I finally decided that I should go buy the novel "The Godfather" to get the back story on some of the main (and lesser) characters of the film that I so love, OH MY GOD! what a piece of crap.Compared to the classic American "Pulp" novels of the fifties written by greatly under appreciated American novelists like Jim Thompson,or the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming, Puzo's prose comes off as ham-handed pornography, Though he did an amazing job turning this sow's ear into a silk purse (with the help of Mr.Coppola,no doubt)by producing two extrordinary screenplays.