A Review of ‘The GodFather’ by Mario Puzo

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I remember very vividly from the book ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ preface that a good book did not need to be decked in superfluous words because the thought itself was beautiful. I don’t remember much of the book now but this single line stuck with me even after all these years and though in no way do I wish to put the previous book of mine down but I must honestly admit that it was not an easy book to read because of both the slightly poetic nature of its thought and also the veil of complex words author choose to shroud his thoughts behind. I realised this after I finished reading ‘The Godfather’ by Mario Puzo. The sheer brilliance of this author lies in the thought and not in words they choose to decked the thought up in. In fact the language of the book is very accessible and makes you feel welcome. Almost halfway through the book I realised that I spent very little time and effort getting here and this made the rest of the book only more enjoyable.

The story of the book of course is very popular and well known so I will not be going into what many of the details of the book. In short, this book is a chronicle of the lives and times of Don Vitto Corleone, a sicilian mafioso now settled in New York and also of his sons mainly Santino and Michael Corleone who follows in their father’s footsteps and rule the roost over both the coasts of continental United States. In case you are wondering more, I strongly recommend that you watch the first and second movies in ‘The Godfather’ triology by Francis Ford Coppola as they are a very close to the book adaption.

What arrests my attention are some of the finer details which I am not still sure on how to process:

1. The Italian immigrants in Americas always tend to hold the African American people in a general low regard. In particular we can see that it is common for the people on the lower rung of the mafia to judge the black people of Harlem and generalise/stereotype the population. They are often seen freely using the ’N’ word and this strikes very weird to me as it is not generally considered a polite expression to refer to the African American community with this expression. This part of the book was something I was not really comfortable with.
2. The women in the story are always looked down upon and are generally boxed into a very traditional role of a caring mother or a wife and are in no way allowed to play a role in the business or even worse to acknowledge the huge crime syndicate their husbands are a part of. Coming from an Indian, upbringing where the traditional roles of men and women are so well defined and it is only in the last two generations we see a much wider disintegration of gender roles and stereotypes, I find this arrangement of a wife dutifully following a husband even in United States of 1940’s to 1960’s very bizarre.
3. It is a dog eat dog world out there but somehow both Michael and his father Vitto are hell bent on making sure that their children do not follow in their footsteps. Vitto was a first generation mafioso and Michael almost got off the hook if not for the series of unexpected events that are set off because of Sollozo. So, I am assuming that as Mike aspires to the family on an all legal route, may be as he hoped a future Corleone would have been a president or a senator or even a congressman or a mayor.

This brings me into the other thing I wanted to mention in passing. I had hoped that by some cruel twist of fate that Mike’s Italian wife, Apollonia did not have to visit the States and viola that is exactly how it unfolds in the story. The reason I gave myself for that was twofold. One that while reading the book I realised she was a very simple soul who despite being in Sicily, the mafia motherland, was untouched by all the dirt of the world around her and she would surely have a very hard time adjusting to being the wife of a Don. Two while I pen this down I realise she also represented/embodied Mike’s innocence and though Mike had ventured into his father’s world and business with the gunning down of Sollozo and McCluskey, Apollonia’s death was a foretelling of the death of his own reluctance or dilemmas about being a part of the mafia and running the show. I am aware that all the decisions were already made by the time these two star-crossed lovers meet-up, but I fancy thinking her death as a undismissible representation of the same.

The last thing that really struck a chord with me was reflecting on why Santino and Frederico failed their father the great Don while Michael rose up to the occasion and became his true prodigal son.

Michael did not want to be a part of the family. He did not associate himself with the Corleones or their family business of oil and crime. He did not want to make offers that others could not refuse and yet in the end he becomes fully involved in the business. He becomes a Don.

To begin with, Don Vito respects and admires that Michael chose to forge his own destiny rather than fall in like the others. He was conscious about all the decisions he made in life including the one to gun down Sollozzo and McCluskey.

Unlike Sonny he is not a hothead and does not rush into taking decisions and unlike Fredo he is not a womaniser or a pushover. He is a man of set ideals whatever they may be and thinks through each and every decision of his own. Almost till the time McCluskey pulls of the guards from the hospital and aids the hit on his father, Michael believes that his sense of righteousness aligns with the one enshrined in the law and believes the system work fairly despite being a product of the quagmire the world is. When the system fails him and his family an animal like instinct kicks in him and he decides to be done with such a system and save the ones he loves. Michael is also not a man of excessive violence. There are some callouts to Al-Capone being the violent animal of Chicago and Don Vito looking down on this aspect of Al-Capone.

I really like one juxtaposition from the movie, during Connie’s kids baptism, Michael is seen as the Godfather of the child and also the executions of the other mob bosses are happening in the background. This is super symbolic in the sense that Michael is now the GodFather and also represents his baptism into the crime family.