The Godfather by Mario Puzo Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Godfather
Book Review: One of the Best, for what it is
Summary: 4 Stars
The Godfather is one of my favorite books of all-time. I don't know how many times I've read it over the past two decades, so much so that its masterfully crafted plot, its nuanced psychological insights, and its sharp, poignant, flesh-and-blood characters are etched into my head.
But this family is quite a bit sicker than even Mario Puzo realizes, despite his not-entirely-idealized portrayal of them. I feel he was seduced by his own characters, overawed by their relationships, their perspectives, and their quest to retain and expand their power at all costs, to the point that Puzo glorified them. Oddly, this is what makes the book both brilliant and beloved -- he wrote it from his unconscious, as opposed to some of his later (and earlier) books, which read as clumsy and wooden and cheesy and boring. This book is none of those. It really is brilliant.
But that glorification is also The Godfather's big weakness. Puzo, via his characters, doesn't do a good-enough job showing the downside of the Corleones' philosophy and way of life: just how rotten and destructive and off-track it really is. To me the point of life is not to gain power in the outer world, but to heal our traumas within. I know this risks sounding silly in the context of a book review on The Godfather, but that, to me, ultimately, is the book's main flaw. Its philosophy is all wrong, and taken to the extreme. Interestingly, sometimes characters in the book even hint at agreeing with me, but, mostly not.
So, quickly, a few more weaknesses:
1) Overdone sex stuff. Okay, let's say the sex stuff in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s was realistic, but still -- Puzo, in my opinion, overdid it, put an extra-perverse spin on it that wasn't necessary. It really leads one to question what was going on in his head.
2) The Hollywood parts were perhaps the only part for me that grew dull at times, and this wasn't just because of the overdone sex. It simply just was not as gripping as the rest of the book.
3) This is a trivial weakness, but my god, there must have been five hundred run-on sentences in the prose!
4) I found it to be a silly rationalization when Michael Corleone tells his wife that the Don was a great, caring, respectful father. Yet Puzo presents it as fact. The Don's primary mission in life was not to be a great father, and if that had been his mission, then he failed roundly: one son murdered, Fredo psychologically destroyed, Connie widowed and broken, and Michael transformed into a secretive sort of power-hungry sociopath.
5) No mention is made, not a single word, of the people who are innocent victims in the Don's crimes. What of all the innocent bystanders who were presumably traumatized by witnessing various of his brutal acts? What of the children of the murdered?
6) If Puzo had been more clear on the Corleones' insanity he would have shined more light on the fact that the Family leaders really didn't do all they could to break away from their lives of crime and become legitimate. In a sense he presented them as trapped, people, right up to the top of the hierarchy, who couldn't give up their Mafia roles. I didn't buy it. I think they could have put more energy into becoming better, healthier, less exploitative human beings, but the fact is, they loved the crime and insanity of this world, and at some unconscious level so did Puzo.
Book Review: Overrated, but an interesting read
Summary: 3 Stars
I came to the book first and then I saw the movie. I have to admit, I find both of them to be overrated. I enjoy mob books and films (Goodfellas and Puzo's The Last Don), but I struggled to get into this one. The characters were somewhat wooden and uninteresting, and I never did see how Michael could have transformed from law-abiding son to a cold-hearted mob boss so easily.
However, as another reviwer suggested, this book would have had more potential as a Tom Wolfe-style novel documenting life in the 1940's and 50's. Puzo said that he was "selling out" by writing this book, and I believe that he was never happy with this book or receiving the reputation of a pulp writer. Puzo's best book is Fool's Die. Puzo's best mob book,in my opinion, is The Last Don. It's kind of pulpy as well, but maybe because it was set in the contemporary period, I could identify with and enjoy it more.
Book Review: Potboiler immortalized by film adaptations
Summary: 3 Stars
As a big fan of the Godfather movies (well, who isn't?), I was curious to read the book on which they were based. While I wouldn't go so far as to call this "hackwork", like some of the reviewers, I certainly agree that it was Francis Ford Coppola's screen adaptations that immortalized a rather run-of-the mill book.
To be sure, the book has some vivid creations (the horse's head incident, the mafia conference, the whole conceit of honorable mafiosi) but I found myself wondering if my enjoyment derived mainly from the impressions I retained from the movies, rather than from anything inherent in the book. The writing is prosaic and repetitive, unnecessarily vulgar (with long disquisitions on Sonny's penis and his goombada's vaginal malformation), and Puzo bizarrely focuses an inordinate amount of pages on boring peripheral characters like Johnny Fontane, Sonny's ex-mistress and her new boyfriend.
In addition, his characters just don't seem to have any flesh on them. Puzo provides a lot of facts about them (the Godfather's sexual rectitude, Sonny's teenage criminality, etc.) but they still seem like shadows in comparison to what we saw on screen. Marlon Brando told us more about Don Corleone with one glance than did all the backstory that Puzo wrote for the character. So, read it if you must, but know that anything of value in it was infinitely improved by being translated to film.
Book Review: Puzo: A good story teller, a less than stellar writer
Summary: 3 Stars
Like most people, I saw the movie long before I every dreamed of reading the book. I was not sure what I exactly expected, but I was very disappointed. I found Puzo to be nothing above an average write, and the writing throughout was clumsy. Case in point: count the times he writes, "made his bones." That line appears once in the movie (thanks, Mo!), but seemingly arrives in the book every several pages. It was painful.
That said, the story is great, and it was wonderful to see some Godfather II story worked into original (which was a surprise). I give the book a slight recomendation, but only as a way to aid the movie. This is certainly a case where the movie is far superior to the book, and the book's worth is more as a novelty related to the movie, rather than on is own merits.
Book Review: Read the book!
Summary: 5 Stars
As much as I love Francis Ford Coppola's movie adaptation of this book as well as its sequel--let's not get into the misbegotten Godfather III--I've always felt that his vision was not exactly Puzo's. Though set mainly in New York, the movies have a northern Californian feel for me. The Corleone compound is on Long Island, but it feels more like a Napa Valley vineyard. Many of the settings lack the requisite East Coast grit, and the Mafiosi speak and behave with the gravitas of Borgia courtiers. Don't get me wrong. Godfather I and II are great films, but if you want to know how the real Mafia behaves, this is not prime source material. (Scorsese's mobsters are more on the money.) Puzo had a hand in the film version of his blockbuster, working on the screenplay with the director, and it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't have been pleased with the result. But if you want to experience Don Corleone's saga with authentic New York attitude, read the book. Puzo managed to achieve Shakespearean drama without sacrificing the reality of day-to-day life in organized crime. The book is often passed over as a mere pot-boiler that was transformed into a great film, but Coppola undoubtedly recognized the elements of a grand story when he read the book. If you've seen the films but haven't read the original, by all means do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. You won't be disappointed.