Book Review on the Godfather by Mario Puzo

Submitted by Md. Jane Alam Sufian Assistant music director 29th BCS (Ansar) Ansar & VDP Academy Shafipur, Gazipur Book Review On The Godfather By Mario Puzo Submitted To Hira Miah Course OIC Director (Training) Ansar & VDP Academy Shafipur, Gazipur Submitted by Md. Jane Alam Sufian Assistant Director 29th BCS (Ansar) Ansar & VDP Academy Shafipur, Gazipur acknowledgment Book review is an important assignment for an officer. For the successful accomplishment all told credits and praises are collectable to Almighty, the roughly merciful the most gracious Allah.To complete this very work I had to seek advocate and help from lot of persons who helped me with forth any hesitation, I am really grateful to them for their patience.. I had to take n unmatchables from the cyberspace in this case I image used wikipedia as reference and As I had submitted the give-and-take name by Mario Puzo and it wasnt available in our library so I had to collect this password from Nilkhet, Dhaka. I would kindred to express my sincerest and deepest respect to my course OIC Hira Miah, Director (Training) Bangladesh Ansar & VDP Academy and CC Deputy Director Kamrun Nahar Bangladesh Ansar & VDP Academy.Finally I would like to express my deepest sense of gratitude and heartfelt give thanks to my course mates. Introduction The Godfather is a evil novel written by Italian American germ Mario Puzo, sea captainly published in 1969 by G. P. Putnams Sons. It details the tier of a fictitious Sicilian Mafia family based in New York city (and Long B severally, New York) and channelizeed by Don Vito Corleone, who became synonymous with the Italian Mafia. The novel covers the years 1945 to 1955, and similarly provides the stand story of Vito Corleone from archaeozoic childhood to adulthood.The guard introduced Italian criminal shapes like consiglieri, caporegime, Cosa Nostra, and omerta to an English-speaking audience. It make the basis for a 1972 film of the same name. Two f ilm sequels, including new contri howeverions by Puzo himself, were made in 1974 and 1990. The first and second films are widely considered to be two of the greatest films of all cartridge holder. The cover was created by S. Neil Fujita whose design have a large Gothic-style letter G with a farsighted curl at the top emphasizing the first three letters of the title, accompanied by the hands of a puppeteer prop a set of strings over the father portion of the word.Title Some controversy surrounds the title of the leger and its underworld implications. Although it is widely reported that Puzo was inspired to use Godfather as a designator for a Mafia loss sounder from his experience as a reporter, the term The Godfather was first used in connection with the Mafia during Joe Valachis affirmation during a 1963 United States congressional hearing on organized crime. Main characters The Corleone family patriarch is Vito Corleone (The Don), whose surname (Italian for Lionheart) recalls the township of Corleone, Sicily.Vito has four children Santino Sonny Corleone, Frederico Fredo Corleone, Michael Mikey Corleone, and Constanzia Connie Corleone. He also has an informally adopted son, Tom Hagen, who became the Corleones consiglieri. Vito Corleone is also the godfather of singer and pic star Johnny Fontane. The godfather referred to in the title is generally taken to be Vito. However, the storys central character is really Michael. Its central make-up follows that it is Michaels destiny to replace his father as the dubiousness of the family, despite his determination to lead a to a greater extent Americanized flavor with his girlfriend (and eventual wife) Kay Adams.The Corleone family is in fact a criminal physical composition with national influence, notably protection, extortion, gambling and union racketeering. Serving under the Don is his oldest son Santino, who serves as underboss. The operative side of the organization is headed by two caporegimes, Pet er Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio. Film adaptation Main article The Godfather In 1972, a film adaptation of the novel was released, starring Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, and order by Francis Ford Coppola.Mario Puzo assisted with constitution the screenplay and with other production tasks. The film grossed approximately $269 million intercontinental and won various awards, including three Academy apportions, five Golden Globes and one Grammy and is considered to be one of the greatest films of all succession. The sequel, The Godfather Part II won six Oscars, and became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film is similar to the novel in most places, but leaves out some details, such(prenominal) as extended back stories for some characters. Some of these details ere actually filmed, and were include in ulterior versions such as The Godfather Saga. A subplot involving Johnny Fontane in Hollywood was not filmed. The b iggest difference was that the novel included a much upbeat ending than the film, in which Kay Corleone accepts Michaels decision to take over his fathers business. The film, in contrast, ends with Kays realization of Michaels ruthlessness, a theme that would develop in the second and third films, which were largely not based on the schoolmaster novel. Vito Corleones backstory appeared in the second film.Other adaptations Main article The Godfather The Game The video stake company electronic Arts released a video game adaptation of The Godfather on March 21, 2006. The p level assumes the role of a soldier in the Corleone family. Prior to his remnant, Marlon Brando provided some voice work for Vito, which was eventually deemed unusable and was dubbed over by a Brando impersonator. Francis Ford Coppola said in April 2005 that he was not informed of Paramounts decision to allow the game to be made and he did not approve of it. 4 Al Pacino also did not participate, and his likeness was replaced with a different depiction of Michael Corleone. Sequels In 1983 Puzos literary sequel to The Godfather was published. Entitled The Sicilian it chronicles the life of Guiliano (Salvatore Giuliano) but the Corleone family is featured heavily throughout, Michael Corleone in particular. Chronologically this story sits between Michaels exile to Sicily in 1950 to his return to the USA. due(p) to secure reason outs the Corleone family involvement was cut from the Michael Cimino movie adaption.In 2004, Random House published a sequel to Puzos The Godfather, The Godfather Returns, by scribble Winegardner. A further sequel by Winegardner, The Godfathers Revenge, was released in 2006. The sequel novels continue the story from Puzos novel. The Godfather Returns picks up the story immediately after the end of Puzos The Godfather. It covers the years 1955 to 1962, as well as providing significant backstory for Michael Corleones character foregoing to the events of the first nove l. The events of the film The Godfather Part II all take place within the time partikin of this novel, but are just mentioned in the background.The novel contains an appendix that attempts to correlate the events of the novels with the events of the films. The Godfathers Revenge covers the years 1963 to 1964. inveterate Puzos habit, as seen in The Godfather, of featuring characters who are close analogues of real life events and semipublic recruits (as Johnny Fontane is an analogue of plainspoken Sinatra), Winegardner features in his two Godfather novels analogues of Joseph, John, and Robert Kennedy, as well as an analogue for alleged organized crime figure Carlos Marcello (Carlo Tramonti).In The Godfather Returns, Winegardner also dramatizes the sweep of organized crime arrests that took place in Apalachin, New York, in 1957. Winegardner uses all of the characters from the Puzo novels, and created a few of his own, most notably Nick Geraci, a Corleone soldier who plays a piv otal role in the sequel novels. Winegardner further develops characters from the original novel, such as Fredo Corleone, Tom Hagen, and Johnny Fontane. Real-life influencesLarge parts of the novel are based upon reality, notably the history of the so-called Five Families, the Mafia-organization in New York and the surrounding area. The novel also includes objet darty allusions to real-life mobsters and their associates, and Johnny Fontane is based on Frank Sinatra, Moe Greene on Bugsy Siegel, for example. Summary Ageless Books are boldly ignorant of the passage of time. The past and the future merge in the permanence of a timeless story. old age and decades pass us by, we grow up and grow old, and yet these books only be do it more countenance with time.The Godfather story is insurmountable, it is beyond a classic, it is unashamedly ignorant of cultural, geographical or age boundaries it resonates with all of us and has so ever since it first appeared in print in Mario Puzos epi c novel in 1969. Nino Rotas world famous main theme song is etched in the depth of my retentiveness from my childhood days when the music filled my house in London. the Godfather has held a special place in my heart all my life. I knew the music many years out front I watched the movie first, and that came many years before I read the novel.Now, and only now, after reading the novel do I understand why everyone loved this story so much and why they repeatedly watched and listened to the music. Now I feel closer to one of my friend Razib and marvel at his taste in what I stimulate to be a re breakable story. How I wish he could be here today to split me his thoughts on the Godfather, now that I can appreciate it. We may express the gratitude we feel toward our families while we have the chance, but why is it that the true under stand up of that gratitude often greets us bitterly late in life?The ingenuous story and remarkable characters aside, the writing of Mario Puzo is of high est quality. Puzos novel speaks to every reader from every crack of life, and evidently through different generations. It runs through themes understood by all humans family and brotherhood, sacrifice and justice, believe and betrayal, revenge and retribution, business and familiarity friendship that the Godfather held so tenderly and seriously, friendship that he offered openly and generously, friendship in the name of which he offered kick upstairss and collected them in due time.In the core of this magnificent story is Mario Puzos writing. On the surface, it mostly appears to be a crime novel with grotesque scenes and unhappy outcomes but it is only the surface. The writing is solid, authentic, lustful and obsessive through and through it takes your imagination into the scene, it places you inside the situation with the character and it demands that you to the full partake in the intensity of every moment. The story endures and the writing of this remarkable author is the solid derriere of stick up which upholds t. Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Court Number 3 and waited for justice. And so we register the under world of Italian immigrants in New York city. We encounter characters we can never forget. The depiction of these unforgettable characters Luca Brasi, Tom Hagen, Sonny Corleone, Kay Adams, Johnny Fontaine while secondary to our main characters, paints a permanent picture before our eyes in the hands of Mario Puzos masterful prose.Through these characters, we get to know our heroes, Don Vito Corleone as the head of the Corleone family and business, and the steer of the ingenious mafia world, and Michael Corleone, the Dons favorite son, who refuses to follow in his fathers footsteps, joins the army and keeps a distance from the family, until one day in the deep countryside of Sicily, he meets his ultimate fate. Perhaps, in its essence, in its very core, the Godfather is a story about father and son and their undeniable bond, which can be wanened but not broken, in the company of family loyalty and devotion reciprocating that of the Corleone family. I will reason with him. Don Corleones famous motto, a phrase that, when used, immediately translated to Tom Hagen, his consigliere, that the Godfather will not be persuaded otherwise, and that it would be in the best interest of the opposing party to acquiesce to Godfathers terms because no matter what terms presented to them at this time, if they should fail to agree, it would most veritablely be subject to harsher circumstances. Don Corleone is not a criminal man in his own world. He is a gracious, reasonable and honorable man.He has get the respect of his family, his community, his workforce, the entire immigrant population from Italy, and all who know him through his distinguished reputation. When he first came to America, for the small Vito, this was the dream land of opportunity at a time when jobs were scarce in Sicily and the regimen was to be feared and not trusted. He wore out his welcome quickly in America. He soon realized that the government and the authorities do not exist to protect him, to grant him justice in the face of trial and to act in his best interest.They exist to protect the law, which often is lacking in reason and diminutive exceptions. The young Vitos turning point in life comes to him in the early days in America, when recently armed with this bitter knowledge, he had to protect himself against the corrupt and feared Fanucci in New Yorks perditions Kitchen. Vito Corleone makes the simple, logical, ingenious decision on the fate of Fanucci, and subsequently the fate of all those families and businesses from whom Fanucci extorted money for nonentity in return. That marks the day when he realizes his own fate in life.He begins to believe that every man has one fate, something Michael al vogues remembers about his father but does not fully comprehend until his hideout in Sicily later. The obsession and the rev erence of the Godfather is stunning and undeniable. He is worshiped on a massive scale, and yet by hunting lodges invoices, he is a first rate criminal. Even as he commits the most atrocious crime in all of the story, that of beheading of Khartoum, the magnificent horse belonging to Hollywood hotshot Woltz and the token of all beauty and innocence, the Godfather stands tall and respected.It is all understood and forgiven him as part of the business, necessary to reach certain goals and to protect certain interests. It is the legendary Marlon Brando performance engraved into a rock in our memory standing erect and powerful, commanding his world and bringing justice where none can be achieved by orders standard measures. The ethical motive of Don Corleone come to surface as he is first approached by Sollozzo, the Turk about the do drugs business. It makes complete sense to get engaged in trafficking drugs as a guaranteed measure to long-term power and money.Tom Hagen lays it p ile clearly If we do not get into it, someone else will. If it is not a main stream of income in the families now, it will be in 5 years, 10 years down the road. We must act quick, Tom tells the Godfather. Sonny, with his short and quick temper, makes a fatal mistake during the course of these negotiations by disagreeing with his father during the meeting with Sollozzo words that have no doubt made a proud mark on the American pop culture when the Godfather tells him never to let anyone outside the family know what you think.Yet despite the advice of his consigliere and his most likely successor, Sonny, the Godfather stands strong if alone in refusing to engage in drug business on ethics and brilliant business vision. This decision along with Sonnys foolishness to speak up at the Sollozzo meeting costs the Godfather 6 bullets. Even so, these bullets do not even come close to twin(a) the merciless gunning down of Sonny that later follows. These harsh blows to the most powerful man in all of NYC at the time raise intensity among the mafia world, and yet the Don refuses to act on this with warrant vengeance.It is with unwavering belief and rock-solid ethics that the Godfather then delivers a most unforgettable speech to the five Italian families in hopes of truce on the drug business. The judges and senators that hold his friendship dear would no time-consuming wish to be associated with him if the business graduated from the small petty crimes around importing and exporting of olive oil and other goods, gambling, prostitution a favorite of Tattalias to a seriously debilitating substance.In all of this, he stands alone as visionaries often do. When all hell broke loose after Godfathers injection and his hospitalization, it took a mastermind planning session between Clemenza, Tom Hagen and Sonny and Michael to arrive at the perfect solution. It was risky but the only way to handle the situation and it was for Michael to kill the slimy NY cop, McClusky, and the head of drug business, Sollozzo, in a public restaurant. Michael flees overnight to a hideout in Sicily, and waits for the smoke to clear to come home.It takes almost three years before he is able to safely return home during which time the Godfather tells Hagen every day Remember to use all your wits for a plan to bring Michael home. entirely it takes the genius of the Godfathers sharp mind, even in his weakened condition, to find the only legitimate way to realize this and that brings us to the story of Felix Bocchichio. This was omitted from the first movie but brilliantly told in the book. The Bocchichio family are the lowbred borderline hostile generation who would take revenge an eye for an eye if anything were to happen to their clan.For that reason, having a Bocchichio surety or having one arrange a meeting is absolute insurance on the impartial robustness of the matter. And it is through a misfortune of the Bocchichio family that Michael is able to return home. When Felix Bocchichio has his wake-up call after the ruthless way in which his colleagues betray him, he has to pay for a crime he did not commit. After he served his term and was released, he shoots his enemies dead in broad daylight, and waits to be arrested. It is impossible to find a way out of this mess for Felix Bocchichio.The genius of Godfather arranges for Felix to confess to the murder of McCLusky and Sollozzo, for an exchange of large pension to his family for life. Felix confesses and Michael comes home at long last. The recurring theme of taking care of ones family in exchange for a favor to the Godfather is renewed at the turn of every page in this book. Some of the sub-plots running through the Godfather, non-central to the general theme and missing from the movie, still make up my most cherished parts of this genius story.The indelible, lustful, crank passion which Lucy Mancini and Sonny enjoy for a short while is on top of that list. Even the impertinent brief r omance of Michael Corleone and his first wife, the Italian bella Apollonia, deliciously described as it was, pales in comparison to the passages transferral the details of Sonnys wild affair with Lucy. Mario Puzo proves no less a gifted author in his creation of the erotic love scenes between the impassioned lovers. The love making is predatory as Lucy and Sonny devour one another with voracious appetite.When Sonny dies, Lucys whole physical universe aches for him, a loss and a wound that Sonnys wife is far from experiencing. With the move to Vegas, thanks to Hagans arrangements to take care of extended relations of Sonny, Lucy embarks on a new life and adventures, including the temper of her relationship with Jules. Large or small, Puzo takes the time to first develop his characters fully even if in isolation of others and then to carefully weave each into the central plot. There is a reason and time for each character to play their part, pay their dues, return a favor, or be stow an act of friendship to the Godfather.The Don, the mastermind of Mario Puzos creation, is the only one who knows well in advance of others and that includes the reader how and when each chosen one will be called to action. From the wide spectrum of the compelling personalities at his finger tips, Mario Puzo affords way too much time to developing that of the wasteful, whiny, incapable Johnny Fontaine, the Godfathers Godson. If there is a more insufferable type in all of the Godfather, I must have missed the chapter because Johnny Fontaine is it for me. To my disappointment, we delve into Johnny and peel layer after layer into his life, his career, and his psyche.The irony surrounding the deep love the Godfather feels for Johnny is blatant. He makes heaps of mistakes, but he also destroys the one singular value held of highest regards in the eyes of Don Corleone, that of family He divorces and abandons his Italian wife and family in his drunken and desperate stupor of dealing with fame. Still the Don continues to love and support his Godson unconditionally. It is for the undeserving Johnny Fontaine that Jack Woltz pays dearly in the beheading of Khartoum, the finest, priciest, and rarest racehorse in the world.All of this sacrifice for the unnameable bond of the Godfather to Godson relationship one held very high in the eye of a Sicilian man a bond for which the Godfather murders and destroys anything and anyone in order to protect. A sacred bond ever so emaciated on a man such as Johnny Fontaine. Conclusion As a novelist and a masterful story-teller, Mario Puzo is gripping in every passage, every chapter and every book (total of 9 books in The Godfather). Movies 1 and 2 are no doubt classics of our time, and tightly capture the essence of the novel.Timeless movies as they be, with unforgettable theme music to pull us in even deeper into the elusive ways of the Italian mafia underworld, it is the writing that I prefer. It is in the riveting passages of Mario Puzos original book that his characters come alive in more riveting shapes and colors, although I admit that it is impossible not to associate them with the actors that have burned those names into our memories since the original Godfather movie. The Godfather is a masterpiece and a classic, and a story that once read and consumed, leaves its readers and viewers changed permanently.About the author Mario Puzo Mario Gianluigi Puzo (October 15, 1920 July 2, 1999) was an American author and screen releaser, known for his novels about the Mafia, including The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in both 1972, and 1974. Puzo was born into a low-down family from Pietradefusi, Province of Avellino, Campania, Italy living in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood of New York. 1 Many of his books draw heavily on this heritage.After graduating from the metropolis College of New York, he joined the United States Army Air Forces in World fight II. Due to his poor eyesight, the military did not let him undertake combat duties but made him a public relations officer stationed in Germany. In 1950, his first short story, The furthermost Christmas, was published in American Vanguard. After the war, he wrote his first book, The Dark Arena, which was published in 1955. At periods in the 1950s and early 1960s, Puzo worked as a writer/editor for publisher Martin Goodmans Magazine Management Company.Puzo, along with other writers like Bruce Jay Friedman, worked for the company line of mens magazines, pulp titles like Male, True Action, and Swank. Under the pseudonym Mario Cleri, Puzo wrote World War II adventure features for True Action. Puzos most famous work, The Godfather, was first published in 1969 after he had heard anecdotes about Mafia organizations during his time in pulp journalism. He later said in an interview with Larry King that his principal motivation was to make m oney. He had already, after all, written two books that had veritable great reviews, yet had not amounted to much.As a government clerk with five children, he was looking to write something that would appeal to the masses. With a number one bestseller for months on the New York Times Best Seller List, Mario Puzo had build his target audience. The book was later developed into the film The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The movie standard 11 Academy Award nominations, winning three, including an Oscar for Puzo for Best Adapted Screenplay. Coppola and Puzo collaborated then to work on sequels to the original film, The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III.Puzo wrote the first swig of the script for the 1974 disaster film Earthquake, which he was otiose to continue working on due to his commitment to The Godfather Part II. Puzo also co-wrote Richard Donners venereal disease and the original draft for Superman II. He also collaborated on the stories for the 19 82 film A Time to Die and the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola film The Cotton Club. Puzo never saw the publication of his penultimate book, Omerta, but the manuscript was finished before his death as was the manuscript for The Family.However, in a review originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jules Siegel, who had worked closely with Puzo at Magazine Management Company, speculated that Omerta may have been completed by some talentless hack. Siegel also acknowledges the temptation to snub avoiding what is probably the correct analysis that Puzo wrote it and it is terrible. Puzo died of heart fai allure on Friday, July 2, 1999 at his home in bay tree Shore, Long Island, New York. His family now lives in East Islip, New York. Works of PuzoNovels The Dark Arena (1955) The gold Pilgrim (1965) The Runaway Summer of Davie Shaw (1966) Six Graves to Munich (1967), as Mario Cleri The Godfather (1969) Fools Die (1978) The Sicilian (1984) The Fourth K (1991) The Last Don (1996) Ome rta (2000) The Family (2001) (completed by Puzos girlfriend Carol Gino) Non-fiction Test Yourself Are You Heading for a Nervous dislocation? as by Mario Cleri (1965) The Godfather Papers and Other Confessions (1972) Inside Las Vegas (1977) Short stories The Last Christmas (1950) John Red Marstons Island of Delight as by Mario Cleri (1964) Big Mikes Wild Young Sister-in-law as by Mario Cleri (1964) The Six Million Killer Sharks That terrorize Our Shores as by Mario Cleri (1966) The Unkillable Six as by Mario Cleri (1967) Girls of Pleasure Penthouse as by Mario Cleri (1968) Order Lucy For this night as by Mario Cleri (1968) 12 Barracks of Wild Blondes as Mario Cleri (1968) Screenplays The Godfather (1972) The Godfather Part II (1974) Earthquake (1974) Superman (1978) Superman II (1980) The Godfather Part III (1990) Christopher Columbus The Discovery (1992)SummaryThe book opens with the wedding of Connie Corleone, daughter of Don Vito The Godfather Corleone, head of the most powerfu l of the five great Mafia clans or families of New York. Don Corleone is shot at by a new contender for power in the city, Virgil the Turk Solozzo, who plans to obtain power by the lure of vast profits in the drug trafficking trade. After the Don is incapacitated by his assassination attempt, the book follows the Corleone familys progress as they must now adapt to the changing times and power dynamics and verify the Corleone empire.Santino Sonny Corleone is too blunt and brash a man to ever become Don while Freddie is weak and ineffective. The book follows the journey and transformation of the youngest, and hitherto the Dons most distant, son Michael as he realizes that though he may have tried to live by societys norms, rejecting what his father represented, inside lives a true Sicilian who will stop at nothing to get what he wants and protect those he loves. Michael has a toughened task ahead of him, he has to locate his fathers would-be assassin, crush the rival gangs and regai n once more the respect that the name Corleone inspired in New York