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The Godfather
Mario Puzo invents the Corleone family and tells us some of their stories.
It would be hard to do justice to this book, even without the headwinds generated by its cinematic progeny.
Instead of just begging you to treat the book as a separate entity, unburdened by subsequent mob content, I’m going to tackle a few matters head on.
Throw away your mental imagery of a smirking, sneering, skull stomping Joe Pesci. The Scorsese mob movie has a very different relationship with violence. Even if we don’t fall into the trap of saying that they glorify violence, we still have to concede that they’re blasé about it.
That’s not this book. That’s not even the movie. Seriously, watch it again and see if you can spot a Don Corleone who increasingly abhors violence. Yes, he’s got a different relationship with coercive force than most of us. But the movie, and the book even more, are very fucking far from Scarface.
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If you’re inclined to turn your nose up on the grounds that this book glorifies violence, consider the perspective that Don Corleone merely tolerates violence. The real goal is commerce, though admittedly a strain tinged and obscure.
But even more than commerce, the values he holds in greatest esteem are loyalty and family.
If the Don’s famous line “A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man” sounds like something an Italian grandmother would say, that’s because it’s a line from Puzo’s mother.
Quoting him:
“Whenever the Godfather opened his mouth, in my own mind I heard the voice of my mother. I heard her wisdom, her ruthlessness, and her unconquerable love for her family and for life itself, qualities not valued in women at the time. The Don’s courage and loyalty came from her; his humanity came from her.”
Vito Corleone is tough, courageous, severe. But he’s also tender, loving, and protective. In short, he’s a complicated man.
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Uniformly evil characters are boring. But I wouldn’t trade a consistently virtuous Don for the one we got, either. I believe, for readers capable of filtering the despicable uses of violence, Don Corleone can be an inspiration. Smart, capable, masculine characters are an increasingly rare commodity in the last fifty years.
We should appreciate the Don for what he is. At the very least, we should not attribute to him all of the sleazy, senseless, insipid acts of violence that have formed into a mob movie trope since The Godfather debuted. And we should not confuse the cheap machismo of run of the mill mob movie characters with the nuanced manliness of Vito Corleone.
Alright, I’ve run on way too long, so I guess I’m gonna fall back on begging you to look at this book with fresh eyes after all.
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