Posted By: DeathByClotheshanger
My opinion of the book - 03/10/05 04:01 PM
I thought it stunk. I really wanted to like this book despite what everyone was saying about it on the boards here.
It took me six months to read this. I usually read books the same length and longer in three weeks or so. Six months! This book gave me little or no reason to pick it up and read at any given time.
The reasons this book was horrid were numerous.
First, Winegardner created too many new characters that we couldn’t care less about. In the Godfather novel and movies, we’re shown the Corleone enemies; the Barzini’s, the Roths, the Lucchesi’s (sp?) only when they’re interacting with the Corleones. We don’t see them hatch their plans off by themselves. We only see the Corleone clan react to their plans and slowly figure out who is behind it. Here, Winegardner abandons this formula and spends too much time following these meaningless characters around as they hatch their plans against the Corleones.
Secondly, Winegardner gave the real characters nothing to do and most importantly, bastardized them. Mike can fly a plane and make passionate love to Kay? Fredo is gay? Hagen whacks a guy?
Thirdly, Winegardner botched the details on so many different occasions, it’s too much to even go into. That is probably the most unforgivable sin, IMO. You already have a bunch of source material (1 book, 3 movies) to go from. Windegardner seemed to ignore these details to make them up himself or change them altogether.
Fourth, the writing was bland. Winegardner couldn’t even say Mike crossed the road without twisting it around and making it more confusing that it needed to be. Puzo’s language was colorful, but always simple enough to understand in one reading. Winegardner’s writing style confused the hell out of me and made me want to stop at the end of the chapter because it was too confusing and boring to keep reading.
Finally, I still feel like I’ve learned little to nothing about what happened in the gaps between the original book and between the 3 movies. Clemenza died of a heart attack? Fine, even though I still believe it was something else. Where was Frankie Five-Angels? Don Tommasino? The Rosato Brothers? Too often Winegardner skipped over interesting details from the movies and book only to dive into something he made up himself that felt totally different than what we’ve come to expect from characters and plot.
Also, where’s the patented Godfather ending? There’s a structure to these things and there was nothing in the book. So Geraci gets away and Francie kills Billy. BFD!!! Where’s Michael in all of this and why doesn’t the ending resemble the endings to all three movies? Where’s the juxtaposition?
There were some good parts of the book. I liked the back-story behind Tessio’s death and the part about Mike’s war history. There were also some chunks here and there that were good. But overall, this book was a steaming turd. Hopefully it will fade into oblivion and no one will remember it even existed. Now if all die-hard Godfather fans who read the book could do the same...
It took me six months to read this. I usually read books the same length and longer in three weeks or so. Six months! This book gave me little or no reason to pick it up and read at any given time.
The reasons this book was horrid were numerous.
First, Winegardner created too many new characters that we couldn’t care less about. In the Godfather novel and movies, we’re shown the Corleone enemies; the Barzini’s, the Roths, the Lucchesi’s (sp?) only when they’re interacting with the Corleones. We don’t see them hatch their plans off by themselves. We only see the Corleone clan react to their plans and slowly figure out who is behind it. Here, Winegardner abandons this formula and spends too much time following these meaningless characters around as they hatch their plans against the Corleones.
Secondly, Winegardner gave the real characters nothing to do and most importantly, bastardized them. Mike can fly a plane and make passionate love to Kay? Fredo is gay? Hagen whacks a guy?
Thirdly, Winegardner botched the details on so many different occasions, it’s too much to even go into. That is probably the most unforgivable sin, IMO. You already have a bunch of source material (1 book, 3 movies) to go from. Windegardner seemed to ignore these details to make them up himself or change them altogether.
Fourth, the writing was bland. Winegardner couldn’t even say Mike crossed the road without twisting it around and making it more confusing that it needed to be. Puzo’s language was colorful, but always simple enough to understand in one reading. Winegardner’s writing style confused the hell out of me and made me want to stop at the end of the chapter because it was too confusing and boring to keep reading.
Finally, I still feel like I’ve learned little to nothing about what happened in the gaps between the original book and between the 3 movies. Clemenza died of a heart attack? Fine, even though I still believe it was something else. Where was Frankie Five-Angels? Don Tommasino? The Rosato Brothers? Too often Winegardner skipped over interesting details from the movies and book only to dive into something he made up himself that felt totally different than what we’ve come to expect from characters and plot.
Also, where’s the patented Godfather ending? There’s a structure to these things and there was nothing in the book. So Geraci gets away and Francie kills Billy. BFD!!! Where’s Michael in all of this and why doesn’t the ending resemble the endings to all three movies? Where’s the juxtaposition?
There were some good parts of the book. I liked the back-story behind Tessio’s death and the part about Mike’s war history. There were also some chunks here and there that were good. But overall, this book was a steaming turd. Hopefully it will fade into oblivion and no one will remember it even existed. Now if all die-hard Godfather fans who read the book could do the same...
I had to read three english lit texts, a french novel and italian poetry every week for two years at uni. When I read somethin non-school based, I like to take my time!
