I really enjoyed Marioβs novels and looking for similar era and mob crime books. TIA.
As of right now Iβve read pretty much all of Mario puzos books and Iβve fell in love with his writing style. Right now Iβm reading βThe Fourth Kβ. Iβm running low in his work so Iβm going to need to find someone else!.. I must say, The Fourth K is a different type of book compared to his other books like βThe Last Sicilianβ or even βThe Godfatherβ.
But yeah guys. Iβm open to suggestions! I guess Iβm into mafia type books. If thatβs even a genre haha
A great learning experience about how the business is being given a persona and dealt with such clarity and systematic execution. Even though there are many situations and circumstances arising on a day to day basis, how decision making is the key for carrying on with the business.
I know this isn't about organized crime in particular but since it's about a mafia writer I'll give it a shot.
Am I the only person who finds Puzo to be an incredibly boring writer? I'm trying to read The Godfather and I just can't believe how painfully yawn inducing his long winded descriptions of characters are. For those of you who insist he's great, please tell me what I'm missing here.
It really seems to me that Francis Ford Coppola pretty much stripped down most of this book, took the actual mafia story, which is probably about 70-80 pages of the book in total, and used that for the movie.
Again, please change my mind. I'm holding this big black book with the classic Godfather label on it and I want to enjoy it the way I enjoy the movie. Am I just approaching it wrong?
I'm currently reading the Godfather and the level of detail gives me a clear picture of the story. I feel the film was also very true to the style and story. I enjoy the deep dive into different characters and their lives, definitely a real page turner for me. The tone Puzo uses gives the whole thing great style and atmosphere. However I find some of the portrayals of women and sex very cringe worthy though Sonny's "member" gets a fair bit of description and so do his escapades. But it just doesn't sit right with the rest of the book. I think it loses some of its cache for me here.
This is a copy of The Godfather, it only happens in Montana instead of NYC. John is the Don, Lee is Sonny, Jamie is Fredo, and Kayce is Michael. They even copied the crazy sister, Connie with Beth. The plots lines are so similar. Lee dies early, Jamie is a basket case, and Kayce doesn't really want to be part of the family business. Hell, Kayce's wife, Monica is similar to Kaye. They even have a hardly seen wife and mother. Don't get me wrong, I like the show, but maybe because I am a fan of The Godfather series.
I am guessing that is where the writers of Gotham Memoirs got their inspiration for the name of Mr. Puzo. I just wanted to share that with you guys.
I'm not from America, so I'm not familiar with his literary career. What I do know is my college in Bangladesh bought copies of a couple of his books and I spent several weeks reading them. Recently I've been nostalgic about the good old days of college and that prompted me to check on Mario Puzo.
He has published 11 novels, one in pseudonym and one finished by his girlfriend. None of books other than The Godfather has garnered any serious talk. Even in Goodreads, where Godfather has 4.36 rating, the others have rating below 4.00.
The experience I remember of reading Godfather is absolute boredom. I couldn't make heads or tales of it: no immediacy, I mean. (I love the movie, by the way.) Then I read The Last Don. Didn't like the prose, but I still remember one shootout scene and the last line where it tells us that everything was puppeteered by the old Don. Then I read Fools Die, which I remember having enormous fun reading, but don't remember anything except someone having sex at his deathbed because that's how he wanted to go. Then I read Omerta. This one IΒ flew through--IΒ had gotten accustomed to Puzo's style--but don't remember anything except the prologue. Then I read The Fourth K. This was my favourite: the president having a negative arc and the assassination in live TV was awesome for my teen self. But I read some reviews and The Fourth K has the worst feedback.
I realize that the books I've read are crime thrillers and I've grown away from those types of pulpy potboilers and gotten into more Fantasy and literary stuff. So I took a look at some of his books from Amazon previews and I see that only his Fortunate Pilgrim reads like a literary novel.
This is what prompted me to get some idea from people here. Have you read his novels? How would you describe his writing?
>There was no greater natural advantage in life than having an enemy overestimate your faults unless it was to have a friend underestimate your virtues.
It comes from the following passage:
>The Don considered a use of threats the most foolish kind of exposure; the unleashing of anger without forethought as the most dangerous indulgence. No one had ever heard the Don utter a naked threat, no one had ever seen him in an uncontrollable rage. It was unthinkable. And so he tried to teach Sonny his own disciplines. He claimed that there was no greater natural advantage in life than having an enemy overestimate your faults, unless it was to have a friend underestimate your virtues.
