Book Review: The Godfather

The Godfather - Mario Puzo

Genre: Fiction
Pages: 446
The Godfather is my first Mario Puzo novel and perhaps his most popular one. I was particularly curious about this book because of its title and I knew it’s based on Mafia families and Mafia wars. The 446 page long novel is partitioned into 9 sub-parts or ‘books’ (as the author calls it) and further it has 32 chapters in all; each chapter dealing with a different era of life of the protagonist: Don Corleone. The story is dated on the days following II World War and location is NY City. Don Corloene is a just and a very clever character. He is revered and respected formidably by each and everyone around him and I dare not write a wrong word about him as it might upset his followers.
The story revolves around the life of Don however enough importance is given to all other characters as well. Other characters includes Don’s three sons, a daughter, his wife and many other people whom Don has done some favor during his life.
The story falls light on the hierarchical structure of an Italian Mafioso Family. Don heads the family tree followed by his councilor or consigliori and two captains called copregimes. It also tells about the code-of-conduct among the Families.
The story has been written in third person and hence each event, as it happens, is seen from a different person’s perspective and hence the story never seems monotonous. However the narration, as compared to other contemporaries is not up to the mark. Also there are too many names (of characters) stated in the story, so I had to turn back pages at times to recall the character. The author had, at times, digressed too much.
On the positive part, the author has done plausibly well to keep all the characters involved in main story. The language is simple and story is very interesting.
Rating: 7.6/10