Fabian's Reviews > The Last Don

"There was no doubt about it, people who pursued money rather than art had longer careers, got more pleasure in life, were much better and more socially valuable people than those artists who tried to show the divine spark in human beings. Too bad you couldn't make a movie about that. That money was more healing than art and love. But the public would never buy it." (41)

But, oh, how they have! Just see: Goodfellas, The Departed, Scarface, and yes, the goddaddy of them all, The Godfather. I began The Last Don because I craved a swift fun summer read. A beach book. And remembering the infinite pleasure I derived from Puzo's masterpiece, I decided to recreate some semblance of that experience. And yeah, I got it!

Obvi, this is not as good. Obviously! But the prose, so fast and almost clumsy, sort of repetitive in its money and power examples, of events in history and farflung mobster fantasy, of power and money starving folks and the ugly deeds and their awful dispositions and scary characters...

Anyway, this one is more Hollywood and sags a bit in the middle, with its producer and will-they-wont-they-make-THE-movie? plot, its absolutely lesser than its ingenious predecessor. The first major murder occurs around this point, too. Not that Godfather was a bloodbath--no. But the themes in Don are obviously the ones that worked and gave Puzo accolades (as well as two Oscars for screenplay!). The writer is intuitive because he knows what works: unfortunately, he's already shown that magic the first time around...