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jpblanks 's review for:
The Godfather
by Mario Puzo
Very minor situational spoilers.
It’s a great story, and I generally enjoyed reading it, but it’s the rare book that isn’t as good as the movie. There are a few reasons for this.
In no particular order, 1) while the racism and sexism in the book serve some narrative purposes, there are a few places where it’s unclear whether Puzo doesn’t share some of those views. This is most obviously problematic in Johnny Fontaine’s relationship to women as a gender, the framing of the insecurities of an entire class of aging Hollywood starlets, and the bizarre descriptions of sex between Michael and Apollonia. The sex writing is terrible throughout but Apollonia is barely recognizable as a human being. I could see using that relationship as a larger metaphor within the story, but it ties so closely with an essentialist Sicilian-ness that it’s just gross.
2) The book does provide some very welcomed broadening of characters less fleshed out in the film, like Al Neri, Mama Corleone, and especially Lucy Mancini (the bridesmaid, for movie fans), but there is a clumsiness with which he handles the Don’s brilliance. At times, Tom Hagen seems like a mobbed up version of Austin Powers’ Basil Exposition explaining how the Don planned this and that event. Some of it works, but when it doesn’t, it’s some of the most ridiculous dialogue in the whole book.
And 3) perhaps 2b), Puzo clubs the reader over the head with Michael and his jaw. It had the capability to be a really good plot device but then he explains it to death. Never has the writers’ directive “show don’t tell” been more clearly violated.
All that said, I’m glad I read the book—but it’s importance is the story and creating the American mobster as anti-hero, not the prose. For those reasons, I gave it three rather than four stars because when it stumbled it was really bad.
It’s a great story, and I generally enjoyed reading it, but it’s the rare book that isn’t as good as the movie. There are a few reasons for this.
In no particular order, 1) while the racism and sexism in the book serve some narrative purposes, there are a few places where it’s unclear whether Puzo doesn’t share some of those views. This is most obviously problematic in Johnny Fontaine’s relationship to women as a gender, the framing of the insecurities of an entire class of aging Hollywood starlets, and the bizarre descriptions of sex between Michael and Apollonia. The sex writing is terrible throughout but Apollonia is barely recognizable as a human being. I could see using that relationship as a larger metaphor within the story, but it ties so closely with an essentialist Sicilian-ness that it’s just gross.
2) The book does provide some very welcomed broadening of characters less fleshed out in the film, like Al Neri, Mama Corleone, and especially Lucy Mancini (the bridesmaid, for movie fans), but there is a clumsiness with which he handles the Don’s brilliance. At times, Tom Hagen seems like a mobbed up version of Austin Powers’ Basil Exposition explaining how the Don planned this and that event. Some of it works, but when it doesn’t, it’s some of the most ridiculous dialogue in the whole book.
And 3) perhaps 2b), Puzo clubs the reader over the head with Michael and his jaw. It had the capability to be a really good plot device but then he explains it to death. Never has the writers’ directive “show don’t tell” been more clearly violated.
All that said, I’m glad I read the book—but it’s importance is the story and creating the American mobster as anti-hero, not the prose. For those reasons, I gave it three rather than four stars because when it stumbled it was really bad.