Board members,
I recently finished the Godfather. 33 years ago I read it for the first time. It was quite different from what I remembered. Different in tone and quality and some of the character portrayals. I believe time and familiarity with the films degraded the impact of the book. Without going into lengthy explanations, some of my impressions comparing what I remember from 33 years ago and reading it now: (not in any order)
1. Too much Johnny Fontane, Nino Valenti, Lucy and Jules. Got boring.
2. Fredo's characterization was not as whimpy and incompetent. The movie character totally influenced this impression.
3. Written unevenly. Almost like the style changed a few times and like certain sections didn't flow.
4. Some dumb dialogue.
5. Was not a page turner.

I did like filling in some of the character personalities and the little stories of Luca, Al Neri. Forgot some of those.

First reading 33 years ago: I was two years out of high school and not a big reader. I remember I couldn't put this book down. The most exciting thing I read up to then was probably Huckleberry Finn. In the past 33 years I've read quite a bit and different styles. So, now, trying to be objective, the Godfather just seems like a nice gangster book with some interesting characters and not a very compelling storyline. The films have probably tainted my perspective somewhat, but I wonder how the book would be received if it was written today?

Nice review MaryC!

But could you please elaborate as to why you thought the book didn't flow in parts? I'm not going against you; if anything I would agree, but I'm not certain what you mean by that point.

As for whther it would have the impact today as back then, I think no, simply because when it was written there was no other book like it. People never knew of such a story that romanticised the Mafia genre, whereas today other people have written numerous amount of novels in this category.

Mick

Capo, the flowing I refer to is somewhat in chronology, but from a perspective of the departures from the time line seem to be at odd times. Like why is he telling us about Johnny now; and from a writing style. It was like he was changing styles on occasions. Its hard to pin down. Just an overall sense.

But I agree, at the time, the book was breakthrough and cinematically FFC did the same thing. Now it is so hard to be an objective observer because of the time span and the number of times we've seen the film.

Thanks for clarifying; I totally agree with you with regard to the chronology. Going back to Johnny and Lucy and Jules et al without really explaing the purpose did two things for me:

Made me think Puzo was forced to write about such a meaningless storyline to fill some gaps and make the book longer than it was (not the case, but made me feel that way anyway.); and two, it implied that something was going to happen with Jules, like he wasn't so much the nice guy Puzo was trying terribly hard to make him out to be. But he wasn't a bad guy, and thus was no way involved with the Corleones, which to me seemed pointless and the one major downfall of the book. That said, it made me read it even more so as to get back onto the "good" stuff quicker.

Mick

I once commented here that the writing style seemed like the book once written by someone for whom English was a second langauage, or maybe translated into English from another language by someone who didn't know English too well.

A couple of examples that come to mind:
Puzo talks about "Racing Tracks". That's the only time in my life I've heard a 'racetrack' referred to as such. Also, he writes somewhere about the Don's men having "their pockets stuffed with paper money", or something like that. It just didn't sound like English to me, so I agree that the writing didn't flow in some places.

Great literature, it isn't. Well written, it's not. Strip it down, and the plot is pretty basic and un-original. What made the book tremendously popular, I think, was popular literature's first fictional glimpse into the Mafia life. If the general public knew then what they know now about the Mafia, the book would have flopped.