Originally posted by LOC:
Not only Lucy's issues, but Puzo unecessarily concentrated way too much on Fontainne, his friend, Lucy's boyfriend and it seemed like at times he was writing a dictionary on sex. I don't know what this had to do with the Corleone family. It just totally ruinned the pace of the book and leaved me incredibly bored.
The movies is easily MUCH superior to the novel.
Of course I cannot agree with your last assertion, I consider the book, meaning its main storyline, endlessly superior to the movies. As to annoying additions, they were written for a certain purpose. Puzo decided to make his book a bestseller, and at that time (according to Turnbull's information
) what sold books was sex and Hollywood stars. So he included those parts, unnecessary and not connected to the rest of the novel. They are even written in a language obviously worse IMO, as if he didn't work on them at all.
But they are so inconsiderable that it doesn't make problem to skip them without losing anything. They cannot cloud this book, otherwise absolutely brilliant, subtle and insightful masterpiece, full of stunning knowledge of human nature.
