The Godfather and American Culture: How the Corleones Became "Our Gang"SUNY Press, 2002 M04 25 - 344 pages Mario Puzo s The Godfather is an American pop phenomenon whose driving force is reflected not only in book sales and cable television movie marathons but also in such related works as the hit television series The Sopranos. In The Godfather and American Culture, Chris Messenger offers an important and comprehensive study of this classic work of popular fiction and its hold on the American imagination. As Messenger shows, the Corleones have indeed become our gang, and we see our family business in America reflected in them. Examining The Godfather and its many incarnations within a variety of texts and contexts, Messenger also addresses Puzo s inconsistent affiliation with his Italian heritage, his denial of the multiethnic literary subject, and his decades-long struggle for respect as a writer in contemporary America. The study ultimately offers a way of looking at the much-maligned genre of popular or bestselling fiction itself. By placing both the novel and films within a number of revealing critical situations, Messenger addresses the continuing problem of how we talk about elite and popular fiction in America and what we mean when we take sides. |
Contents
Popular Fiction Taste Sentiment and the Culture of Criticism | 19 |
Mario Puzo An American Writers Career | 51 |
Bakhtin and Puzo Authority as the Family Business | 87 |
The Godfather and the Ethnic Ensemble | 107 |
Barthes and Puzo The Authority of the Signifier | 149 |
The Godfather and Melodrama Authorizing the Corleones as American Heroes | 173 |
The Corleones as Our Gang The Godfather Interrogated by Doctorows Ragtime | 209 |
The American Inadvertent Epic The Godfather Copied | 229 |
The Godfather Sung by The Sopranos | 253 |
Conclusion | 291 |
Notes | 299 |
| 317 | |
| 327 | |
Other editions - View all
The Godfather and American Culture: How the Corleones Became "Our Gang" Chris Messenger Limited preview - 2012 |
The Godfather and American Culture: How the Corleones Became "Our Gang" Chris Messenger Limited preview - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic American fiction asks audience Bakhtin Barthes become bella figura Bonasera Bourdieu calls Carmela chapter characters Chase Christopher Coppola Corleone family Corleone's critical culture death destiny dialogue discourse Doctorow Don Corleone Don's dream elite fiction epic ethnic family business father feeling finally Fools Fools Die Fortunate Pilgrim Genco genre Godfather films Godfather II Godfather's Hagen hero Hollywood Hume identity immigrant irony Italian American Jack Woltz Johnny Fontane language literary lives Livia Lucia Santa Mafia Mailer male Melfi melodrama Merlyn Michael Corleone mob narrative moral mother movie murder myth mythical never Nino novel novelist omerta Osano popular fiction postmodern Puzo Puzo's Ragtime reader reading rhetoric role says scene sentimental Sicilian Sicily signifier social society Sonny Sonny Corleone taste television tells tion Tom Hagen Tony Soprano Tony's violence Vito Corleone voice Woltz women writing York
Popular passages
Page 11 - But on the truest candor, it has an inhibitory effect. Most serious matters are closed to the hardboiled. They are unpracticed in introspection, and therefore badly equipped to deal with opponents whom they cannot shoot like big game or outdo in daring. If you have difficulties, grapple with them silently, goes one of their commandments.