILERS AHEAD - READER, BEWARE!) I love stories about the Mafia. From the families depicted on Law and Order to true crime documentaries, I love it all. Being a film buff as well, I wanted to see the Coppola classic The Godfather, but I felt like I should read the source material first. What Puzo excels at is realism. The majority of his characters feel very human, with all of the virtues and faults you'd expect in a novel with such a large cast. His descriptions of sex are passionate and deliciously reverent, and the moments where he allows himself to be less prosy are splendidly vibrant. He also makes characters with different (or non-existent) moral codes compelling. For example, I was very invested in and entertained by Sonny Corleone, though he's not a person I'd like in real life, and his death was one of my least favorite pieces of the story.Some of the weaknesses in the novel, I feel, are the somewhat clumsy integration of Puzo's sociopolitical and moral philosophy into the narrative, and an occasionally meandering plot. The first of those happens most often through large monologues of either Don Corleone and his son Michael. Puzo attempts to elevate seemingly business-focused and down-to-earth conversations into meditations on the justice of the Family's ethical code, the injustice of Western models of governance, the nature of Sicilian people and the characteristics of ideal men and women. The second lies in the fact that there are many threads of story going at any one time, but they don't all have a satisfying conclusion; the central arc comes to a close, but the situation of several important characters isn't addressed in the end, so there's very little payoff for many pages of storytelling and emotional investment.The biggest issues I had, as a modern reader with very liberal beliefs, were not necessarily of Puzo's style. I understand that the book was written in 1969 and set in the 1940s and 1950s, so I didn't expect it to be the most progressive text. Nevertheless, I want to put forward the following.CONTENT WARNINGS: graphic violence, sexual assault, racism, sexism, domestic violenceI expected some of these, but good lord. The violence is not graphic in the same way as the violence of authors like James Patterson, but it is still explicit and can be shocking to those unaccustomed to crime novels. Descriptions of the decapitated horse head and of the physical responses of someone being garroted are the most graphic, but glossing over those portions of text won't reduce your experience of the plot so no worries, fellow squeamish folk! (Sidenote: I found the killing of the horse exceptionally sad. Puzo goes out of his way to describe in an earlier scene how beautiful and dignified the horse is, and the destruction of such a marvelous living thing broke my heart. So if you're a softy like me, be prepared.) One other thing to beware of: the killer Luca Brasi is described throughout most of the book as unusually violent (to such an extent that other Family members are actively terrified of him), and his capacity for violence is stated as being ultimately confirmed by a story that few in the Family know and that none of those will tell Michael Corleone. The story is later revealed to be him forcing a midwife at gunpoint to murder his newborn child by placing it in a furnace. It is obviously deeply upsetting, and it's not treated with the horror that it should be.There is no actual incident of sexual assault in the book, but one of the first arcs we're introduced to is a man seeking Don Corleone's help in revenging himself on two men who attempted to rape his daughter and beat her severely when she resisted. Sexual violence is mentioned in other contexts, largely as a danger faced by economically disadvantaged women. Racism in The Godfather is mostly directed at non-Italians and black people, and an Italian character is at least once referred to by the slur d*go (evolved from deliberate mispronunciation of the common Spanish/Italian name Diego). Black people are referred to as "savages" and characterized as violent drug addicts or abused promiscuous women/sex workers.I expected a lot of that, but the sexism of the book was way more than I was prepared for. Female characters, even those through whose eyes we view portions of the story, are largely appendages to the male characters and are depicted exclusively in the context of their romantic/sexual relationships with men of the Corleone Family. The possessive, patronizing way that the men treat women in the text is "justified" through lengthy asides about how the man in question just loves the woman so much or how it's the Sicilian way or how it's for the women's own protection. This also includes the text's treatment of domestic violence. When Connie Corleone tells her parents about her husband's violent physical abuse, they tell her that she has to work it out herself because the relationship between a husband and wife is no one else's business. Her abuse is normalized and only included in the text because of the effect it produces in her brother and has on her husband. No one checks in with the female characters when they experience trauma, and they are explicitly acknowledged as not being equal partners to their husbands or other male family members (which the story justifies by ascribing it to the inability of the men to divulge the details of Cosa Nostra to their spouses and the desire to keep women and children in the "protected" position of noncombatants). Sex workers and other female characters who retain control over their sexual agency are largely dismissed and judged as being of little value, all while the male characters indulge themselves in the custom of those sex workers or have mountains of one-off sexual relationships themselves.The most egregious example of sexism in the story for me, though, was when Michael Corleone marries a young woman (Apollonia) while hiding in Sicily. First, she is explicitly acknowledged in the text as being a teenager but possessing the body and attractiveness of an adult (which is just disgusting), so Michael has no business getting into a relationship with her. Second, he decides that he wants to marry this girl after he is "struck by the thunderbolt", which is basically lusting so hard after someone that you turn into a possessive weirdo. From the moment he talks with her father, it is heavily implied that this marriage is going to happen because of Michael's powerful family connections and personal wealth; there's no room made for the possibility that Apollonia may not want to marry this older stranger. She does seem to really fall for him, but that is just convenient, not necessary for the sealing of this contract. (Sidenote: I understand the historical context of marriage, but this storyline was creepy in a narrative that also talks about the beautiful connection between Michael and his other romantic interest. That coupling was not countenanced by his family at first, but the story lauds Michael's decision to choose loyalty to his heart rather than his family's traditions. So clearly not every marriage is a simple financial arrangement. Apollonia being a teenager only makes this whole thing worse.) Third, she says exactly 1 word of dialogue, which is a demure expression of thanks for a gift from Michael. Fourth, about 85% of the descriptions of her in the text concern her physicality and the things Michael finds sexy about her, instead of giving her any kind of personality. Finally, it's obvious that her role in the story is to be sexually enticing, to embody the "perfect" Sicilian young woman, and to give Michael's character arc another shove with her violent death. I really felt for her, and her descriptions made her sound like a really pleasant person who absolutely deserved a better life than the one she got.Despite all of that problematic content, I enjoyed the story overall, and I felt that it was a very different perspective on the intent and behavior of criminals than I'd experienced before. The careful, calculated relationships between most of the characters were fascinating to explore, and the brilliance of Don Corleone is riveting. I enjoyed the plot twists, too, mostly because I couldn't see them coming. Some of the Don's lines are deliciously memorable, and his characterization is endlessly engrossing, mostly due to the rigid moral code he possesses and the way he asserts his power in all of his relationships. I am more eager than ever to see the films!

I’ve been wanting to read this book for a long time and finally ordered it. It really details the thoughts of the characters and is truly one of the best books I’ve read. Really hard to put down.

Let me say that I have seen the entire "Godfather" series as they came out on the big screen as a kid , on cable and also have the DVD collection. It's been viewed numerous times and each time it grows on me more largely due to the cast and story. When I was in my young 20s while in college I tended bar in a notorious club in Brooklyn, NY and always had a facination with these "family", wise-guy stories as I witnessed alot in the couple of years working in that environment. A real wake-up reality for me to say the least. So, I finally decided to read the 'Book" itself by Mario Puzo. It is a worthwhile read in that it gives one another view. Is it better? No. Just different. There are times when Mr. Puzo seems to go off the rails as he writes about a womans surgical "pelvic floor procedure" to attain a more youthful body etc.....There are quite a few instances where the reading is not seen in the cinematic version. So there is that.....kind of a bonus if you will. There are some of Mr. Puzos' meanderings I could have done without. Still a good read.

In light of the pervasive evidence of corruption and organized crime in our government this book offers so much insight into the principles of how underworld collusion gains a foothold. My younger family members who were only shown the movies needed to understand the subtleties and complexity explained and exemplified so brilliantly by Puzo.

Now having read this epic collection, the movie is a mere shadow. Amazing overdue read. I need to visit Sicily soon.

Livro é esclarecedor e complementar ao filme. Não há uma página que seja entediante, é uma leitura dinâmica.

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This is not the sort of book I normally read: crime, murder, family feuds - but I have seen the films many times and I bought the book on a Kindle daily deal - I like to collect classics.The first thing to say is, it is beautifully written and with affinity for each of the main characters and their point of view, as they enter the story. I cannot say how much of the three dimensionality - or sometimes four-dimensionality - of the characters I feel is due to the book itself, or my familiarity with the films; it can't be separated now.That leads me on to the next thing I must mention, which is the first thing I noticed on reading this book. The first part of the book and the first part of the film are almost identical, so I was in familiar territory. We are at Connie's wedding party, in the grounds of the Corleone family estate and it is almost as if, like 2001, the two were written synonymously. I have to say that this makes the film enormously clever, I feel, to pull off such a thing - but then, Mario Puzo was heavily involved in the making of the film - and I might have felt very differently about it, if I had read the book first (I hated Disney's Winnie the Pooh!).The book, however, contains a lot of detail that is not in the film - a whole different dimension to both Johnny Fontane, and Lucy Mancini (Sonny's Mistress) and, even having seen the films many times, I still thoroughly enjoyed it - in fact, it was comforting to have ready made images I could call up, for these characters, which did not clash with the book in any way.All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable, well-written book, with few grammatical errors and I am on to the next one now, while my husband, who has been anxiously waiting in the wings, for me to finish this one, commences to devour it, probably in half the time it took me!

One of the finest novels you will ever find. Read Godfather as a story or as a way of life. If you are capable of absorbing important messages from any novel, this novel is a university of how one must lead the life.