Personal Review

Personal Review:

Though I didn’t think that the novel was written very well from a literary standpoint, it’s undeniable that The Godfather has an interesting and well formulated plot. Critics insist that Puzo glorifies the mafia in his novel, and I can see why. With so many deaths and so few tears shed, Puzo and his cold-blooded characters seem desensitized to rampant violence-and still, I find myself rooting for these criminals. In the simplest terms, the police are evil and the Corleones, loving. Their family ties are romanticized; they attack only those who harm their loved ones. And above all else, every Corleone man on the Corleone's  is always levelheaded, irresistably strong, and constantly, inarguably cool.

            Besides those highpoints, I have to say also that the novel was full of useless information. Full chapters flooded anecdotes, toils, and terrors of men who were hardly involved in the plot.

            Overall, I’d vote for the movie over the book, though it was an honest and generally successful attempt by Puzo. I have gained much respect for him as an author; so, may his first grandchild be born  masculine. :)

Text Connections

Text Connections

Since published in 1969, plot lines from The Godfather have been emulated countless times. References are nearly omnipresent; they appear in literature and all over popular culture, ranging widely from The Sony and Cher Comedy Hour to the sequel of the animated children’s film, The Rugrats. In particular, the line spoken by Don Corleone on the thirty-ninth page of the novel is arguably the most popular: “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” The horse head scene is a close second, comically referenced in such public venues as a SuperBowl commercial for an Audi car dealership.

Since I obviously do not involve myself in much mafia business in daily life, I connected the text of the novel primarily to fictional stories and films. Many crime novels, like Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, or the more recent No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, share similar settings and conflicts.

Another connection that I made was to the documentary television series Gangland, which airs both on the History Channel and on the cable channel, ‘Spike.’ Currently in its seventh season, the program outlines the history of notorious and dangerous leaders in organized crime.

In addition, there was a self-help book published by Tony Serri, It's Not Personal, It's Strictly Business:The Godfather way of Surviving, Conniving and Thriving in Corporate America. The author says of his work, “[it] applies the Corleone's methods to practical real-life examples. It's kind of hilarious how well it works in a corporate setting. Most corporate dwellers have no answer for someone like Vito or Michael. You can run circles around them.” This book is tangible evidence of the Godfather’s lasting influence. Though in the novel his oil importing business was just a front for organized crime, it cannot be claimed that Don Corleone was any less than an extremely talented and knowledgeable businessman.

Imagery

Imagery

Primarily through metaphoric comparison and the inclusion of specific detail, Puzo illustrates major settings in the novel. Though his tone is dry and often cynical, Puzo has an ability to manipulate language and inspire vivid images of characters and scenery. He describes the home of the Hollywood producer, Jack Woltz, in saying that it “looked like an implausible movie set. There was a plantation-type mansion, huge grounds girdled by a rich black-dirt bridle path, stables and a pasture for a herd of horses. The hedges, flower beds and grasses were as carefully manicured as a movie star’s nails.” (59) Thus, the reader is able to visualize the setting, further enhancing the power of Puzo’s language.

Puzo is also able to establish a mood through imagery. With a dark and haunting tone he describes a meeting at a nightclub after its closing. About the bar he says, “the doorman was no longer there when [Luca Brasi] went in. The hatcheck girl was gone. Only Bruno Tattaglia waited to greet him and lead him to the deserted bar at the side of the room. Before him he could see the desert of small tables with the polished yellow wood dance floor gleaming like a small diamond in the middle of them. In the shadows was the empty bandstand, out of it grew the skeleton metal stalk of a microphone.” (109-110) The mood that he creates is threatening and negative. His eerie depiction only hints at the events about to take place; in this way, Puzo’s imagery gains the dual ability also to foreshadow.

Syntax

Syntax

• “Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than government. It is almost the equal of family. Never forget that.” (38) The Don’s sentence structure is not always flowery, but this quote is especially laconic. It delivers one of the central messages of the novel, being the heavy importance of loyalty, honor, and tradition.
• To convey the importance of a sense of loyalty and stress the importance of protecting and cherishing loved ones, Puzo capitalizes the word “Family.” Generally this idiosyncrasy is found in the Don’s spoken dialogue, which is fitting because it cements this character’s personal philosophy.

•  “Women can be careless. Not men.” Mario Puzo creates antithesis here, and it is symbolic of the barrier between sexes in the novel.
• Repetition of the phrase “It’s not personal, its business,” as well as its several variations, illustrates the theme of a desire to keep negotiations and business separate from feeling and emotion. This idea stresses that the realms of home and office should never mix. Personal feelings should never influence business decisions, but in reality, its not always easy to disregard emotion and history. Over all, the most important idea of this philosophy in the novel is that a “businessman’s” family, namely his wife and children, should remain unharmed.

Diction

Diction

• "...before he put the gun against Fanucci's sweaty, suety cheek and fired into his brain." (206) The inclusion of this denotative, obscure word (meaning hard, raw fat from a beef carcass sold for cooking), right next to its counter, with similar phonetic pronunciation, is a colorful play on words. 
• Many of the characters in the novel are Italian, and Puzo includes words and phrases, usually italicized, that are from the Italian language. Denotative words like “consigliori,” meaning a counselor or advisor to an important leader, and “pezzonovanti,” which derives from ‘idiot’ or ‘moron’ in Sicilian and translates also to what in English would be called a “big shot,” are important in the plot for characterization and labeling, and are used repeatedly in the novel.
• As in most any business, the fictional Corleones develop terms and jargin that doesn’t always have a clear meaning when literally translated. One such example of these idioms is the phrase “make his bones,” used to cite a sort of initiation that young “buttonmen” must endure before becoming a respectable member of the Don’s family business. As another example of this use of idiom, Puzo writes, “the sly Turkish fox was going to show his bushy tail, Luca thought.”
• There is a lack of varied sentence structure in the novel, as well. I hesitate to call this style of writing unsophisticated; instead, its simplified text allows the plot to further progress in a way that is able to be understood and is more readily available to a wider audience.
• In dialogue between the brothers of the Corleone family, Puzo’s diction becomes colloquial and informal. For example, Sonny explains the plan for a rendezvous to his younger brother Micheal. Laughing, Sonny says, “That son of a bitch Solozzo, he really is something. Here’s the deal. At eight tonight he and Captain McCluskey pick Mike up in front of Dempsey’s bar on Broadway. They go someplace to talk, and get this. Mike and Sollozzo talk in Itallian so that the Irish cop don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. He even tells me, don’t worry, he knows McCluskey doesn’t know one word in Italian unless it’s ‘soldi’ and he’s checked you out, Mike, and…” (143). Puzo’s use of profanity and low level diction make his character Sonny seem cool and comfortable. His tone is ironically misleading, considering the danger of their subject, an arranged secret meeting with a drug trafficker and his burly, violent bodyguard.

Rhetorical Strategies

Rhetorical Strategies

Metaphor

•  “You let women dictate your actions and they are not competent in this world, though certainly they will be saints in heaven while we men burn in hell.” (38)
•  “…her mother, who tried to stare Hagen down with cold arrogance that made him want to punch her in the face. The angel child and the dragon mother, Hagen thought, returning the mother’s cold stare.” (55)
• “You know those Arctic explorers who leave caches of food scattered on the route to the North Pole? Just in case they may need them someday? That’s my father’s favors. Someday he’ll be at each one of those peoples houses and they had better come across.” (43)
• “Specially baked by Nazorine, it was cleverly decorated with shells of cream so dizzyingly delicious that the bride greedily plucked them from the corpse of the cake before she whizzed away on her honeymoon with her groom.” (43)
• “Genco Abbando had run a long race with death, and now, vanquished, exhausted on the raised bed. He was wasted away to no more than a skeleton, and what had once been vigorous black hair had turned into obscene stringy wisps.” (46)
• (40) “I didn’t answer before the wedding because on an important day like that there should be no cloud, not even in the distance.”

Foreshadowing:

• “…nothing could be traced to the top. Unless the Consigliori turned traitor.” (50)

Paradox

• “From everything that Johnny said, Hagen knew he would never be able to persuade Woltz. But he also had no doubt whatsoever that the Don would keep his promise to Johnny.” (51)

Personification:

• “…ever since the cancer had imprisoned Genco Abbandando in his hospital bed.” (40)

Hyperbole

• “He’s a businessman,” the Don said blandly. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” (39)

Simile

• “…wife and three daughters dressed in black, clustered like a flock of plump crows on the white tile floor of the hospital corridor. When they saw Don Corleone come out of the elevator, they seemed to flutter up off the white tiles in an instinctive surge toward him for protection.” (45)
• “I hear, Don Corleone, that you have as many judges in your pocket as a bootblack has pieces of silver.” (74); metaphoric for the Don’s power
• “You had to be careful with Paulie, the man was like a rat, he could smell danger.” (103)
• “He’d be as skittish as a donkey with ants up his ass.” (103)
• “You had to be careful with Paulie, the man was like a rat, he could smell danger.” And “He’d be as skittish as a donkey with ants up his ass.” (102); Puzo utilizes similes for characterization. His comparisons make characters more dynamic and give readers insight to their thoughts and feelings.

Irony:

• Corruption is equally rampant in public officials and mafia criminals, ie. Captain McCluskey is ugly and crass, a police official that doubles as a bodyguard for drug trafficker, Solozo

Euphemism:

• Repetition of the phrase “family business” in reference to the crime operations of the Corleone family implies that the characters aren’t comfortable with the truth of their actions; dismisses the sense of guilt by lying not only to police and government officials, but also to themselves
• “Sonny lit a cigar and took a shot of whiskey. Michael, bewildered, said. 'What the hell does that fish mean?' It was Tom Hagen the Irisher, the Consigliere, who answered him. 'The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean,’ he said. ‘It’s an old Sicilian message.’”; notion of “sleeping” signifies the death of Luca Brasi simply (almost lightly); symbolic also with the fish wrapped in his bulletproof vest

Puzo’s use of figurative language is woven throughout the novel, but one of its strongest points is in describing the six hundred thousand dollar racehorse, Khartonm. Puzo states that “the horse inside the stall was, even to Hagen’s inexperienced eyes, a beautiful animal. Khartonm’s skin was jet black except for a diamond-shaped white patch on his huge forehead. The great brown eyes glinted like golden apples, the black skin over the taut body was silk” (60).