I agree that the entire subplot involving poor Loosey and her unfortunate anatomical configuration made for fairly horrible reading. And as if all this wasn't dismaying enough, we also had to hear all about Sonny's great throbbing mule...

I also agree with those above who emphasized the idea that Mario Puzo was primarily concerned with the commercial sales potential of the final product while creating it. So it stands to reason that Puzo-- and his publishers-- felt that this sordid little section of the novel would boost its sales appeal. As it turned out, they were absolutely correct about this.

But the question remains as to why Puzo and Company thought that it would be a good idea to develop the whole Lucy-and-Sonny thing to the level of a subplot.

The most brief answer possible is that at the time of publication (1969) the initial target audience of the marketing program (i.e., mainstream citizens of the United States) were involved in a sort of sexual revolution that was just beginning to really gain speed and altitude. Even so, most of those who were not at all urbane or extremely sophisticated in sexual matters more complicated than the basic birds-and-bees approach were, at that time, thoroughly titillated and deliciously scandalized by such open talk about matters that were only whispered about-- if that, even.

Mario also managed to throw a twist in there by writing about a sexual matter that was also medical in nature. As it was during those times, many people had a morbid fascination with the gory details of grotesque medical matters-- and especially when such matters pertained somehow to sex and sexual psychology.

And people still get off to stuff like this. Witness the success of the television show Nip/Tuck. Once again we have squirmy medical procedures co-mingled with an aspect of sex, and it's a hot item.

The author of The Godfather didn't just stop with Lucy and her scooter repairs when it came to medical meanderings. We also heard about mastectomies, doctors busted as abortionists, and little black moles that turned into killer carcinomas. And Johnny Fontaine had tumors on his vocal chords (a little bit more malignant imagery there for us to brood upon), Nino was a suicidally depressed alcoholic, and Michael had a busted face and a bad attitude.

The public was shocked, horrified, and absolutely delighted by all this talk. It made common folks feel like real sophisticates-- and even intellectual nihilists-- to merely know of such things. And the book sold like hotcakes!

But it wasn't just sex that was being sold, or even medical sex. Instead, old Mario was peddling sex and death, and it was an irresistible combination.

He wasn't the only person to profit from doing so. There were other works that became major best sellers because of their sexual and/or pathological contents in the same year The Godfather was published.

Which leaves us with a final question: why is this section of the book no longer appealing-- not even to those of us who read it when it first came out?

Cutting it to the bone, I would say that it is because the subject matter involved in the Lucy-and-Sonny genitalia issue is no longer of such a shocking nature as it originally was.

For the last quarter of a century, we have been inundated information and imagery concerning matters of a sexual nature than have grown increasingly more bizarre and psychologically evocative as the years went by. To put it simply, a mere loose goose and a sew-up job to tighten it is no longer a thing for us to gawk, fret, salivate, or marvel at. Insofar as shocking sexual imagery goes, Lucy and her little problem are no longer culturally relevant. They've been blown out of the water by things of a far more complex and (to some) interesting nature.

In my original post, I tackled the question of what the appeal of the Johnny/Nino might have been, but this rendered an already-overweight and highly mouthy message into an embarrassingly long absurdity. So again, attempting to cut this matter to the bone, I will say only that Johnny and Nino were interesting to the audience of the later Sixties and early Seventies because they provided the readers with a way to become more familiar with the dissolute ways of media stars from glitzy Hollywood than was available through the usual medium of the tabloid press of that era. Also, the relationship between Johnny and Nino, and their personal relationships with various types of interesting, disgusting, sexy and wayward women provided more of the same type of titillation that the Lucy Affair gave to the reader. But in the same way that the Lucy material came to be passe, so did the Johnny Fontaine story.