A dream project of mine is to write a literary biography of Mario Puzo. I admire him as a great writer in a very special category that includes Dumas (in both his life and his work,) Cervantes (life and work,) Hemingway (life,) Johnson (life,) and of course Shakespeare (work.)
Puzo succeeded in objectifying a world and its people that somehow had already existed in the collective mind in an unformed state -- as if waiting for someone to give it form.
Shakespeare did this many times, with Falstaff for example. Dumas did it with the Three Musketeers. And Puzo did it with Don Corleone, albeit with the collaboration of Marlon Brando and others, for the film is the highest realization of the story.
Although he is far from a great stylist, I consider Puzo a very insightful writer. One of his themes is the idea that real love must culminate in betrayal. If it's real, love is so powerful that betrayal is the only means of survival. In Puzo's own life I believe this theme was acted out in his relationship to literary work. He began as a "serious" writer, had limited success, and then turned to commercial fiction. Ostensibly the reason was money but I believe there was also heartbreak involved and, in his own terms, betrayal on his part. For the rest of his life he was in a love/hate relationship with "respectable" literature. When Joseph Heller suggested inviting the novelist James Salter to join an informal breakfast club that included Puzo and Bruce Jay Friedman, Puzo hesitated and then rejected asking Salter. "He's too good a writer," Puzo said.
There's much more to say about Mario Puzo and his creations. As a boy he read Dostoyevsky and hoped to recreate The Brothers Karamazov -- which in a roundabout way he actually came very close to doing. This guy was the real thing, a man of respect. (Not sure if he ever wrote a poem, though!) -- Mitch Sisskind
from the archive; first posted September 5, 2008
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