I recently finished reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather. My father had recommended that I read the book, during a conversation earlier this year in which we talked about the relative merits of the movies by Francis Ford Coppola. I particularly enjoyed the novel; the writing in general is decent, but the story itself is stunningly well constructed.

Along the way, Puzo gets into the motivations of the various characters without being either sentimental or critical. He lets you see the way the characters see the world without having to point out to the reader with big, bold letters where lay the irony and where to note self-delusion.

There were several passages that rang with a note of such truth that I had noted them down on my bookmark. This is a practice I've gotten into over the past few years; when the author says something interesting, I note it on the bookmark. As a result, many of the books in my library have bookmarks that are covered with notes. Any book that I finish without writing on the bookmark is a book that I consider to have been 'slight'. Not necessarily a waste of time, but not one to ever return to.

(I use old business cards as bookmarks, btw. B-cards of mine from past employment situations. Waste not, want not, eh?)

One of the scenes that grabbed me in particular is when Michael Corleone, who had always flown the straight and narrow up to this point, volunteers to "hit" the men who attempted to murder his father. All throughout the book, everyone talked about how hits were (ideally) a matter of business; they were nothing personal. Michael finally disagreed:

"Tom, don't let anybody kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That's what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal. Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes. Right? And you know something? Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult. So I came late, OK, but I'm coming all the way. Damn right, I take that broken jaw personal; damn right, I take Sollozzo trying to kill my father personal."

While I think there are some juicy bits in there about what is "personal" and what is "business", I also like Tom's rebuke:

"I'll tell you one thing you didn't learn from [your father]: talking the way you're talking now. There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. You don't try to justify them. They can't be justified. You just do them. Then you forget it."

I don't have the words to express just how strong a chord this all struck in me, having seen from the inside exactly how certain large corporations work, and how their employees handle the situations that spring up in that environment. But it amazes me, the contortions through which people put themselves, all in an effort to justify what they do or do not do, and the extent to which they do (or, more often, do not) separate the business from the personal.

Sometimes for good, but mostly for ill.

By the way, I recommend this book if you haven't already read it.