Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, Puzo wrote a little too much about Lucy's vagina problems? I found that part of the novel totally unnecessary. Thank God they didn't portray any of it in the movie or it would have had another title.

Haha, agreed.

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.

100% agreed. that part of the book was BORING. absolutely out of place, especially when about Lucy's vagina.

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.

Well, sex always sells including today. I guess just about anything can be used effectively if in moderation. However, there was too much about Lucy's physical problems and Fontaine's marital problems and his daliances.

I don't say no to that. Only IMO it doesn't make the rest of this great book any worse.

I am with you all on how Puzo had to stoop down and get so much in detail with Lucy and Johnny. But, I mean, to us, this stuff is all just...well crap, and I am sure that Puzo felt just the same. However, Puzo said he put that stuff in just to sell more copies, and the book was on the bestsellers list for quite a while. So, who knows, maybe if it wasn't for all of this, the book would have been a flop and the movies might not have ever been made.

Nonetheless, the book is much better then the movies. It goes much more in detail with the Corleones, sadly along with the extras.

I've posted this before (so please bear with me):
Puzo was one of those authors who can't resist passing on any bit of erudition they've picked up, whether or not it's relevant to the plot of the novel they're writing. I'm guessing that a female close to Puzo had had the condition and operation he ascribed to Lucy. He interested himself in the case. And (this is what pisses me off), he created that l-o-o-o-ng, boring Vegas sequence with Lucy and Jules just so he could describe the operation he learned about. I could have done without any and all of the Lucy/Jules stuff, all of the Nino crap, and all of the Johnny Fontaine nonsense after Connie's wedding.
Objectionable as it is, this stuff is nowhere near as bad as that Hollywood-insider strunz that nearly wrecked "The Last Don."

While I didn't need a blow-by-blow description of Lucy's "problem" and her operation, we should bear in mind that Lucy and Jules were peripheral characters in the Johnny Fontaine storyline, and from the amount of space devoted to Johnny, we can infer that it was clearly Puzo's intention to have him as the second or third (after Vito and Mike) main character in the book.

I think Puzo intended to draw a parallel between the "illegitimate" business world of the Mafia, and the supposed legitimate business world of Hollywood, and the rise to power in each of their worlds by Michael and Johnny.

I always viewed Lucy and Jules and Nino and Ginny as simply added characters to help flesh out Johnny's story.

Actually, if you cut out the Johnny Fontaine story, it would be a pretty short book, wouldn't it?

This is one of the cases where size means so little...

Sush... the femanists are coming.

Don't let Sonny or Lucy hear that.

It's because of, um, "size" that we got started with this topic in the first place.

I am still in the first chapter and I already see many sexual references, whether it is sonny, lucy or sandra, there has to be a description of the sizes of their respective "stuff". IMO, Copolla was brilliant to filter out all the sex stuff and give us the main story.

I knew you were the one to appreciate this joke in all its complexity!

That's why Tom Sizemore should have played Sonny.

By the way, I also thought the scene where Sonny is doing you know what to Lucy up against the door during the wedding was gratuitous. FFC could have cut that scene with Tom listening at the door. We would have understood. He had that in common with Puzo's anatomical fascinations.

Well I think that would kind of mock the fact that they were having sex if they did that. I didn't find it at all gratuitous but if they only showed Tom talking to Sonny through the door, it would seem as though they were censoring it. It would be as though they were making the movie only for those who giggle when ever you say the word penis.

I don't know, just my opinion.

I feel the same way. It was gratuitous. So was apollonia's nudity, though this was (I speculate) FFC's own idea.

Wait, svsg, you have so much to read about Apolla yet! Where are you BTW?
When you finish, we shall be waiting for you in the quotation game. Don't forget!

I am veeeeery slow in reading, I just completed book -1 . It will take me another 2-3 weeks to complete it!

I actually didn't mind the extended part about Johnny Fontane. It (of course) wasn't my favorite part, but it made a side story I found somewhat interesting. However, not in a perverted sense.

Agreed. I didnt mind the Lucy/doctor sequence at all and found it rather interesting. Though now that I think about it, doesnt it seem like Mark Winegardner might have written that part of the book

I have read on several diffrent message boards that Puzo had wanted to write a book about Fontane detailing the hollywood underworld. Perhaps this was supposed to lead up to it

I must say that when I first saw the GF, the character of Johnny F didn't really, ... how to say this in English, ... wasn't interesting at all. But when I read the book, and then watched the movie again, all became a bit more clear. Everything in the movie that had to do with Johnny made more sense.
So the Johnny Fontane part WASN'T useless. It was not well-written, it was boring, and it was too long, it was nothing compared to the rest of the book, but it wasn't useless. The L. Mancini part was useless, in my opinion. Does anyone agree?

You're right, Trashman, and I thought the same exact thing. Winegardner writes with story lines like that, only instead of it being a side-story (as the Mancini pussy thing was in G.F.), it seems as if he focuses on it to make it a major part of the story.

Remember when Puzo wrote this book he was intentionally trying to make money, and not necessarily write great literature. Given this was written at the end of the sixties, it was obligatory to have these side stories about sex, and specifically the size of Sonny's one eyed worm and Lucy's honey pot.

Haha

I'm reading the novel now (loving it by the way) and a friend of mine took a glance at it and opened it just at some random page. He started reading, and it was in the middle of the vaginal talk.

Is that the origin of the word, "cunnilingus"?

My personal story...

I was in history class, reading the Godfather. I just happened to get to the vivid sex description page whem my teacher walked by. She has a large mole and a panty line, but that isn't relavant. Anyway, she turns the book to see the cover and says..."Oh, that's a good book. It's better than the movie." Now later on that day, I explained the above sequence of events to my friend. I had her read the Sonny/Lucy sex page and then told her that the mole-faced teacher had read it as well AND said it was better than the movie. She LITERALLY cried and nearly up-chucked right there. So...in my teacher's subconscious, WHY did she like the book more than the movie?

And the kicker...I'm in 8th grade and have seen some pretty disgusting and perverted things in my day, being a teenager...at a school. But the Godfather sex page takes the cake.

Well, she probably liked the book better than the movie for the same reasons that most of the people here do. I like it better than the movie too, although the movie is one of the all time greats.

I agree, Enzo. The Johnny Fontane Fontane/Nino Valenti parts didn't bother me too much. In a way, they were sort of relevant (although definitely peripheral) to the main story, being as how Johnny was the Don's Godson. And the whole thing about him repaying his Godfather by taking care of Nino said a lot about the Don's character and motivations.

However, the Lucy Mancini stuff was completely superfluous. I mean, who was she? Some broad Sonny was "doing the job" on who happened to have a "huge box". Her part should have been minimal. And Jules Segal should not have come into the story at all. He was the only character in the entire book who seemed really out of place to me. He felt like he didn't belong, and every time I read a part with him in it, I couldn't wait for it to be over. He took me out of the world of the Corleones.

Unlike the Don and other men of real power, he was not humble but haughty, reveling in his "the doctor is God" complex, talking any way he chose not only to Lucy, but also to Johnny and Nino. He wasn't even Sicilian or connected in any way. Who did he think he was? And then he had the nerve to show ingratitude to Michael and qualify his acceptance of a much-needed position at the new hospital with the proviso that it had "no strings". I love Puzo's work, but I hated that character, and he wasn't a character the reader was supposed to hate. I'd much rather have had the expository information about the Vegas operation through a story based around Fredo.

[quote=Kastrioti.

However, the Lucy Mancini stuff was completely superfluous. I mean, who was she? Some broad Sonny was "doing the job" on who happened to have a "huge box". Her part should have been minimal. And Jules Segal should not have come into the story at all. He was the only character in the entire book who seemed really out of place to me. He felt like he didn't belong, and every time I read a part with him in it, I couldn't wait for it to be over. He took me out of the world of the Corleones.

[/quote]


That was the weakest part of the book... but dont forget it was written not as great literature but as something on which Puzo wanted to make money. Sex sells, and he put gratuituous sex into the book for that reason.

Sex sells, but medical sex?

I posted this in another thread:

Quote:

As for Lucy's operation:


I think her operation represents technology allowing her to break from her literally, old-fashioned beliefs, and her 'medieval' (Jule's words) world that caused her to believe that her 'problem' was actually a heaven-sent curse. Thanks to Jules and technology her philosophy on life shits from the old to the new and she gains new hope in life w/ the relief of her 'problem'.

People moving into Western America and into the 'light' and warmer temperatures has often been used to signify new hope, better days and even a new and better life.

The Corleones also move out west and into the 'light' with their break from the old into the new, legit business of legalized gambling.

I call the Lucy/Jules chapter 'New dreams out West' as it is a new way of life and new way of thinking for Lucy and the Corleones in the bright Western sun.

When I read that part I felt as if I were reading a different book. :-(

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.

there was definetly too much sex for a book and too much rubbish about johnny fontane,nino valenti and lucy mancini it was completely boring other than that it was a great book