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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780451160195
ISBN number: 0451160193
Label: Signet
Manufacturer: Signet
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 544
Printing Date: October 01, 1979
Publishing house: Signet
Sale Popularity Level: 124499
Studio: Signet
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
From the blockbuster author of The Godfather, here is the international and New York Times bestseller about the feverish world of a big-time gambler. Reissue.
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Rated by buyers 
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A man named Gronevelt runs the Xandu casino in Las Vegas and he knows that whenever a table doesn't pay, someone is stealing. Watch the percentage is his mantra. Puzo's multi-level plots prove Gronevelt correct as several characters do what they can to cheat, beat, or alter the odds of life. Once again Puzo proves himself a master of the insightful, complicated stories that never let you down.
In this one, he gives us Merlyn, a guy from New York who meets Cully (a casino insider) and Diane (another casino insider) but also Osano a famous writer and Hollywood-type. He weaves these and others together as they crisscross the country from New York, to Las Vegas, to Hollywood. They all have their motivations and reasons for taking chances but sometimes forget Gronevelt's admonition only to discover that fools die. In Puzo's straight forward style he unravels believable plots with clever dialog and scenes that keep you reading well into the night.
This is one of my favorite books of all time.
Rated by buyers 
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Mario Puzo's Fools Die is more than a look at the inner workings of the grand triangle of corruption, Las Vegas, New York, and Hollywood. What it really is, is a novel that USES Las Vegas, New York, and Hollywood to illustrate modern man's relationship with woman.
Each of the male characters of the book personify men with different attitudes, beliefs, and methods in their relationships with women. I am suprised that people rarely mention this material in reviews of this book. Mario Puzo explicitly introduces the reader to these themes in the introduction. For this review, I will focus on this thematic material.
General plot summary:
Main character John Merlyn gambling and meeting people in Las Vegas, engaging himself in illegal dealings working for the draft board in New York, and having one of his books turned into a movie in Hollywood. But this plot only provides a setting for the interactions that examine human relationships.
Generally, the men, despite all of their power and charm, are unable to cope with the modern woman and most of them experience some sort of downfall.
Here is a rundown of the main characters and what each of them represent:
Jordan plays the part of the hard working, monogamous puritan. In order to protect his wife and children, he becomes a powerful entreprenuer and builds a wall of power and wealth around them. Little did he know that the destruction of his family would come from within! Apparently, in his quest to safeguard his relationship, he forgot aobut the intimate details that he needed to use to keep his wife interested. His wife, though not a businessman like Jordan, is more clever. A cruel divorce prompts Jordan to give up his former life and devote himself to the casinos and gambling in Las Vegas.
Osano plays the part of a powerful celebrity who uses his fame, reputation, and money to go through a series of women. Like many celebrities, he has many marriages, and many divorces. He openly scoffs and his ex-wives and tries to use his power, wealth, and fame as shields to keep himself pyschologically above all of his failures with women. He seems to get the better of all of the women that he deals with. All but one that is. There is one ex-wife that he can never get the best of. She remains his psycological superior, despite all of his power, bluster, and ego. Watch his downfall (or partial downfall) at her hands.
Artie, Merlyn's brother, plays the part of the handsome and honest man. He stays true to his wife, despite all of his temptations that ask him to roam astray and sample the wares of many other fine specimens of the female family. Artie is the man embarrassed by his power over women. he is the one who can have the most attractive women without even trying. He is annoyed and bothered at their frequent advances, and, unlike most of the other men in this novel, usually turns them down. But how happy is he? Will he die a death of unfullfilled despair because of his failure to fulfill his male urges?
Merllyn, the main character, plays the role of a few men. Initially, he is a faithful man that will not stray from his wife, despite numerous opportunities. He believes that their mutual love of sex unites them and makes cheating unnecessary. But, as what happens with many men, he begins to lose some interest in his wife and eye other possible prospects. He succumbs to these temptations and begins to play the part of the man who has the faithful and committed wife at home, while he finds other women outside of the home to pleasure his sexual needs.
During his extramarital affair, he plays the part of the man struggling to have a fulfilling relationship with a woman who takes on feminist ideals. While they profess to be enlightened enough to have a no strings attached relationship, they both become angry and jealous with one another and secretly long for a monogamous relationship. Their emotional roller coasters and conversations are intriguing if you find this to be an interesting dynamic.
Gronevelt is the rich businessman who never truly understands an intimate, loving relationship with a woman. Unlike Jordan, he is not restrained by some kind of puritanical code. He sleeps with women freely and without too much attachment, compensating these women with a "honey bee" or a hundred dollar bill. When he finally does find interest in one of his one-night stands, he makes the mistake of slipping her a honeybee after her night of "service," forever ruining his chances with her.
Cully is the "player" by modern terms. He seems to have a system worked out. His system involves everything from token gifts, to phone calls, to pyscological games, to offerings of making a naive girl a starlet to false romantic words and praises, to every other possible trick. He is a character, one of the few, ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
Positives: Fools Die is a complicated tale of the inner workings/intertwined worlds of Hollywood and Las Vegas. Puzo is a master-story teller (this is an understatment), who develops characters to their fullest, scenes that are rich and robust so as to put the reader "right there," and writes compelling dialogue.
Negatives: Unless you have a fairly good grasp of the arcana of gambling, the novel's plot will be like swiss cheese in many places. While we are on the subject of plot, it is hard to figure out if this is a tale of degenerate gamblers lost in a miasma of winning, losing, and losing and losting..., of hookers, profligate lifestyles and intrigue; or is this a novel about writers who are comtemptuous of Hollywood; the age old argument if novels are the "true art-form" as opposed to movies?
The sex is gratuitous in the extreme, so much so as to be chauvanistic. The dialogue is raw in the extreme. Puzo's view of human nature is cynacal and a tad jaded. In retrospect, I have to question if all of this was necessary in order to tell a great story.
Rated by buyers -
This is one of my favorite books, along with The Godfather & The Last Don.
Rated by buyers -
I very first read this book when it was released back in 1979 ( Ah, My Sweet Lost Youth!!!)and I was so impressed by it that I wanted to write a letter to the author teling him how much I enjoyed it. This book has it all. Lust, greed, treachery, deception, sex and violence all the way from the High Roller Gambling Rooms of Las Vegas to the Shores Of Japan. The main character is a guy named Merlyn who somehow believes that he is a type of magician who can control his destiny.Another character worth mentioning is the writer Osano who desperately seeeks refuge from his loneliness in a heady mixture of drugs, casual sex and booze. All of this is deftly handled by Mr. Puzo and the reader is in for one heck of a roller coaster ride!!!
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