The Godfather

`The Godfather' by Mario Puzo. What a journey! There was a copy of this book in my mother's library. In all those years I have never read it. Of course I did see the movies a while back, but it has been quite some time. The book and the fluid prose within was fresh to me. I think I will order the movies. I couldn't put it down. Puzo creates characters that are complicated and somewhat fleshed out. The `family' is a complicated place to exist, and one must be complicated to survive. The story is heavy on plot for- let's face it- plot makes a great Mafiosi story become an outstanding Mafiosi story. The heart and drive of the story comes from the Don's rejection of an offer to do business with Virgil Sollozzo, who has the backing of the Tattaglia family. Sollozzo's reaction to the rejection sets off a series of events that reverberates through the lives of every character. The Don's reasoning for the rejection is simple: it assaults his integrity and belief system. He sees that the offer can make a lot of money in the short-run. But the Don is far-sighted and knows such a business will destroy everything he built, and will ultimately decimate his beloved family. This creates a war between the 5 Families, and the repercussions of this war are felt not only in New York, but in the burgeoning Las Vegas, and in the sunny countryside of Corleone Sicily, Italy. I will not go into the story here. Puzo leaves a few questions unanswered in this book. I am going to move forward hoping that these will be addressed in `The Sicilian'. Puzo moves the story along in blocks, or major events. It is a different style of storytelling than I am used to, but an easy one to adjust to. The story is set up like a chess board, with each character being positioned to drive story. Yet, at the same time each character and their actions are driven by the events unfolding in their lives. It is a fine, fine line to walk as an author, and Puzo deftly does just that. Just a side note; Mario Puzo has a little fixation on male and female genitalia that kind of just sits there. I felt it added nothing to the story. I could make the argument that Puzo's fascination with Santino's (Sonny) extraordinarily large penis was a direct correlation with the size of Sonny's ego, bravado, and attitude. I didn't feel it was needed. Puzo was able to clearly show Sonny's impulsiveness, rage, and ego through Sonny's actions and reactions. I don't know. Maybe it was just me. I loved the book. It has taken me 35 years to get to it. There are a few books that maybe one should wait until they are a little older to understand and comprehend the nuances of the author. I feel this might have been one of those books. Had I read it all those years ago, I may have read the same story completely differently. There are several authors I feel this way about. I am glad I found this book at the flea market used books stand. Best $1.00 I ever spent!

An excellent read in itself. If you've seen the movie, the backstory presented in this book is absolutely amazing, I definitely recommend this book.

“The Godfather” is a 1969 novel authored by Mario Puzo. It is the author’s third novel. It is the basis for two Academy Award winning movies. I completely enjoyed the novel. I both read the novel on Kindle and listened to the audiobook. The story is quite clearly written. I particularly enjoyed the audiobook, however there are many characters and I am glad that I read along in order to avoid becoming confused. Therefore I did not use this audiobook much whilst commuting. I sat quietly and read and listened. The story is about a family living in the New York area that is quite successful in various ways. There is a successful legal business interest. There are also illegal activities. The story revolves around the various males of the family and various intrigues about the illegal activities. I agree with another reviewer who spoke about an economy of words. The author keeps on point. This story has many parts to it and spans numerous years. It is not a short novel and would have been a vast sprawling epic if the author did not stick to the story. To my knowledge this is the third novel by the author. When I study an author I often read all of his / her novels in the order of publication, I read the first two by this author. They are both good, but this novel seemed to be much better and is by far my favorite of the three. For a casual enjoyable reading experience, I would just start with this novel. In summary, I completely enjoyed this novel. It is very similar to the Academy Award movie of the same name. I like this novel better than the first two novels by this author. Thank You for taking the time to read this review.

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 violence I 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!

Great story, aspects of it. Best book I have ever read, much better than the movies.

It has been many years since I first read this book. It was even better than I remembered. A book to enjoy, A book to learn from, A book to recommend. A story, not all sex, murder, rebellion. I am 80 yrs old and this author made me a reader. I have well over 750 books in my home. There is no room for more. I switched to Kindle e readers yrs ago to continue.

The whole story kept me engaged in the reading. I really like books with good character development and plots. This book nails that and I would highly recommend reading it.

Best fiction work ever. Puzo makes us understand the criminal families in mid-twentieth century immigrant America and their part in our country. Never get tired of reading and / or watching the screen portrait of this work. Never.