Originally posted by MistaMista_Tom_Hagen:
I never understood, this big debate over whether the Corleone's are one of the 5 Families or not. Considering a 5th family besides Barzini, Stracci, Cuneo, and Tattaglia is never mentioned, wouldn't it be obvious to conclude that the Corleone's [b] MUST be the fifth family? I don't understand what people are debating. [/b]
This has been an oft-discussed and debated topic here.
I suggest you read this thread:
http://www.thegodfathertrilogy.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004457
There are
numerous passages in the novel which would seem to indicate that there were Five Families
besides the Corleones, must notably the one cited in the thread above by SC.
The only thing that I think everyone is willing to agree to is that this is a case (and not the only one) of sloppy writing by Puzo.
As I said in my post in the thread above, he was sloppy in either
a) writing passages that clearly indicate the existence of another family when he did not intend there to be another family, or
b) writing passages that clearly indicate the existence of another family because he
intended there to be another family, but failing to name them.
From the novel:
"The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive,
these five men were than the out-of-towners, the hicks."
Clearly, Don C. had already arrived, and was not one of the five.
Originally posted by SC:
Puzo, for whatever reason, simply left out the name (and description) of one of the New York Families. The novel explains that there were to be representatives from ten other Families besides the New York Five Families. Only six of them were identified (Carlo Tramonti from Florida, Joseph Zaluchi from Detroit, Frank Falcone from the movie unions on the West Coast, Anthony Molinari from San Francisco, Domenick Panza from Boston, and Vincent Forlenza from Cleveland). The fact the other four Families weren't described doesn't mean they didn't exist. So it is with the "missing" New York Family.
Puzo clearly made a distinction between Vito Corleone and the other five Families. He wrote that Vito had arrived first, and later the five New York Dons arrived.
I cannot even offer a reason why Puzo didn't describe the fifth Family, but that descriptive omission doesn't mean the Family didn't exist.
In short, there were five New York Families PLUS the Corleones.
