'We were the last romantics,' Yeats said, but he spoke too soon. We might feel the same about the situation proposed by the title of Mario Puzo's new novel, now sitting comfortably at number four in the New York Times bestseller list. Don Domenico Clericuzio, the ageing mobster grandee in this book, is said to have led his family to 'the very heights of power', using only the instruments of 'a Borgialike cruelty and a Machiavellian subtleness, plus solid American business know-how'. He has also probably watched the Godfather movies several hundred times. How could we ever tire of such a figure, what would stop his replication? The idea of the last Don is like the idea of the last cliché.

LRB 17 October 1996 | PDF Download