...the intro is brilliant, hooked me in. puzo's a cunning manipulator, he plays tricks on the reader. as it turns out the intro's not the voice of the narrator of the novel, it's an excerpt from a book written by a fools die character called osano, a novelist. a cruel bait n' switch by puzo. the beginning of the book is equally stunning, following two primary characters, merlyn, cully, as well as a guy called jordan, gambling at the xanadu casino in vegas. puzo's poetic descriptions of the mechanics of the gambling are genius. then puzo drifts away from the floor and we go upstairs and meet alfred gronevelt the boss of the casino. gronevelt's an ice cold businessman and he shows up again in the last don which i've just started reading. i had john marley who portrayed woltz in the godfather in my head as gronevelt all the time. i think puzo did too when he was writing it. merlyn's a writer and we follow him for years in various situations like when he goes out to hollywood and has an affair with a lesbian hollywood starlet, gets his novel produced into a picture, and helps his old gambling partner cully, who becomes gronevelt's right hand man at the xanadu casino, smuggle millions of dollars out of japan. i get the impression puzo had contempt for the movie industry, much of what he writes about unflatteringly. quite entertaining with some very funny moments. there's a wonderful section where we follow merlyn pocketing bribes while a government employee from the powerful, rich and connected to block their sons from being drafted into the vietnam war. eventually everyone gets busted. But meryln, having the magician's magic power, manages to walk away. mario builds it up forever for merlyn to take the big hit and then he drops it and the character moves on to another adventure. and there's a hilarious sequence with a drunk osano getting into a vicious fight with a socialite on an airliner who asks him to put out his cigar because it might irritate...her dog! he does a lot of vamping, padding the book out and as such a lot of it reads like a meandering soap opera. interesting read nonetheless. however, don't expect the godfather...
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