Fools Die: A Thriller

I have read this novel many times - I will go on reading it at intervals in the future. The characters are so well developed and one benefit from the fact that the novel has not been turned into a movie is that I have always assigned my own set of "actors". I don't have to be constrained in my imagination to see a set of actors that would have played the characters if a movie had been made. Also - if a movie had been made - the story may have suffered the same fate as Merlyn's own novel did in the novel. This novel could only be translated successfully to the screen if it were turned into a mini-series. Selfishly, part of me hopes it never makes it to the screen....

Gave it 3 stars barely, as most fiction I cannot even finish. Barely 3 stars. I tried reading this after reading the Godfather the first or second time, and did not fiinish it. About 3 years ago, I bought it again, and once again, did not finish it, and actually only got through the first 100 pages, less than my first effort. The 3rd time was rough sledding, with many good passages and basically I got to the end.Several things notworthy about the book: First, it is rather depressing thorughout, with very little humor. The first hundred pages involves a main character's suicide, and from there it does not get much more hopeful, although at times very interesting. A lot of it is about an author (actually two of them), which is very often the case with fiction author's: they like to write about themselves or their hardships, etc...But sometimes these books can be fun and interesting, like Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift, a funny and fun book, which also has an eccentric author who does not depress, and also caught in this life.The second thing is the plot. For those of us used to the riveting action packed plot of the Godfather, this one is several steps down. It meanders in and out of Vegas, where the author shows many insights of the industry there, and then manhatten, and then hollywood, and eveen something of Japan. None of it has any action whatsoever to it however. The varioius characters meander in and out. It is almost as if Puzo decided to write a book (or a bunch of small short stories) loosely tied together. Almost like he did not have a finished outline when he began to write, so he just follows his characters along, speaking somewhat depressed through them. Almost like he wrote a book based on his talent, but without a subject matter, or a riveting story. It reads like the back third of the godfather, when the family moves to vegas, but runs out of steam slightly. Here Puzo wanted to tell us of his thoughts about the crummy publishing industry, the crummy casino industry and the crummy scum of hollywood, and he did so through a bunch of characters none of whom, were very attractive.Finally, the women: the first one dissappears after 100 pages with no explanation given, a degenerate gambler along for the ride, and then we meet at least a half dozen more, a wife who is a nothing character completely, then a call girl, another call girl, some geisha's, a japanese call girl, a few others and they are all basically wooden characters. He really does not include his own emotional life when writing about them, nor do they really have any whatsoeer themselves throughout the entire novel. They are the little power toys of the vegas and hollywood guys. A lot of fair looking whores and some beautiful ones for the vegas boys to pawn off on, or sleep with and later pawn off to other guys or turn out, and a lot of vegas and hollywood guys and authors who sleep with them.....so all and all, I think I was somewhat generouis with the 3 stars I gave it. Let's give it 2.5 stars.

Do yourself a favor and read ALL of Mario Puzo's novels. While it's huge culturally due to the film - and the novel was on the bestseller list for well over a year - The Godfather is actually the weakest, if you can believe it, of his literary efforts! This is a very complex novel, and if you want to enter the worlds of degenerate gambling, Hollywood BS and corruption, and NYC BS and corruption, he takes you there, into the very heart of all of it. Again, everything Puzo wrote is praiseworthy, and he knew he was creating art. The mystery to me is why this isn't on Kindle, but I struggled through the blurry print of a mass market paperback and was very glad I did.

This is a review of the mass-market paperback edition of "Fools Die." And yes, the type is rather blurry, though I had no trouble treading it.The book essentially is divided into three parts with a coda. Part one introduces us to the glamorous, high-energy world of Las Vegas casinos. Puzo does a good job of capturing the excitement, risk, and craziness of "degenerate gamblers" (as they call themselves) and their milieu.Part two takes us to New York City and the publishing world. A lot of time is spent on an unflattering, thinly disguised portrait of Norman Mailer, a cranky, past-his-prime author perpetually battling the forces of Women's Liberation. There's some good stuff, but it goes on a little long.In part three, we move to Hollywood and the film industry. Many books have been written about Hollywood, so if you're going to write another one, you'd better have something new to say. Puzo doesn't. Perhaps sensing this, he devotes most of this section to a love affair that's sort of an informal menage a trois. Unfortunately, the love affair is the most tedious part of the book. I found myself struggling to get through it.The brief coda provides a more-or-less satisfying payoff to the various characters and storylines. With aggressive editing, "Fools Die" could have been a much better book. As it is, it feels bloated and unfocused, and its energy flags considerably in the last third. Still, there's enough good material to make it worth a read. For those interested in the novel's autobiographical elements, it's worth noting that Puzo - like his main character here - worked as a civil service clerk and pulp magazine writer before becoming a best-selling novelist.

As one or two other reviewers here noted, this book enabled me to kill a lot of time, but not much else. It was a very different book from "The Godfather" and a lot of things Puzo wrote about were interesting. Just not fascinating. I didn't feel Puzo connected with any of his characters. Like one guy who was a degenerate gambler and who rises to be the number two guy at a casino/hotel. The narrator himself, a guy whose name was Merlyn and who THOUGHT he was truly the Merlin the Magician of old, suddenly goes from being a scam artist to a major major author. Seemed very improbable. And so on. I guess the Merlyn angle and the death of a character early in the novel probably had some symbolic value, but if so, I missed it. Maybe I shouldn't blame Puzo for that, but there you are. Also, there didn't seem to be much of a plot. Mostly just observations by the author, mostly through the eyes of Merlyn. I learned a lot about Vegas and Hollywood, but that's about it.

I read 'Fools Die' after 'The Godfather'. Normally I like to finish a book once I start it, but this was a real chore. 'The Godfather' lol was OK, nowhere near as good as the film, but still OK. 'Fools Die' isn’t in the same league. I kept waiting for the story to start, but it never did. It’s more like rough jottings in a diary - a chronology of loosely connected events, mostly implausible, few interesting, with a failed attempt to make them notable with a scattering of sex and profanity. Even one star is too many. Avoid.

I loved this book when I was younger for its insight into relationships, but now didn't feel as though it had as much as coherent storyline as I prefer. I know Puzo's work can be quite detail-heavy but this felt just loose and disorganised. Worth a read definitely but not his best.

I'm not finding this book an easy read, that's down to the writing style I think. I am now a third through & will carry on. The story drifts & I'm missing substance with too much theorising for me.

Not as good as some of his other books

As a European, I have little knowledge of the Los Angeles Mafia Society, but Puzo explains the universal principles and basic truth about life in a neat, pleasurable and engaging way. In the first paragraph Puzo opens the story with a paradoxical climax which is based on the simile "a man who gambled simply to gamble must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die". Quotes like that create the greatness of Puzo's art. The world famous book and screen writr portraits the truths of life by telling a story about people on the edge of it. A hero has nothing to live for, as a gambler who has no life, like a dead man drifting from Casino to a club, and a whorehouse with no purpose and no meaning.