Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
Mario Puzo, The Godfather is by far the greatest crime book ever. Loyalty, friendship, greed, passion, and corruption are all strong aspects of this book that create the very meaning and truth of the book.
A sensational blockbuster of a novel that can be best described as a ’Classic’. It is the most revealing book ever written about the Underworld. The narrative has the breakneck drive of a detective story. One cannot stop reading it & after reading, it is impossible not to be in a state of amazement for the sheer depth & enigma of the book.
The ’’Godfather’’ is Don Vito Corleone, a Sicilian- American patriarch, already one of the top men in the Mafia. Whatever he wants he gets, by hook or by crook. The book pulses with action. Puzo has done this so well that the most outrageous episodes seem so natural.
All the blood, all slaughter, all the raw violence are in consonance with the person about whom he is writing; whether the short-tempered Santanio, or the demure Freddie or the cool-headed Michael or the bloodthirsty Luca.
Yet at the same time he makes the frightening cast of characters seem human & possible, with their vivid descriptions. It is a blunt, battering ram of a book, one intended to shock & to stun. It is a supercharged account of a family that uses guns, axes & garrotes & the psychology of fear to achieve dominance over the entire Italian Mafioso in United States. At the same time he provides insights in the personal lives of persons branded by the society as criminals, the agonies & the ecstasy of their existence & the constant shadow of death lurking over their head.
This book portrays a very good outlook of the ?mafia? underworld.
Don Vito Corleone was a man to whom everybody came for help, and never were they disappointed. He made no empty promises, nor the craven excuse that his hands were tied by more powerful forces in the world than himself. It was not necessary that he be your friend, it was not even important that you had no means with which to repay him.
Only one thing was required. That you, you yourself, proclaim your friendship. And then, now matter how poor or powerless the supplicant, Don Corleone would take that man’s troubles to his heart. And he would let nothing stand in the way to a solution of that man’s woe. His reward? Friendship, the respectful title of ’’Don, ’’ and sometimes the more affectionate salutation of ’’Godfather.’’
’’The bullet caught Sollozzo squarely between his eye and his ear and when it exited on the other side, it blasted out a huge gout of blood and skull fragments onto the petrified waiter’s jacket. Instinctively Micheal knew that one bullet was enough. Sollozzo had turned his head in that last moment and Michael had seen the light of life die in the man’s eyes as clearly as a candle goes out’’ ------ a gory paragraph from a book filled with violence, power and might.
The characters in this book live in a real world... a world that knows how to be safe in an unsafe world. A world that knows how to prosper in poverty. A world that knows how to market water in the time of drought. How to twist the law. How to buy out the police. How to be just in injustice. How to win hearts. And how to kill those who disagree. Puzo’s book is truly complete, because by the end of it, you know what happened to each and every character. You understand each and every event, you relate to each and every character, no matter how ruthless he is or how innocent you are! But most of all, you comprehend the vision of Vito Corleone, you see the beauty that he sees in life and living, because after all, as Puzo says ?
’’If you can die saying life is beautiful, nothing else matters.’’
Authors Name : Mario Puzo
Publisher : Penguin Putnam Inc.,
The Book : Paperback ; 444 pages.
Francis Coppola’s film adaptation ? set in 3 parts, was also brilliant, with a cast comprising of ? Marlon Brando, Al Pacino??.etc.