Customer Reviews

Omerta

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I read this book in one night. I am a huge Godfather fan and was really looking forward to reading this. There are some great characters, like two twin hitmen who operate as a team and Astorre, the opera singing, horse riding young Don who knows the old Sicilian ways, like the code of Omerta. It moves back and forth from present day New York to some great early stuff in Sicily. I highly reccomend this to anyone who liked the Godfather. It is the best Puzo since then. I can't wait for the movie.

"You can't go home again" - nor could Mario Puzo - in his last novel, recreate the fascination and absorption I found when I first read "The Godfather." They say this is the 3rd book of "The Godfather" trilogy. That is true only in the sense that this is also a tale of a "Mafia" family - which mentions the Corleones. I found the "fairy tale" tone of this book to be initially off-putting. "And so it grew" "And so it turned out that ..." but the tale and plot - while not "The Godfather," is increasingly engrossing. While not creating the depth of characters as in "the Godfather," (I had to write notes to myself to keep track of who was whom) one does come to care for some of these characters - which propels one to keep turning the pages. There are not the shocks such as that created by awakening in bed with a prized horse's severed head - but there still are some "rude surprises." [I won't ruin the surprise - read the book!] My favorite quote: "I'll go to the Dakotas and they'll never find me."

Omerta reads more like a synopsis than a fully realized novel. As always, Puzo creates fascinating characters, but this story is so brief that few of these characters have the opportunity to come to life. This book is really a movie treatment, and I won't be surprised if the movie is more enjoyable than the book, which is redeemed only by Puzo's gift for description and his talent for delightfully cynical aphorisms.

We'll never know if Puzo intended to do more with this story. It would be easy to believe that Omerta was a first draft and that if Puzo's health had been better he might have breathed more life into it. As it stands, it's a predictable, fairly bland story, with familiar plot elements that fans of Puzo's earlier Mafia works are accustomed to.

It's become more difficult to believe in Puzo's mythological wiseguys, after films like "Goodfellas", "Donnie Brasco" and the TV series "The Sopranos" have given us a more realistic view of what these people are like. Puzo himself expressed contempt for his own myth, saying of the Godfather, "I made it all up", and "I wrote it to make money." This lack of respect for his own material was evident in The Godfather and even more so in The Last Don; however Puzo's talent for character development and ear for dialogue made these novels compelling in spite of their pulp origins.

However, Omerta didn't have enough substance in it to hold my interest. I enjoyed bits and pieces of it, but I expect the movie will be more fun.

One year ago Mr. Puzo left us, but before he did he left his last work "Omerta" for us. This final tale of his is quite good, and when the end comes there is a feeling of closure to the epic he brought us with "The Godfather".

The book is a melancholy reading experience, as you know it is the last work from Mr. Puzo. Do not make the same mistake I did by reading it in one day, make it last. Too much has already been given away about the plot, a trend I will not continue. Suffice to say this is a different type of Mafia that Mr. Puzo brings us; it is quite contemporary with events leading to the mid 1990's.

New York and Sicily feature prominently in the book, and with a style that only Mr. Puzo can bring to the topic. It is clear that he was telling of great change in Organized Crime as we knew it, and it is a shame we will never know where he might have taken this storyline. The book is not a cliffhanger; it merely leaves you to ponder what would come next.

When reading, one of the joys that returns is the memories of the first 2 Godfather Films. How many films brought that much talent to one screen? There were legends as well as legends in the making; Marlon Brando, James Caan, Al Pacino, Robert Dinero, Robert Duvall, Dianne Keaton, and a host of faces we would see in the theaters in the following years.

The jacket of the book says this story will soon be a film. I am probably in the minority but I wish it were not. Mr. Puzo was personally involved in the previous screenplays, and even though this work was written with an eye toward being a movie, without Mr. Puzo it cannot be what we have come to expect.

He created classic literature, and then helped to bring at least 2 movies that already are in the category of "Classic". Our language has become peppered with lines from the movies, even movies carry the spirit, and Tom Hanks recently tutored a business owner with bits and phrases from the Godfather Movies in the film "You've Got Mail".

You cannot help but remember all the original characters and the faces attached to them when this book is read, I just don't see how the Corleones could be brought back to the screen, especially as they are a very small part of this work.

Thank you both for the body of works you left us, and for being a true original, rest in peace Mr. Puzo.

All in all, Mario Puzo's new book is very good. It's a page turner and had me interested from start to finish. The plot was weaved with expertice(sp) that can only be achieved by decades of experience. It did, however, have a few problems that brought the rating from 5 to 4. Here are thge three reasons: 1. The book is too short. It seemed that Mr. Puzo cut some corners in writing it, and left out some valuable information. 2. This reason is related to #1. The book ended kind of abrupty and I wasn't totally satisfied with the ending. It seemed that Mario got 85% through the book and then decided that he wanted to just finish the last leg of the book in a day or two. 3. My final complaint is that the characters never really developed. In The Godfather, you get to know and understand even the least important of charaters (Johnny Fontane). In 'Omerta', the characters never really reach that 3rd dimension... possibly because he tried to fit so many characters into a relatively short novel. Once again, if he took his time with the story he could have developed characters like the Aprile children (who don't even make it past the 1st dimension, except for Nicole). One in particualar is Valerius, who we don't get to know AT ALL. Thia book surely has it's downside, but don't let that discourage you from reading it. All in all it is a genuinely good book worthy of the Puzo name.

Omerta is a rich, powerful epitaph to Puzo's mafia trilogy. It well deserves the large reading audience it will definitely attract. Typical of all of Puzo's books, Omerta grabs your attention and never lets go, it's filled with action and suspense, and it's loaded with interesting characters. Omerta' s greatest quality, however, is Puzo's narrative style, in which you can feel every emotion his characters are feeling and vividly picture every setting in which his characters appear. Omerta is without question a fitting memorial to a great writer. The only reason I didn't give Omerta a 5-star rating is that would make it equivalent to 'The Godfather', which it is not. But than again, how many books are? Make yourself an offer you can't refuse and buy a copy of Omerta. Enjoy!

A posthumous publication by a major literary figure presupposes these questions in the reader's mind: Did this author write this book? If so, how much of the book? Did this author receive any "help" in its writing? If so, then what was the form of this "help?"

Without doubt, master storyteller Mario Puzo has placed the capstone of his life's work in "Omerta," the final tale of the "Godfather" saga. At first glance, "Omerta" appears to be a continuation of the struggles between older and younger generations, between traditions of Sicily and America, between alleged crime families and law enforcement agencies. Early on, the story seems to collapse on itself because the narrator deprives the reader of the suspense of "whodunit."

Nevertheless, the Puzo "signature" of larger-than-life characters is stamped on every page of "Omerta." When Don Raymonde, the Sicilian scion of the Aprile family, is murdered, his adopted Sicilian son, Astorre Viola, steps up to enforce the Don's last wishes. Astorre is confronted by Don Aprile's daughter, Nicole, a corporate attorney who happens to oppose the death penalty. The "no mercy" tenet of Don Aprile is counterbalanced by the "mercy" obtained by Nicole Aprile through her pro bono work.

The text of "Omerta" is threaded with imagery and aphorisms: ". . . when one changes one's country, one must always change one's hat." The usual cast of characters appears, including Roman Catholic cardinals and priests. A close reading of the text will reward one with glimpses of Puzo's dark humor. Beyond his use of irony, one can sense self-parody, which is a hallmark of his inimitable style.

However, there are some textual clues in "Omerta" which lead one to suspect that Puzo may have changed his narrative style partway through the novel. After the early revelation of the "shooters" and their "contractor," the novel takes on an uncanny resemblance to a "police procedural." Indeed, the director of the Bureau asks, "And how is our operation 'Omerta'?" Further, the frontispiece defines "Omerta," using the "World Book Dictionary." A final quibble concerns the book cover, which is a minimalist European-style design: black letters shadowed onto a white background, with an oval of metallic red to dot the "i" in "Mario." My question is: where is the written accent for "Omertà?" Without "reading" too much into this "omission," nonetheless, I do find it to be an appropriate symbol of how "[t]he great Dons had accomplished their goals and blended gracefully into society . . . " (315).

Naturally, one cannot read this book without envisioning the sights and sounds of "the movie" and its "soundtrack." Bravo, Signor Puzo e mille grazie.

This is the final book by Mario Puzo, finished just before he died last year at the age of 78. He certainly did leave a powerful legacy though. "The Godfather" and other books about the Mafia will long stand as classics in their field.

I personally enjoy Mafia books and looked forward to reading this one. I wasn't disappointed. It has all the elements of a good Mafia read: the rise to power of a young Mafia leader, violence, romance, intrigue, betrayal, interesting characters and, above all, a strict observance of the Sicilian code of honor.

It's predictable of course. There is the good guy, Astorre Violla, trained to follow in his adoptive father, Don Raymonde Aprile's footsteps. Astorre is everyman's ideal of Mafia manhood. He is attractive and honor bound and, although there are a few hard choices, every murder he commits is justified.

Then there are all those bad guys. They have no scruples, and will murder just for the money or for power. And there are those weak guys, such as the FBI agent in this book, who treads a thin line between right and wrong.

The women have always played secondary positions in Mr. Puzo's work, but at least in this book one of them is a sharp lawyer by profession. Another one is a sadistic cop. And yet another uses her feminine wiles as bait in the search for justice.

The plot moves quickly and there are only 336 pages set in large type. It's easily a one-sitting book, but I enjoyed it so much I stopped reading halfway through on purpose because I wanted it to last. Basically, its a good story with a good plot. I just wish that Mr. Puzo didn't insult the reader's intelligence so much by over-explaining what was going on.

The book could have used a lot more fleshing out too. Character tags are quick and fast ways to make characters interesting, but not quite enough to stir emotions. But we do have to remember that Mr. Puzo was dying as he wrote this and this was probably the best he could do. I must say that I applaud him for pursuing his writing up until the very end of his life. And I am glad to have read the book.

Recommended for fans, such as myself, of this genre. And try not to compare it to earlier works.

It is very clear to me that Mario Puzo either hadn't finished this book when he passed away or, at the very most, it was a first draft. With due respect to him, his editors should have taken a heavier pen to this draft, which was full of awkward writing and undeveloped points. (The fact that this work is so much briefer than Mr. Puzo's earlier works lends credence to the conclusion that it needed to be fleshed out.)

That being said, this was not a horrible book, but it was not what one would expect from someone as talented as Mr. Puzo. The characters were, for the most part, two-dimensional and some of the relationships not fully clarified.

Don Aprile, who has survived the FBI incursions into the Mafia, is gunned down by unkown assailants. He has annointed the nephew that he raised as his "heir apparent" to the remaning family businesses, as he carefully has sheltered his children from the less savory aspects of his life. The story line was interesting but a little hard to follow (I didn't think that the underlying attempted transaction made sense). This is definitely not the best novel written by Mr. Puzo.

I've read everything written from Mario Puzo (including The Godfather, The Last Don, and Fools Die) and I am very sorry to say that his last wasn't close to the same league of his other novels. It seems rushed at the end, and while the lean meat of the characters are there (and they are fascinating, vintage Puzo) they aren't nearly as fleshed out as you want them to be. I put down the book fairly unsatisfied. That being said, even his mediocre writing is better than most people's best efforts, and its definitely worth a read.