The Godfather: The classic bestseller that inspired the legendary film Unknown Binding – 2 July 2009

This is not the sort of book I normally read: crime, murder, family feuds - but I have seen the films many times and I bought the book on a Kindle daily deal - I like to collect classics.The first thing to say is, it is beautifully written and with affinity for each of the main characters and their point of view, as they enter the story. I cannot say how much of the three dimensionality - or sometimes four-dimensionality - of the characters I feel is due to the book itself, or my familiarity with the films; it can't be separated now.That leads me on to the next thing I must mention, which is the first thing I noticed on reading this book. The first part of the book and the first part of the film are almost identical, so I was in familiar territory. We are at Connie's wedding party, in the grounds of the Corleone family estate and it is almost as if, like 2001, the two were written synonymously. I have to say that this makes the film enormously clever, I feel, to pull off such a thing - but then, Mario Puzo was heavily involved in the making of the film - and I might have felt very differently about it, if I had read the book first (I hated Disney's Winnie the Pooh!).The book, however, contains a lot of detail that is not in the film - a whole different dimension to both Johnny Fontane, and Lucy Mancini (Sonny's Mistress) and, even having seen the films many times, I still thoroughly enjoyed it - in fact, it was comforting to have ready made images I could call up, for these characters, which did not clash with the book in any way.All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable, well-written book, with few grammatical errors and I am on to the next one now, while my husband, who has been anxiously waiting in the wings, for me to finish this one, commences to devour it, probably in half the time it took me!

excellent read and such good Service

If you haven’t seen the films (well, parts 1 and 2, I haven’t seen 3) you definitely should - they’re classics of cinema. Some scenes are definitely better in the films than the book (I’m thinking of Michael in the restaurant and young Vito in the tenements).As for the book - the ‘gangster stuff’ is very good. Tense murder scenes, believable characterisation for some of the main players (the Don especially), and a good depiction of how, while these guys are mostly not ‘evil’, their activities have a corrosive effect on society. The writing quality is mixed but Puzo does a great job of evoking the beauty of Sicily in the chapters set there.On the downside, the treatment of women is…not great. Yes, I know it’s set in the forties and fifties and written in the sixties, but it’s still irritating noticing that Puzo tends to describe women in terms of their attractiveness or otherwise, and there are several cringey sex scenes. The dynamic between Mama Corleone and Kay is very good (even if I don’t believe Kay would have stuck around), but the less said about Lucy Mancini and her gynae issues, the better. I also didn’t care for Johnny Fontane, his fading voice and his ‘broads’.

The film was excellent but this is even better. Much more info on characters who barely featured in the film

I had read this maybe 30 years ago, and I'd forgotten just how closely the film is based on the novel. Much of the film dialogue is lifted pretty much straight from the book, so if you're familiar with the film you'll almost certainly be seeing the film in your head as you read this and you will also picture the actors rather than Puzo's descriptions e.g. he has Sonny, Michael and Fredo (Fred/Freddie in the novel) as all being rather beefy.I didn't really find the book added much to their characters, as they were well depicted in the film, but Fredo's characterisation as a "weakling" in the film was probably an improvement over his rather uninteresting characterisation in the novel. On the other hand, the novel fills out Kay's character and motivations much more, and even gives some coverage to "Mama", and I thought those were a welcome improvement.Being so long since I'd read it, I had forgotten that the novel includes the flashback scenes of the young Vito Corleone that became a key part of the Godfather II film.I had had it in my mind that the book was more sensationalist than I actually found it on this reading, although there are a few needlessly prurient scenes which the film sensibly dropped or toned down. It does also include elements of racism and misogyny within individual character's opinions, but these would probably have been representative of such characters in the 1950s.Overall I thought it was a very good read, and I would certainly recommend it, especially to fans of the film.

What a great read, I think I enjoyed it even more reading it for the second time ! What a Family.

No words can describe how good this book is.Read it about ten times since I first read it three years ago

Very well written and extremely entertaining. Keeps you on the edge of your seat as plots unfold throughout the novel.

Livro é esclarecedor e complementar ao filme. Não há uma página que seja entediante, é uma leitura dinâmica.

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