The Godfather

Written by Mario Puzo and released in the year 1969, this book was a huge hit. It was adapted into three movies and all of them were critically and commercially successful. It was the first time a trilogy had been nominated for the best movie category. The book follows the story of a Mafia family of New York, they were Italians, Sicilians to be precise.

The head of the Mafia family is Don Vito Corleone. He was born Vito Andolini, in the village of Corleone in Sicily. His father was killed by a local don, and now they were hunting him due to his known prowess of using guns. Vito manages to escape to New York with one of his family friends, Genco Abbandando. He changed his name to Vito Corleone, so that he could keep the connection to his hometown. He worked in the grocery store owned by Abbandando’s father. At the age of 18, he married an Italian girl and started his family. He had two children Santino and Frederio. He was finding it difficult to make both ends meet, when he lost his job in the grocery to a local don’s cousin.

Vito helped a small time thief Clemenza and they become friends. Through Clemenza he also came to know of Tessio. Through them he got into the business of running smuggled goods from Canada into America. Soon he began to prosper, but the local don caught winds of this and he demanded a share from the profits.

Vito was a very quiet man, of amazing intelligence. His friends knew that in the interiors of the calm and quiet exterior lay a stone cold mind. They knew that he was an amazing strategist, capable to analyzing any situation and coming out with the best solution possible.

Vito decided not to share his profits with the don, but to kill him. He does so and earns the respect of the Italians of the locality. He continues in his job and also helping out people in different ways, earning their friendship and also their word that they would help Vito when he asked for it. Vito soon earned the name of Don or Godfather due to his growing strength.

Don’s powers grew by the day, he left the smuggling business and invested in the gambling and olive oil business of New York. He had made many friends over the years and he slowly grew to be one of the most powerful person in the United States of America. He also had 2 more kids, Michael and Connie.

Santino was his fathers helper in his business. He wanted to succeed his father as the Don. However Don knew that Santino was not made for the jobs since he was not level headed and lacked the strategist thinking of a Don. The second son also was not good enough for succeeding his father. Michael had most of the Dons traits, but was not interested in entering the business. He wanted to be somewhere else, but he had immense respect for his father.

The first son had a wife and two kids. The second son was yet to get married. Michael was in love with an American girl Kay, while Connie was to get married to Carlo. Don had not liked her choice, but played along for the sake of her daughter’s happiness.

Don’s was helped in his work by Abbandando, who helped him in his plans. Clemenza and Tessio helped him carry out the plans. His main force was the man called Luca Brazi, who feared no one on this earth other than the Don. Don used Luca to carry out all his important missions.

Other than the Corleone family there were other families which controlled various parts of New York. Amongst them the Tattaglia family and the Barzini family, were not in good terms with the Corleons. They were on the lookout for opportunities to get even with the Corleones.

Things started turning bad when Barzini family, using the Tattaglia family as a shield brought along a Hungarian drug trafficker, Solozzo, who wanted to use the Don’s powers and influence to sell drugs in his country. Don declined and thus started the decline of the Corleone family.

Don was shot at in a few days, and was admitted to hospital. Santino took over the business only to find that Solozzo had closed in on the Corleone family. Frederio who witnessed his fathers shooting went into a shock and had to be sent to Vegas. Now the stage was set for the hero to prove himself.

Michael takes things into his own hands. He saves his fathers life once by arriving unexpectedly in the hospital and foiling Solozzo’s plans to kill the Don. After going through various options, Michael decides that the only was to save his fathers life was to take the life of Solozzo. Michael kills Solozzo and flees to Sicily.

The story and narration is very fast paced and gripping till now. The reader expects more of the stuff and will be disappointed that the writer goes in length to explain the story of Johnny Fontane, another godson of the Don. Some time is also wasted in explaining the story of Lucy Mancini, Sonnie’s mistress. There’s also another love interest of Michael in Sicily, Appolino, which was the result of a “thunderbolt”. He marries her, but the marriage is short-lived as she falls prey to one of the traps set by the enemy for Michael.

The story picks up pace towards the end wherein Michael returns to New York to find the Corleone family’s strengths depleted, Sonnie murdered and the commanders of the Don in doubt of their future.

Michael takes charge from his father, and sets off to avenge his brother’s death as well as to establish the family’s name and authority over others.

The readers are not aware of how powerful Michael is until the very end. I felt that Michael was just playing safe and trying to get out of the illegal business. The ending is classic, wherein Michael gets even with all the traitors and his enemies within a few hours in one swift and well-planned mission. Carlo, Connie’s husband had betrayed the family by being part of Sonnie’s murder. He was also killed by Michael.

Don Corleone dies before the mission takes place – due to a heart attack.

Kay initially refuses to believe that Michael could be a murderer, until the very end wherein the commanders of the Don address Michael as Don Michael. She reacts instantly, by going back to her parents, only to be assured by one of Don’s godson Haggen, who filled in the place of Abbandando after his death.

Overall, a very good read. Especially after watching Sarkar, the book was even more interesting.

The movie Sarkar did take a lot from the book, but a number of characters were reduced. A movie has a lot of limitation when compared to the novel, but Ram Gopal Verma did a splendid job.

There was a hit Malayalam movie, Naaduvaazhigal, staring Mohanlal and Madhu as the father and son, with a story line, which has stains of The Godfather.