小說和電影《教父》都是以Michael的姐姐Connie的婚禮為教父這個家族的故事拉開序幕的。婚禮上，Michael帶著他大學裏認識的女朋友Kay出現在婚禮現場，兩人有說有笑, 恩愛有加。後來Mike殺了人，為了躲避警察的調查和追捕，逃到了意大利西西裏島--他父親的老家，生活了一段時間。

Michael住在他父親的朋友家中，囚困在城堡裏，整天無所事事。五個多月後的一天，他在鄉間田野偶遇一位年輕貌美，渾身散發著青春氣息的意大利姑娘。他像被雷擊中了，一見鍾情，魂不守舍，朝思暮想，夜不能寐。特此摘抄小說裏描寫Michael失魂落魄的情形和一些心理獨白。

As for Michael Corleone, he found himself standing, his heart pounding in his chest; he felt a little dizzy. The blood was surging through his body, through all its extremities and pounding against the tips of his fingers, the tips of his toes. All the perfumes of the island came rushing in on the wind, orange, lemon blossoms, grapes, flowers. It seemed as if his body had sprung away from him out of himself.

…But this was the first time in his life such a thing had happened to him. It was nothing like his adolescent crushes, it was nothing like the love he’d had for Kay, a love based much on her sweetness, her intelligence, and the polarity of the fair and dark. This was an overwhelming desire for possession, this was an inerasable printing of the girl’s face on his brain and he knew she would haunt his memory every day of his life if he did not possess her. His life had become simplified, focused on one point, everything else was unworthy of even a moment’s attention. During his exile he had always thought of Kay, though he felt they could never again be lovers or even friends. He was, after all was said, a murderer, a mafiaso who had ‘made his bones’. But now Kay was wiped completely out of his consciousness.

Again Michael felt that shortness of breath, that flooding through his body of something that was not so much desire as an insane possessiveness. He understood for the first time the classical jealousy of the Italian male. He was at the moment ready to kill anyone who touched the girl, who tried to claim her, take her away from him. He wanted to own her as wildly as a miser wants to own gold coins, as hungrily as a sharecropper wants to own his own land. Nothing was going to stop him from owning this girl, possessing her, locking her in a house, and keeping her prisoner only for himself.

抄了這麽三段話，隻想用原文來證明，世間的愛可以是多種多樣，可以日久生情，可以一見鍾情，可以因為才華橫溢被折服，也可以因為傾城傾國而放棄江山，可以是了解基礎上的愛戀，也可以是原始肉欲衝動下霎那間的癡狂。小說中Michael的兩段戀情，把這兩種愛演繹得淋漓盡致，這兩種不同的愛可以在同一個人身上發生。

如果說Michael在瞬間愛上那個田野裏行走的姑娘是一個正常男人在荷爾蒙驅動下都會有的反應，那麽接下來的舉動並不是每一個男人都會做的，從中也不折不扣地反映了Michael這位未來教父骨子裏的霸氣，血氣和勇氣。

話說Michael看到姑娘離去的身影後，徑直走進附近一家店想打聽。當得知那個姑娘就是店主的女兒時，他在自我介紹自己是紐約逃犯後，說，你可以去報警，拿一筆賞金，但是你女兒會失去一個爸爸，而不是贏得一位丈夫。這短短的幾句話就把人家給鎮住了，Michael的話說得不溫不火，但是很有幾分匪氣。

Michael回到居所處後，打聽了情況，不顧任何反對意見，準備了三份厚禮登門拜訪。這是他第一次拜訪女方家，而他帶來的禮物卻是當地風俗一般隻有求婚，結婚時才送的禮--他送姑娘一條沉甸甸的金項鏈 ，這麽貴重的禮物讓女孩的母親瞠目結舌，也相信了他的誠意。

要知道，那時的Michael，是一個流浪被放逐的逃犯，半張塌陷的臉因為被紐約警察打傷後來不及治療，留下的後遺症，傷及到臉部神經和鼻子，每隔幾分鍾就要流下鼻涕。而女方卻來自當地一個很不錯的殷實家庭。

在女方家，他單刀直入，眼神裏的堅毅和目不轉睛凝視女孩子的專注，和那種不達目的誓不罷休的氣勢，無形中征服／說服女方家庭父母。很快這對戀人結為伉儷，Michael也因此度過了他此生不能忘懷的蜜月。但是這段愛情卻是一個悲劇。紐約的敵對黑幫派人來西西裏殺Michael，在他的車裏安裝了炸彈。就在年輕的妻子坐上車開動引擎的一刹那，車毀人亡。Michael目睹著他的心上人湮沒在火光和滾滾濃煙中。。。

心愛的姑娘死了，Michael也在老教父的百般努力下成功洗白，回到了紐約。他回來後沒有去找最初的戀人Kay，以為Kay一定忘了他這個出自黑社會家庭的殺人犯。是 Kay對Michael的一往情深最終讓這對曾經深愛過的戀人結為夫妻。婚後，Michael接手父親的事業，廝殺拚搏，重振家業，重振旗鼓。而Kay在家相夫教子，不聞不問丈夫的事情。這看似平淡的愛卻深藏著愛意。 Michael 他可以不聽任何人，包括母親姐姐的勸阻，拒絕做麵部手術，但是因為Kay 希望他去做，希望出生後的嬰兒，以後長大懂事後的孩子見到的父親擁有的不是一張殘缺的臉。他下了決心，果斷力行，安排醫生，將臉部的骨頭打斷重新接回。是Kay在Michael 心中特殊的位置，才使她的話產生分量。她是這個世界上唯一一位可以讓Michael逆其本性而行的人（She was the only person in the world who could make him act against his own nature.），因為他們的愛情是經過時間考驗的。當然， 這另一方麵要歸功於Kay的賢惠。 就此也摘錄下麵這段話，Kay的賢惠在此可見一斑。

It was not in Kay’s nature to nag; she let it drop. Also she had learned that Michael was not a man to push, that he could become coldly disagreeable. She knew she was the only person in the world who could bend his will, but she also knew that to do it too often would be to destroy that power.

小說和電影就是通過這些細節來刻畫Michael這樣一個人物， 一個有血有肉，有情有義，一顆看似冷酷的心裏不乏有著柔情的黑幫頭目。同時小說也通過塑造Michael這樣一位立體多維的人物，來描述世間這兩種愛情--驚天動地，靜水流深都是愛。

With the advent of high technology comes along a digital age with disruptive changes. One noticeable change is a gradual replacement of paper books with eBooks.  People cheer for the revolutionary invention of an eBook-- no more tree would have to cut down for that purpose, and the convenience of reading from an eBook is obvious-- we can adjust font, color it or make notes without a highlighter or a pen. We can find out the meaning of a new word with a click. What’s more, we can get rid of the book shelf for more space.

But an eBook can have something amiss, at least it won't carry the scribbling handwriting as was in this paper book. 

It was a pleasant surprise when I recognized the book in red Chinese characters on Dad’s glass-door bookshelves. When I took it out and saw my husband’s old-style signature on the front page, I was relished.  It’s like lost and found. The book has been on my reading list after i watched the movie years ago.  More than twenty years have passed by. The paper turns yellow and is no longer fresh. Neither is the memory.  But it is so dear to me, and certainly to him too, who later told me how as a student in the years he frequented that bookstore, where a section of the second-floor was entitled to foreign language books. 

I finished this 448-page novel within two weeks.  Reading an aged paper novel complements the joy of reading a classic masterpiece.

*****************************************************

Quotes:

"Great men are not born great, they grow great . . .”

“Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold.”

“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults”

 “I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.”

“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.”

 “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.”

 “He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful."

...

Yes, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important.”

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”

“Behind every successful fortune there is a crime.”

“Time erodes gratitude more quickly than it does beauty!”

“Forgive. Forget. Life is full of misfortunes.”

 “And in that fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man.”

 “She emptied her mind of all thought of herself, of her children, of all anger, of all rebellion, of all questions. Then with a profound and deeply willed desire to believe, to be heard, as she had done every day since the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone.”

“Like many business men of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient.”

“In this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful.” 

“The Don considered a use of threats the most foolish kind of exposure; the unleashing of anger without forethought as the most dangerous indulgence. No one had ever heard the Don utter a naked threat, no one had ever seen him in an uncontrollable rage. It was unthinkable.”