The Godfather and American culture : how the Corleones became "our gang" / Chris Messenger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Messenger, Christian K., 1943-

Series:

SUNY series in Italian/American culture

SUNY series in Italian/American Culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Puzo, Mario, 1920-1999. Godfather.

Puzo, Mario.

Corleone family (Fictitious characters).

Criminals in literature.

Families in literature.

Italian Americans in literature.

Mafia in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Popular Fiction Criticism and American Careers

Popular Fiction: Taste, Sentiment, and the Culture of Criticism

Mario Puzo: An American Writer’s Career

Reading The Godfather : Critical Strategies and Theoretical Models

Bakhtin and Puzo: Authority as the Family Business

The Godfather and the Ethnic Ensemble

Barthes and Puzo: The Authority of the Signifier

Positioning The Godfather in American Narrative Study

The Godfather and Melodrama: Authorizing the Corleones as American Heroes

The Corleones as “Our Gang”: The Godfather Interrogated by Doctorow’s Ragtime

The American Inadvertent Epic: The Godfather Copied

The Godfather Sung by The Sopranos

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-325) and index.

ISBN:

9780791488706

0791488705

9780585471020

0585471029

OCLC:

61367617