The Sicilian

 

The Sicilian – Mario Puzo

I’ve been aware of this book for many years – decades even.  What I never realized was that this book was “part” of the Godfather series of books by author Mario Puzo.  Other than the original novel, I never even knew Puzo had more books devoted to his most famous subject matter.  After reading a few other “Godfather” novels (none by Puzo, but all of them ok), I stumbled across this one, and since it was billed as a Godfather book, I decided to take a chance.   That was a good decision.  This was a great book.

My initial reaction, though, was that to call this thing part of The Godfather story was a bit of a stretch. It almost seemed an excuse just to get people to buy and read the thing.  The beginning of the novel takes place in Sicily in 1950.  Michael Corleone is still in hiding after killing a drug dealer and a crooked cop back home which catapulted him to his infamous title.  Before he is about to return home to New York, he gets a message from his father Vito – Michael is to bring Salvatore Guiliano – a famed Sicilian bandit – back home with him to America.

Who is Guiliano? Why would Michael’s father want to bring him to America? Why is he a bandit? What crimes has he committed?  Initially Michael meets a few key individuals in Sicily to find out more about Guiliano. He can’t meet the man himself as his reputation dictates that he remains hidden.  These key individuals only muddy up the reasoning.  Let’s see, among these key individuals, there’s a Sicilian mob boss, a priest, a friend of the famed bandit, and someone who represents the law.  None of them seem to be playing it straight with Michael, and we now know Michael is a very perceptive guy. So Michael doesn’t trust anyone. How can he find the truth about this phantom Sicilian?

So we then go back in time a few years.  Post World War II was a calamitous time in Sicily.  Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had just been publicly hung by his own disgruntled constituents, Italy switched sides to the Allies in the middle of the war, and Communism is starting to look more favorable to the tortured country.  Guiliano is a young, headstrong man.  Oh sure, he’s a bandit alright, but like so many Sicilians, his occupation seems somewhat just due to the corrupt leaders that have been in place for centuries.   Remember how you felt about young Vito in the early scenes of Godfather II?  He was doing bad things, but you saw his tragic childhood and therefore gave him a pass.  Such is the case with Guiliano.

We see Guiliano form his rebel alliance with a closeknit group of friends and young thieves. We see them basically stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. We see a sense of justness in the man and ultimately see more good than bad.  But what he is doing still isn’t right, and in a country of conniving high-ranking individuals, you really can’t trust anybody.  So there are many similarities in this story to many of the key scenes in The Godfather. Throughout all of this turmoil, author Mario Puzo does a wonderful job of immersing his reader firmly into the time and the place.  It’s rare that a novel causes one to transcend themselves directly into the story where one can almost feel and smell the surroundings.  In other words, the story is so good that it makes you want to visit Sicily and take it all in yourself.

As our story move forward closer to the present day of 1950, we then have a better understanding of the conflicted feelings of the main characters, and also a clearer picture of everyone’s different motivations.  Michael starts to see the light as well, and just like he would in later years, needs to do a lot of shuffling. He must keep his friends close, and his enemies closer.

As I somewhat alluded to, I had originally thought that this novel’s “connection” to the Godfather story was somewhat loose, and almost seemed a cheap way to sell more books and cash in, but near the end of the story, we see how a lot of pieces eventually fit, and we see how certain events connect with Michael’s overall story, and help form his character once he returns to America and takes over after his father dies.

Reading this book gave me a deeper appreciation for Mario Puzo.  Although the original Godfather novel was widely acclaimed, it seemed to become overshadowed by the film, which many argue is one of the best films of all time.  I kept thinking what a good movie The Sicilian could be.  Sadly, it was made into a movie in the 1980s, and the consensus was that the movie was pretty awful.  My guess is I’ll never watch it since it could likely stain my experience.

A great book, but if you’re not a fanatic of the original film, it might be worth your time to watch it (along with Godfather II) so you can truly appreciate the story.

The Godfather Returns

 

The Godfather Returns – Mark Winegardner

This was my second “extra” Godfather book, for lack of a better description.  Original author Mario Puzo wrote a trilogy (in a very loose sense), yet there have been a few other authors that have joined in with tales of their own. When a movie becomes such a pop culture phenomenon and continues to reign as one of the best movies ever (along with the first sequel), it should be expected that greedy individuals will want to somehow “continue” the story.  I mean, the only reason the film Godfather III was made was that both Paramount Pictures and Francis Ford Coppola needed money.  Plus, the fact that the original story was told many years ago, with gaps in the timeline makes such a product even more appealing.

Purists will scoff at such an endeavor. There are those who consider the original nothing short of holy, and for anyone who may come along and try to stain the precious grail will be looked at with scorn and ridicule.  As someone who doesn’t necessarily feel such a serious attachment to the original story, I must say that I found this book entertaining overall and the author did a credible job. I would speculate he handled such a task much better than most could.  Sure, we can split hairs about the characters and how liberties may have been taken with some of the personalities featured in the pages, but I mainly read fiction to be entertained. It’s not supposed to be an exercise in research and close attention to meticulous detail.

Now, if you know the first two Godfather movies well, you know the approximate timeframe of the three different stories. We go from 1891-1920, 1945-1954, and 1958-1960.  Those dates are close enough anyway.  So what author Winegardner does in this book is fill in some gaps during the missing time periods. There are some minor instances where this book overlaps with the times in the movies to expand on particulars, but mostly the author is providing us with more meat and gives us insights to why things happened in the movies the way that they did.

Notice that I am referring to the movies, not the Godfather novel. It’s been a while since I read the Puzo bestseller, but it’s safe to say that this book is modeled on the story featured in the first two movies, and if there are differences, the author rightly realizes most of his audience is more familiar with the films.  The main focus of this book is to “fill the gaps” between the first and second film.  Example: In the second movie, we learn about Michael’s descent into psychosis, we learn about the failed investment in Cuba, and most importantly, we learn about Fredo’s betrayal.  This book tends to dive deeper into events that made all of this happen. We read a lot about Fredo, and his portrayal is never pleasant.  The author takes some liberties with some of these attributes which I won’t go into here as I think they’re irrelevant, but everything we read seems to cement how we’re supposed to feel about Fredo as we watch him fall apart in the second film. 

My major complaint about this book is that it did seem to take the author quite a long time to establish where he eventually would take the reader in many instances.  One main character in this book is Sonny’s eldest daughter Francesca (a twin) and we read an awful lot of her early days away at college and her dating life.  You have to ask yourself if all of this is necessary, but the author does finally reveal the point of Francesca’s place in the scope of the story.  It all made sense in the end, but it seemed to take a bit long as we read through a lot of somewhat trivial details of her life.  There are a lot of instances like that in this book, and I would kindly suggest to the reader to not give up, but rather persevere through the slow bits as it all eventually does come to fruition. 

We also get to read about a year or so after the conclusion of Godfather Part II.  It was all good, but it almost warranted an entirely different book.  The focus during this time period mirrors so much of the real-life conflict between the mafia and high-level politics of the early 1960s, that it almost feels like lazy writing.  We have a fictitous president named Daniel Shay who is such an obvious replica of John F. Kennedy that you’d have to be awfully dumb not to perform the calculus in one’s head.  Of course, Shay has an “Ambassador” father, and his brother is the United States Attorney General just in case any of the readers can’t make the obvious connection.  It’s all mildly interesting, but again, it almost seems a forced direction.  I should point out that the author has another Godfather book that follows this one that I haven’t read.  Maybe we read more about the history through fiction of the time period in that book?

There’s also one portion of the book that heavily focuses on Michael’s heroic part in the second World War.  We never really learned much about his Pacific adventures, but we read some brutal stories that emphasize that war is, indeed, hell.  It’s a bit easier to see how Michael eventually becomes such a monster.  War will do that to the best of people, and it really did help to make some connections.

Overall this book was a satisfying read if not a tad too long and drawn out.  A good story, but the reader needs to make sure they’re familiar with the first two movies, otherwise you won’t be able to make a lot of linkages and exclaim a lot of “ah-ha’s”.  It’s the “connection” to the two films that make this book such a good read, so that really can’t be lost in order to achieve maximum enjoyment.

Scattershot

 

Scattershot – Bernie Taupin

Well I have to honestly say that I was a bit disappointed with this one.  After further reflection, though, I’m not entirely sure my sentiments are completely fair.  A bit of background is in order.

Bernie Taupin is mostly known as Elton John’s writing partner. Elton writes the music and Bernie writes the lyrics.  And Bernie is brilliant at what he does.  No one, in my opinion, does a better job of capturing the various personas and feelings of imaginary characters in songs quite like Bernie Taupin.  Every time a new Elton John album is released, I become highly excited when I know that the album is a collaboration with Taupin.   Also, Taupin is a joy to read when he is just writing, or even speaking.  He has such an amazing craft with the written and spoken word that I feel such strong emotion just by digesting his prose, regardless of whether or not he’s crafting actual lyrics to a song.  Several years ago, he had a blog, and I loved simply reading his periodic observations of whatever was going on in the world.  To read reflections by Bernie Taupin was akin to watching Fred Astaire dance.

So what could possibly be better than an autobiography by the man? Especially since he is Elton John’s writing partner and even best friend?  Well, this is where close examination of the life of Bernie Taupin is warranted.  Although the two were musical partners, you get the feeling that these two never were really joined at the hip.  So after Bernie hands the lyrics off to Elton, his work on the forthcoming album that Elton was writing was pretty much done.   Yes, sometimes Bernie would go in the recording studio with him, and yes, he would often go on tour with him, but the hard work for Taupin was pretty much done at this point.  Whereas Elton would collaborate with others in the actual process of making the records and tour the world by playing upwards of 3 hours per show, Bernie wasn’t really much a part of the creative endeavors.  Therefore the man had a lot of free time on his hands.  This “free time” is what we read an awful lot about in this autobiography. Sadly, it isn’t exactly engrossing.

Now, to be fair, Taupin basically alludes to this in the introduction of this volume. In fact, this is probably why he named this reflection “Scattershot”.  This isn’t a linear recollection of his life being Elton’s partner in the crime of music.  Instead Taupin writes about…well….just about everything.  The sad fact is that many of his personal stories really aren’t terribly interesting.  When one reads a biography (or autobiography) of a well-known person, we want to read about the elements of the encounters that we’re already somewhat familiar with; and learn about the behind-the-scenes tidbits of people and events that we, as fans, know.  There’s too few of this here.

We read a lot about Bernie’s neighbors, chauffeurs, musical idols that he meets (most are somewhat obscure), favorite bars, eclectic hobbies, and wives and girlfriends.  The man has had more wives and girlfriends than Elton has had hits.  So most of this just doesn’t interest us; or me at least.  I was wanting to read more about the albums, the meanings of the lyrics, the interactions with Elton and the band, and his reflections on the 50+-year cyclone that began when the two were oddly paired to complement each other in the songwriting department.  Yes, all of that is here to an extent, but not an awful lot.

Many albums in Elton’s catalog are skipped over entirely or very lightly brushed. The one we read the most about is 2010’s “The Union”.  Why? Well, that one heavily featured Leon Russell. And since Leon Russell is one of Bernie’s idols, it’s talked about in significant detail.  It would have been nice if all of Elton’s releases would have been as prominently featured, but again, we have to conclude that maybe Bernie simply wasn’t around that much once he handed Elton a manilla envelope packed with lyrics for potential tunes.

There were many times, I confess, where I lost patience and went into “book skimming” mode – scanning the laborious stories of minimal interest until I came to something “Elton” related.  I remember reading the bit about the re-recording of “Candle in the Wind” after the tragic death of Princess Diana.  It was quite interesting, but Bernie devoted only about 2 pages to the details, and then right after that, he spent twice that long on the details surrounding a chance meeting with (another one of) his idol(s) Leonard Cohen at a chance meeting in a coffee shop.  Yawn.

So, yes, the writing here is excellent.  Taupin, as I mentioned, never disappoints in this area.  I often steal many of his musings since they’re quite moving, well-crafted, and many times laugh-out-loud entertaining.   I would recommend this book on those merits alone.  The reader just needs to be aware that there isn’t much around Elton’s albums, the writing process, nor the meanings of the masses of brilliant tunes that Taupin co-authored.  I must state again, I don’t fault the author for this.  It’s HIS life, and it was an overall enjoyable read.