The Family Corleone

 

The Family Corleone - Ed Falco

The first two Godfather movies are often referred to as two of the very best movies ever made.  Back in the day, the original novel by Mario Puzo was widely heralded as well.  Anytime you have something as impactful as the Godfather movies seen and studied by masses of people, you can always expect others to somehow “acquire” the rights to the completed works and then try to keep the story alive.  I mean, just look at all of the “Star Wars” movies, books, and television shows that are out there even though if we’re completely honest, the original trilogy was enough.  So what we have here is an original story about the Corleone family that covers a period of time not covered in any of the 3 movies.

Now, this book claims that it’s “based” on a screenplay by the author of the novel, Mario Puzo.  I did an internet search and I really couldn’t find much to back this up, but readers can assume that this is probably true.  I bring this up because anytime such an endeavor is tried, multitudes of grouchy fans will queue online discussion forums and gripe about how this offering isn’t “as good” as the original, or originals.  Whatever.  I found this story to be very good, and with the right care, I can see how a future film could be made by someone who gives the story the proper care, pacing, and attention it deserves. This book helps flesh out the characters and provides a lot of new insights and backgrounds as well.

The story takes place in 1933.  This is about 12 years before original story started, and about the same amount of time after the “early” scenes occurred in the second movie.  Vito Corleone is smart, powerful, and has his own “family”, yet he isn’t quite top dog yet.  There are an awful lot of other mafia families out there vying for a stake in whatever turf they can conquer, and none of these individuals play well in the sandbox with others.  Vito, as we all know however, is a very smart and patient man, and knows how to use every setback and every gain to his ultimate advantage.

For those who don’t know their history, 1933 was right around the time the Volsted Act ended, repealing prohibition that went into effect 13 years earlier.   With alcohol once again legal, this meant a massive amount of ill-gotten cash that was coming in for the various crime families is now about to get a lot smaller.  Those on the wrong side of the law need to figure out a way to keep the coffers filled by other means.  So a lot of chaos ensues, and a lot of people are rubbed out (of course it’s nothing personal, it’s only business) and there are lot of loyalties being shifted among the rival factions. Things get uglier than normal. It turns out that the Italians aren’t the only bad guys in the big cities, the Irish also have a very tarnished reputation during prohibition, and a lot of key players in this book belong to this faction.

Most of the characters from the original book and first two movies are present here, yet the two characters who get the most space are Santio Corleone and Luca Brasi.  Santino’s story is a bit expected.  We all know him as Vito’s hot-headed first born, and nothing that Santino does as a defiant violent 18-year-old surprises us here.  The Luca Brasi story, though, is the one that’s the most interesting, and it is so on multiple levels.  Without going too far off on a tangent, I always thought that the character of Luca Brasi was underutilized in the film, and even though we got a taste of what the man was capable of, it was a rather small taste before his character is eliminated rather early in the story.  This book gives us much more and it helps hammer out the fact that none of these people are nice people; especially Luca Brasi.

This was one of the minor sins of the first movie. When we watched the movie, we “rooted” for the Corleone family and we kind of got the impression that Vito wasn’t really that bad of a guy since he seemed to only hurt “other” bad guys.  I mean, he was such a nice family man etc.   Well, reading this book may give you a different impression of Vito.  True, we still admire him because of his smarts, but when one really reads between the lines, we can see he’s far from innocent regardless of how well he treats his wife and kids.  The Luca Brasi story here helps get this point across.

A minor gripe I had with this novel is that even though we read about a lot of familiar faces from the novel/movies, there are an awful lot of new, minor characters in this book and it’s hard to keep all of the names straight.  Most of these minor characters serve in the exact same role; they’re all soldiers for the various crime families. It’s awfully hard to keep track with who is who, especially since in many cases these individuals shift loyalties in various parts of the story.  I seem to recall having to distinguish between a “Cork” and a “Corr”, a “JoJo” and a “Joey” (it didn’t help when the author also referred to the “Joey” guy by his last name), and in one scene we have two characters that both have the name “Anthony”.  Now, I get that this may mimic real life, but for the sake of writing a novel, it’s probably best to give characters more distinct names; especially when they aren’t major players.  Better yet, there were many times when we really didn’t need to know the names of these individuals at all.  It would have been fine to say something like “Clemenza was in the car with two of his men….” as opposed to the author actually giving these two inconsequential characters names.  Too much to juggle.

This wasn’t too much of a hindrance though and it really didn’t hamper the story at all.  This was a great story. It was far from simple, and it helped fill in a lot of gaps and explained a lot of motivations that we saw in the original novel and two movies.   For me anyway, this story was a welcome addition to the Corleone family.

Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam

 

Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam – Gordon M. Goldstein

In many ways, this is yet another Vietnam War book. This one is a tad different in that former National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy, is sort of the main focus of the book.  My guess is that author Gordon M. Goldstein set out to write a biography of the man, yet Bundy died shortly after the two of them met sometime around the mid-1990s, so the author had to change course a bit.   

Bundy served as National Security Advisor to both Kennedy and Johnson, and this fact alone makes this book an interesting read.  Much of the book is devoted to the differences in leadership styles of the two presidents, and there is a lot of speculation as to how and why the U.S. Government managed to get embroiled in such a mess in a place like Vietnam.  McGeorge Bundy serves as the perfect focus for such a narrative since he was front and center during the earlier years of the conflict.

Now, it needs to be pointed out that since McGeorge Bundy resigned as National Security Advisor in 1965, this is where the narrative of this book essentially stops.  There really is a lot more to tell about Vietnam, and most would agree that 1965 is just about the time when things escalated from so-so, to bad, and then to catastrophe.  So again, don’t expect a complete narrative of the conflict.

The book doesn’t suffer because of this, however.  In fact, most of the controversy surrounding Vietnam is focused on how and why the U.S. got involved, and all of this did, in fact, occur prior to Bundy’s resignation. Hindsight is 20/20, and other than Undersecretary George Ball, most of the cabinet and key political figures were in agreement that our military presence was needed in Southeast Asia in order to keep the proverbial dominoes from falling.  For the most part, Bundy was part of this group as well.

What makes this book stand out as opposed to the oodles of other books on Vietnam is watching and observing the behaviors of the two presidents.  The conclusions that the author gives us is that, even though we never could know what direction Kennedy would have gone had he lived, his experience and behavior surrounding similar issues would have caused him to eventually take a radically different path that wouldn’t have been nearly as calamitous.  In fact, we also get to read about the Bay of Pigs fiasco; mostly because the event hardened JFK’s resolve when it came to dealing with military “experts” and he vowed to never let them do his thinking for him again. This helps set his tone for Vietnam.

So once Lyndon Johnson is at the helm, we get the impression that he never really wanted to even be bothered much about the situation.  Johnson’s big focus was always his “Great Society” initiative, and that was where he wanted to devote his attention and resources.  When news from Saigon unexpectedly arrived from time to time, you get the feeling that LBJ would just push the issue off his desk and tell his staff to “handle it and just don’t make me look bad”.  Johnson never comes across as “presidential” as he should. Yes, a president needs to consult their advisors, but ultimately, great presidents know how and when to lead. Johnson seemed to be lacking in this when it came to Vietnam.

This book was a very good, clear read. Sometimes “war” books or “government” books can get buried too deep in the weeds with too much meticulous detail.  The author, though, manages to keep this book at a high level and it was always easy to keep the personalities and the events straight in one’s head.   He did tend to divert from his narrative time-to-time and “revisit” his meetings with Bundy thirty years after the fact around some issues, but as I’ve mentioned, Bundy seems to be the intended focus of the book, so such diversions aren’t too unwelcome.  In fact, one might argue that rather than a “history book” this book might be better served as a “doctoral thesis”.

For someone who knows very little about the Vietnam War and the personalities of early 1960s U.S. politics, it might be best to start with a broader, more encompassing volume.  If, however, you’ve read several books about events, this book serves as an excellent companion piece and does focus on areas (JFK vs. LBJ) that might not be readily available elsewhere.  Yes, McGeorge Bundy is the focus, and I came away thinking that the ground that was covered so well here really benefited from the fact that we witnessed so much of these high-level meetings through his eyes.

Camino Ghosts

 

Camino Ghosts – John Grisham

I recently read another fairly new offering by John Grisham, “The Boys From Biloxi” and felt it was one of his best books ever.  It’s a good thing I felt that way, because I’ve thought that many of Grisham’s latter-day books were lacking, and it’s been tempting to write him off (so to speak) as being yesterday’s news.  I’m glad I read that one when I did, because this offering only reminded me of my lukewarm feelings for Grisham’s works of late.   I simply didn’t like this one.

To be fair, I didn’t think I would enjoy this one much, so my opinion was somewhat skewed before I even started. This is Grisham’s third “Camino” book, and they haven’t been very endearing to my tastes.  Camino Island is a fictitious small island just off the coast of Florida that is a bit on the touristy side.  The appeal to such a place for John Grisham is that it’s also a haven for some of the more profitable authors in his make-believe world.  No, none of the mega-succesful writers live here, but there are a lot of moderately successful authors who choose to make this island their home, so they all hang out together and do a lot of eating, drinking, and complaining.  Of course, there’s also a bookstore on the island that’s rather eccentric, and the owner of the bookstore does a lot of eating, drinking, and complaining along with the authors. Such a setting, sadly, makes it tempting for Grisham to churn out some books.

Well, it turns out that there is ANOTHER island close to Camino Island that is about the same size, yet this island is deserted for some reason.  Islands this close to coastal America don’t stay deserted too long, and it’s only a matter of time before a greedy company is eying the island as a potential tourist attraction so they can potentially rake in boatloads of money.  So far, so fair; nothing that earth shattering yet, and of course this island’s history is somewhat buried early on.  Instead, Grisham makes us wade through his unpleasant regulars and their constant eating, drinking, and complaining.

We come to learn that this “other” island is deserted because it’s cursed.  It turns out that 250 years ago or so, this island started as a refuge for runaway slaves.  It’s founded when a slave ship encounters a mutiny, so there’s a lot of rich, unpleasant history.  The island is cursed in that no white man can set foot on the island and live.

The problem with Camino Ghosts is that it tries to do too much.  We get stories from 250 years ago, which is never pleasant for me when reading about the slave trade; I simply find such tales too barbaric to enjoy.  We then read about modern events where white people, oblivious to the history, try to survey the island for capitalistic purposes. (Remember, it’s cursed.)  We get all of our authors on Camino Island who discover the history and want to research and write about it, and we also get courtroom litigation over who “owns” the island.  It’s all a bit much, and too unfocused.

Had Grisham gotten rid of the annoying (to me, at least) “Camino” aspect, and told his tale without his annoying cast of characters, it may have managed to stay a bit more focused and interesting, but there was too much filler to pad what I thought the “real” story should be.  From what I can tell, though, a lot of Grisham readers enjoy the crowd on Camino Island and their day-to-day escapades, so my guess is that if you liked the first two offerings, you’ll probably enjoy this story better than I did.

I really hope, though, that Grisham leaves this island and its annoying inhabitants behind, and not go beyond a trilogy.  He has too many other good ideas to spend his time on as opposed to this particular locale.