Why A Book about the Mafia is on My Top Ten List

Recently, I responded to a Facebook posting I was tagged in by listing the top ten books that have stayed with me. I normally resist such temptations, but this time, the subject was too alluring. Even as I posted, I knew the folly of what I was doing. I had to post quickly? And keep my list to ten books?

One of the books on my list—at number ten, I listed Mario Puzo’s The Godfather—might seem suspicious, and for a couple of reasons. As a Christian, I admit to being influenced by this violent bestseller? And really, I would list it instead of other books?

I admit that I haven't read the book since high school, at a time (1972) when I saw paperback copies around our school that fell open at the scene where Sonny is having an adulterous liaison that seemed hilarious to the average high school student at the time. And even the author once said it could have been written better. Yes, Puzo himself once said he wished in retrospect that he’d written the book that brought him fame and fortune more carefully. (Most authors say this about their published works, of course, and shouldn't always be believed.)

Lists are arbitrary, and I will admit that mine was certainly influenced by a few things I went through this week. Next week I might think of other books, depending on what I am facing then. But this week, I listed The Godfather at number ten not because of its style or anything other than that I think it belongs in the same category about the American Dream that should be headed by Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The American dream says that if you are willing to work hard and play by the rules, you will get ahead and succeed no matter who you are and no matter what your circumstances might be. The fact that this has not been the case for many people groups is often ignored.

The Godfather is set in an Italian-American immigrant community in New York city and manages to question most of that dogma at just about every turn. From Johnny Fontaine's new movie deal (remember the horse's head scene?) to the importance of corrupt cops and politicians to the plot, the novel manages to say something truthful in an entertaining way about corruption in American politics and business that goes back at least to the Di Medici family and may be as old as Rome. We might as well be honest and note that the same corruption can run through ecclesiastical and academic cultures and hierarchies, though the stakes are often petty.

Sure, there’s that one line near the beginning of the third act in the book where Kay says, “Michael, Senators don’t have people killed.” Michael answers, “Kay, now who is being naïve?” That line often drew knowing chuckles from an audience in the early '70s just getting over the Viet Nam conflict. It still resonates, of course, with all the new conflicts. And it is just a few lines of dialogue. Puzo’s account of an underground syndicate running successfully parallel to the system on the surface and also pulling many of its strings may sound more like the stuff of headlines coming out of Mexico these days. But it is also a stable American story.

For these reasons, I think this book belongs on my top ten list. It’s not a beautiful book. And it may or may not have been written as well as the author was capable of writing. But even in its 1970s bestseller form and its almost comic book figures, it does explore how power works best when it is ignored and mostly hidden from view.