The Godfather: A novel that feels like it was waiting for its movie to be made

I watched The Godfather trilogy before I ever picked up Mario Puzo’s novel. After watching the films, I became very curious about something specific: What exactly did Francis Coppola had in his hands as a reference when he decided to turn this story into a movie?

So even as a person who absolutely hates reading books, due to my attention span of a goldfish, i finally decided to read the book.

What surprised me the most was not simply how similar the book and the films are, but how alive the words feel while reading the novel. I could almost see the scenes from the movie playing in my head. The dialogue, the characters, the atmosphere and many other smaller details felt so familiar that at times I genuinely wondered whether Puzo had written the novel with a camera already in his mind.

It feels less like reading a novel and more like reading a initial draft of the script for a film.

Michael Corleone: The one that stayed in my mind

For me, the real heart of the story is Michael Corleone.

When we first meet Michael, he is fundamentally different from the rest of his family. He doesn’t want to be involved in the Corleone family’s criminal world. He has his own life, own ambitions, and he sees himself as separate from what his father has built for the family.

And yet, almost everything he eventually becomes is done in the name of his family.

This is what makes Michael’s transformations so fascinating to me. He doesn’t begin as a violent man. Life forces him to make one decision, then another, and eventually he becomes someone capable of making decisions that the Michael we read about in the beginning of the book could not have ever imagined.

The tragedy being that his transformation is not driven by greed or ambition, but by responsibility and family.

That does not make his action morally right. In fact that is precisely what makes his character so interesting. Michael continuously convinces himself that extreme measures are necessary because they protect his family and his loved ones.

The line between protecting your family and become the very thing you once hated to be slowly disappears.

Fredo and the Cost of Loyalty

Michael’s relationship with Fredo is probably one of the most painful part of the story for me.

Fredo is his brother, yet his actions eventually make hims a serious vulnerability to the family. Michael sees the betrayal not as a insult but as something that could put everyone in his family at risk.

When Michael decides that Fredo cannot be allowed to remain a threat to his family, the decision he makes is cold, but rather necessary. He gets Fredo killed.

What makes the situation even more tragic is that Michael is later judged for the decisions he took merely to protect his family. The person who spent so much of his life making sacrifices for his family becomes the person his family can no longer understand.

That, to me, is tragedy of Michael Corleone: the more he does to protect his family, the more isolated he becomes from them.

Kay: The most unsupportive wife you could ever imagine of

Michael’s relationship with Kay makes his transformation even more complicated.

Kay, being absolutely stupid, just simply cannot accept the world Michael has chosen. Her decision to abort their child is her rejecting the violent world that Michael has chosen to live in. From her perspective, she does not want another of her child to be part of this violent world.

But Michael sees his life differently. He believes that the violence surrounding his family are precisely what allows them to survive.

If Kay would have been a just a tad bit smarter, Michael’s life would have been so much simpler and would consist less misery.

I just could not handle the 3rd sequel in the trilogy, because the man i looked upon for his masculine nature, is now seen pleading for attention from his wife. What a disgrace!!