The Godfather, the novel, reviewed

 

In 1972, a little mafia movie made by a kinda-known but not really director who's greatest success was winning the Oscar for writing Patton was released to movie theaters.  Of course, that little mafia movie was The Godfather and that director was Francis Ford Coppola and now you know the rest of the story.  But there were two lingering questions, who was this Mario Puzo and why was his name above the title?  A fool would answer that he co-wrote the Oscar-winning script with Coppola, which is true, but that doesn't answer the second question.  Someone kinda knowledgeable would say that Mario Puzo wrote the novel in which the movie was based off.  But only a knowledgeable fool would actually read the book and today, I am that fool!

If you read the movie or know anything about pop culture, then you know what the book is about.  But in case you don't know, I'm going to tell you.  Don Vito Corleone is a powerful and generous man, leader of the Corleone family, one of the Five Families in New York.  He has his business and his family: sons Sonny, Fredo and Michael, adopted but not really adopted son Tom Hagen and daughter Connie.  But things would not be as they are for long for a man called Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo comes around asking Vito for start-up capitol for his drug business.  Vito refuses and that decision leads to years of gang warfare, assassinations and exile.

Like the movie illustrated, Mario Puzo did craft an amazing story.  The problem is that Mario Puzo isn't an amazing storyteller.  The big problem is that Puzo gets way too descriptive for his own good.  There's volumes and volumes of text to describe a simple thing like killing a guy.  Some of the descriptions can get interesting but sometimes you're just thinking GET ON WITH IT.  And then what he does describe is just plain gross and wrong.  You see Puzo vowed that his next book, in this case The Godfather, would be a best-seller and Puzo went all out with the sex and violence.  Some of the stuff is too out there even for my tastes and for the blog.  After reading this book, you can safely say "I've read a book where such and such happened!"  Whether it's with pride or with shame is up to you.

However, not all is bad and in fact there is quite a bit of good in the book.  His storytelling needed a lot of work but his characters are as rich and vivid as they are in the movie.  And this is the only time for Puzo's overly-descriptive descriptions work as it details everyone and the relationships between each other in a loving fashion.  You do care about these guys just like we cared about them in the movie.  Relationships are deep and fulfilling & there were a few times that I was choking down tears as some parts got especially heartwarming.

Sure the book may spin its wheels, it may have too many characters and it does get a bit gross but there's enough good in this for me to recommend.  When the flowery prose does work it works very well and the characters are all great.  Despite all the books flaws, on the whole it's not bad but remember that all the good parts are in the movie.

7/10