Character Connection

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them.

The Introverted Reader  would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you!  So she has a meme/ roundup called Character Connection which is posted on Thursdays.  Stop by and check out everyone's favorite characters!
Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. The possibilities are endless.

Be sure to post the book's title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters.

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One of my favorite characters has always been  (don't laugh) Sonny Corleone from Mario Puzo's "The Godfather".   (  The Godfather was the first book I ever read---adult book, I mean.  I was 12. And yes, I do say that often in this blog--sorry. )

Okay, Sonny Corleone, he's a bad guy. I know it.  I should have a better (as in better morals) character to write about.  But Sonny has always held a special place in my  heart.    Even in the mafia circle,  he's not so good-- not evil, he just couldn't keep his temper under control, which is VERY IMPORTANT in the business---because nothing is personal, it's business.  
He was so larger than life (for me at the time at least).   With Puzo's character development in the book, one learns so much more about Santino Corleone than just what James Caan brought to the big screen.

I learned so much from that book. ( Remember I was 12.)  I learned a naughty word  that no 12 year old should know.  But that was okay....because even tho I knew the word, I still didn't know what it meant. (and wouldn't for another good ten years)
I even looked in the dictionary at the school library.
Imagine that!   The Godfather, encouraged dictionary reading!   I so badly wanted to know what Sonny was doing, but I really had no idea.

I  learned many other things from Sonny Corleone.  I learned  about revenge, and family loyalty and GREAT food,  and...well, I learned what "he sleeps with the fishes"  meant.   And also  "going to the mattresses".

Hey....I can hang with the best of the guys as an adult and understand all those "Godfather" references.  My friends cannot.  Nor do they want to.  (sigh).

For some reason, I am obsessed with this book/movie, and especially the Sonny Corleone character.  I have been known to cook a big spaghetti dinner and put the movie on ---and make my son's girlfriends watch it.
"OH....You've never seen the Godfather?  Well.....I know what we can do...."
My boys would take their friends and flee when they heard me say that.
BUT---they love it too!!   If I said,  "Leave the Gun, take the canoli"  they would say "The Godfather."   They get me.

When I was 12, I decided it was my life's ambition to marry someone in the mafia.  Take into consideration that my father was a policeman and I lived a very sheltered  "Norman Rockwell-ish" life.  I didn't really know Mafia, except for The Godfather  (The Sopranos was years in the future, and I have never seen it).

The closest I got to marrying someone in the mafia was marrying The Handyman.  He is 1/4 Italian.  He likes spaghetti.  And most importantly he knows what that naughty word Sonny Corleone's character taught me in the  Godfather.... Bada Bing!