Book 3 Book Review "The Godfather" by: Maro Puzo

The Godfather

The Godfather, a novel by Mario Puzo, tells the story of an Italian crime family. It is necessary to stress “the novel” because this book is a good example of one that gets overshadowed by its movie, including the fact that this movie is hailed as one of the greatest of all time. But why is it the case? The novel is the original storyline with more detail on characters and plot. Without this book there would be no movie. The Godfather is a book about loyalty, about respect, and about the importance of family. It is centered around The Corleone family but more specifically: Vito Corleone “The Godfather”, Carmela the “loyal wife”, their four children, and their adopted son. The family is also extended to loyal friends under the name Caporegime or captain, and goes all the way down to soldiers who work for the family. This set up creates the foundation for their mafia regime. The story is mainly set in New York during the late 1940’s and captures the underground mafia world of that time, as the Corleone family takes on the other so called “5 Families” of New York.

                The best part of the book is the story of the direct members of the Corleone’s or an explanation of a character involved directly to the family. In these scenes it gives you a glimpse of the family, its dynamics, its relationships, and its foes. The novel consists of mostly back stories for characters and where it gets slow and almost unnecessary is when it focuses on side characters or characters that do not help the plot or directly impact the Corleone family. It seems with a story so focused on one family and what happens to them, when a character who doesn’t impact the Corleone’s gets their own decent sized chapter, the book gets off track. This happens a few times, with the likes of Johnny Fontane and Lucy Mancini. These characters had a chunk of the book that in the end seems pointless because they don’t enhance the plot in any way. But I guess that is the magic of the book, it is all about characters. There is an entire backstory behind every character introduced whether it is someone as important as Vito himself, or a no name soldier in the family who dies in the next scene. The books main plot is about the characters, with a side plot of the crumbling of each character. What makes this book so great is that it is focused on the family rather than the plot (even with an outstanding plot to begin with) it is one of the few times in literature that you care more about the characters back stories then you do what happens to them. The novel is told by a third person limited narrator who gives you everything there is to know about each character. Reading the book you know so much about the characters that you feel like a distant relative of the family. Like a third cousin who shows up to a family gathering to learn about all of his distant family, he knew little about.

                The novel may be over looked because of the success of the movies, but by itself I would give the novel a 9/10. It was one of my favorite books, but I don’t know if that was because of the magic of the movie or not. I saw the movie first, and the characters are so well done that you don’t want your own image of them. The beauty of reading is to make your own image of the characters, but I enjoyed reading the book and picturing the characters from the movie. So although it does get over shadowed by the movie, the book is also enhanced by it. Now after reading the book and going back to watch the movie again, I have more of a respect for it, and the book returns the favor by enhancing the movie. Whether you have read the book, seen the movie, or done both I think you could agree that the story of the Corleone family is one that you will never forget and one you almost wished you were really a part of; wished that you really were the third cousin at a family gathering.