The book offers a chilling and an insiders account of the Cosa Nostra. The novel pulsates with a dramatic and evil indent, brute rage, and the naked terror of an infamous underworld. Mario Puzo takes the reader inside the violence-infested society of the Mafia and its gang wars. He shows its trials by gunfire and torture and the nature of Mafia friendship. The Godfather is essentially the story of a man and his power, and it is a reading experience one is not likely to forget for a long time.
The book opens in the garden of Don Vito Corleone, the Godfather, who is holding court at the wedding of his only daughter Connie and no Sicilian can refuse a request on that day. So the supplicants come, each wanting something different - revenge, a husband for their daughter, a part in a movie and a hundred other different things. The Corleone family too is present in full attendance - Michael, the Don’s youngest son is back home in the company of a new girlfriend Kate. The two older boys, Sonny and Fredo are there as well, along with their ’’adopted’’ brother, Tom Hagen the Consigliori or the advisor to the don.
With the end of the world war, the times are changing, and as much as Don Vito seems in control at the wedding, his power is beginning to erode. By the standards of some, his views on the importance of family, loyalty, and respect are antiquated. Even his heir apparent, Sonny, disagrees with his refusal to get into the drug business. But Don Vito Corleone will not compromise, even when a powerful drug supplier, Sollozzo, with the full backing of all the other “families” arrives with promises of high profits in exchange for monetary, political and judicial help from Don Corleone.
Don Vito’s refuses to do business with Sollozzo because he is of the opinion that inspite of being a profitable proposition, drugs are not a good thing for the society. This refusal strikes the first sparks of a war and Solozzo makes an unsuccessful attempt on the Don’s life which he survives. Enraged at the attack on his father, Sonny, the Don’s eldest son goes on a rampage and vows to decimate all the mafioso families in New York. Solozzo sends across a message that needless bloodshed would do no good as it would prove detrimental to the Corleone family ultimately. They agree to set up a meeting and bury the hatchet between themselves.
To cut a long story short, Michael, the youngest son is drawn into the affair and he volunteers to go as the Corleone family’s representative for the proposed meeting. There, he kills Solozzo and a police captain who is hand in glove with Solozzo. In order to keep him away from the police, he is sent away to Sicily till things “cool” down at NY. However, the family’s enemies, getting wind of Michael’s presence in Sicily set out to terminate him but Michael escapes and comes back to NY after a few years.
In the meantime, Sonny has been killed and the Don, rising from his bed after a prolonged battle with death makes truce with the other mafia families. After Michael’s arrival, the Don begins grooming him to become the next head of the family. The Don, however dies of a heart attack and it is now upto Michael, as the Don, to consolidate the family position and take revenge for all the wrongs done upon his family. His transformation from innocent bystander to the central manipulator is totally unexpected. By the end, Michael, the man who was always aloof from the “shady business” of the family and who claims to Kate that he is different from the rest of his family becomes more ruthless and blood thirsty than Don Vito Corleone ever was.
One factor that makes this book an all time classic is the manner in which a lot of complex sub-plots have been woven around the central theme in a beautiful manner. The intertwining threads of ethnic separatism, cultural isolation, filial obligation and familial bonding explain the global appeal of this master opus. It is a spellbinding story and is written with the authentic knowledge required for this particular milieu of literature. It almost looks as if Mario Puzo lived as an insider in the mafia atmosphere for a long time, a charge he continuously refuted till the time he passed away in October 1999.
The book does not glorify the concept of “mafioso”, it only relates a saga of power, treachery and bloodshed as they existed in the mafia circles in the early 1900’s. It shows Don Vito Corleone not as a ruthless killer but as a man who became what he was due to circumstances and planned his moves with cold logic in the face of adversity. Inspite of the negative impression generally associated such stories, the Don is shown as a just and fair man who fights for what he thinks is right and on behalf of those at the receiving end of the law for no offence of theirs.
If The Godfather was only about gun-toting Mafia types who kill at the drop of a hat, it would never have garnered as many accolades nor sold as many copies as it did. What sets work apart from so many of its predecessors and successors is its ability to weave the often-disparate layers of story into a cohesive whole.
To sum it up...this must surely be one of the top 10 classics of all time...if you haven’t read it, your literary education is incomplete.