okay, so I get the godfather is either Great Lit or Great Film, but rarely both

True/False

Anyone who read The Godfather - the most enduring, healthy, and happy relationship in the entire goddamn book is between Lucy, the girl who made Sonny's Cock an actual supporting character (and for whom I spent serious time learning about pelvic floors to explain this particular plot point) and Jules, the former surgeon turned Las Vegas abortion doctor.



Using Jules, Mario Puzo gave the coldest, baldest and most effective pro-choice argument I've ever seen.

Since I read it years ago, bits of his description of his life as a surgeon flash through my head, and as freaking casually frozen as he is (Puzzo's love of minimalism in prose is definitely a thing), in this time period--in any time period--Jules is a doctor who has no fucks to give for anyone--husbands, fathers, priests, pregnancies, goddamn religious bullshit--but the women themselves who are his patients. They deserve--and they get--all of him. I love my doctor and he's amazing, but a part of me wonders what it woudl be like to see a doctor and know down to my bones that doesn't give a good shit about what my uterus may or may not potentially contain, because all that matters to him is me.

In a time and place where a woman could be a virgin, whore, mother, all three, but never once stopped being chattel, it was weird to see the contrast between Lucy--who never thought of herself outside the role of the typical Italian girl and yet simply being herself took her so far, far beyond it, and Kay, who was the independent American girl who neatly and almost invisibly fell right into the sharply limited Corleone definition of a woman.

I just had to get that out there. Digression ended.



Here's why this book remains one of my favorites and a maybe every three year full re-read; in a novel about gangsters, murder, the evils of the heroin trade, the bizarre and invisible double standards that they couldn't even acknowledge ruled everyone's lives, the ups and downs of the olive oil monopoly, all deathly serious and honestly not a little unsettling--we get Lucy, who any other sane writer would have left periphery at best but Mario Puzzo, whatever, that shit is for amateurs; gangsters, murder, heroin, corrupt cops, American values versus Old World values, big shit, and of equal weight...Lucy and her sex life aka Sonny's Cock.

No other writer on earth could just throw an entire subplot like that into the mix and make it work so effortlessly it's not until long after you read it that you realize, a little surprised: wait, what?

And you go check and realize, yeah, it went from pasta murder to Lucy dreaming of dead Sonny's cock, again, and your investment in Michael's goddamn broken-ass nose is like nothing compared to desperately hoping Lucy finds a Sonny Cock Mark II that makes her happy. Michael, get the fucking surgery and go to Italy and screw sheep or whatever, that's gross, now tell me more about Lucy's life and that hotass doctor in Las Vegas.

Okay, maybe this is just me, fine.

Mario has literally no ability to be sentimental (blank prose murders almost an afterthought, spare lines describing spousal abuse and torture, and most clinical pedophilic off-screen rape I've ever read with nothing, not one thing, that wasn't horrifying), and while I never got the impression he disapproved of a single thing they did (seriously, no; the horsehead thing was about as close to glee as Mario ever got, just on the basis of how many words he spent in description), sometimes there was almost a documentary feel to it, like a naturalist describing his world as he understands it, not as he wishes it (or wishes it not) to be.

Romance is a word without meaning, I'm pretty sure humor is something he heard about once at a party that he never did quite understand, and his sex scenes have all the sizzle of a medical journal article on the mechanics of coitus in the human heterosexual pairbond and that includes surprisingly graphic cameos of Sonny's Cock at Work and Play. I don't deny this, and I get why people say he's not a great writer, and I almost get why some people think he's not a good one, but if you accept what he's doing as a very, very specific and very deliberate style, one that works for you or never will, he really does know exactly what he's doing with every word on the page.

And then he blindsided me like whoa; Lucy and Jules's first time.

Stop me if you don't want to be spoiled, but seriously, it's worth reading; if you've made it that far into the novel, you've either acclimatized by sheer blunt force or fell right into his style from the first page, and what you will read next will be Puzzo writing a romantic comedy and holy goddamn shit, someone told him what it meant to have a sense of humor and for a few pages, he knew what to do with it.

Lucy--who has yet to inform Jules of her somewhat non-standard vagina (as she has no idea what the hell is going on down there but Sonny's Cock was fucking amazing in mitigating it)--freaks out when Jules first achieves penetration at which time the issue is difficult to hide, and we are maybe two steps from screaming trauma and thinking Jules would look fantastic in his component parts because fuck you, Lucy need some goddamn love (and sex) and you have your doubts about Jules (and Jules Cock) being up to the task.

Foolish reader: never doubt the man who can calmly compare cancer to melons and give you a visual to haunt your nightmares in twenty words or less.

Jules jumps--shifts? Maybe retrenches would be the most accurate description--to Orgasm Plan B without missing a beat, and not only orgasms for everyone (you will feel so happy for Lucy, you have no idea; I almost cried), but epic cuddling even A/B/O knotting can only dream of achieving. Romantic (I had no fucking clue Puzzo could spell it), sexy (Puzzo style sexy; who knew that was even possible?), funny (it's like for a moment, he achieved humor enlightenment and someone showed him something by Disney) and sentimental full-contact post-coital cuddling without anyone experiencing a traumatic locked bathroom screaming session.

Sexist? Yes: this is goddamn Mario Puzzo writing about the mafia; magic in a JK Rowling book about Harry Potter would be less expected. But. Jules. I'm gonna have to admit; any guy who while having sex with me discovered my Terrible Secret Sex Deformity, switches mid-stroke and gets me off, then indulges in massive cuddling while gigglingly telling me about my totally normal medical condition that is so so totally normal not even a thing before round two and hunts me down a surgeon while telling me he wants to marry me and also kind of finds the entire thing hilarious--the rest of it I could resist, maybe, but the last part, I can't.

(Post-Coital Cuddling Includes Medical Explanation-I finally got a very clear explanation of Lucy's Problem in five paragraphs that took Encyclopedia Brittanica several articles to get.)

Someone who can laugh at himself as easily and unselfconsciously and sincerely at the same time as he's laughing at me, because he gets the best and funniest jokes are always the ones that are shared; I couldn't say no to that, unicorns are too goddamn rare.

The Godfather; Totally Serious Fucking Mafia Shit. And also, The Totally Fascinating Adventures of an Italian girl With a Terrible Sex Secret who finds epic love with an abortion doctor in goddamn Vegas and lives happily (and post-surgically orgasmically) ever after.

I've read Romance novels less romantic than this.

...I'd actually offer up one third of my liver free and clear to see Mario Puzzo take on the Regency, just to read how he'd describe an evening of hijinks at Almack's. On a guess, it would not be entirely unlike an alien writing a report to his superiors about humanity's odd fascination with a being known as 'Sheldon' on a bizarre human entertainment known as a 'television show' that despite its title has nothing whatsoever to do with the big bang but has an unsettling focus on graphic t-shirts and things called 'superheroes' and it's still debatable whether or not they're supposed to be real, as the 'characters' don't seem to know either.

Tell me I'm wrong. Go ahead, just try.

Comments

[hunningham]

Okay. Now I have to read the book. Not sure when I'll read it, but it's going on The List and it will be read.

[seperis]

Mario Puzzo's style can be an acquired taste--I'm serious, it's like Hemingway's dark twin; even at his most loquacious, and that was pretty rare, he was unbelievably spare on prose, like words were an endangered species and he was terrified of running out. But if by natural inclination or sheer determination you can make it work for you--and I get some people can't stand it, it doesn't parse at all--it's both similar to yet completely unlike any style short of a surprisingly interesting academic article using revolutionary literary tropes in a non-fiction setting. I don't know how to describe it, but if it works for you, it works really really well at what he does with it.

[hunningham]

Um. I've just downloaded the kindle sample and I might give this a miss. There's a hook-up between Lucy and Cock O'Doom and I just felt like mocking. Blood-engorged pole meets wet turgid flesh - match made heaven?

I may give it another go when I'm feeling less snarky.

A lot of your commenters read the book in adolescence, almost as the first book from the adult section and I'm wondering if this makes a difference. I have a (very embarrassing) soft spot for The Fountainhead which I read at about thirteen.

[hunningham]

just re-read my comment above and I really didn't mean to sound condescending - I was thinking about books which one reads young, and always holds in some affection thereafter rather this book is only for young people who don't know any better.

[seperis]

I didn't think you did; I read it in my mid-twenties, I think, so that wouldn't be the reason I liked it, but it could certainly be a factor to some people. And I certainly never claimed I had good taste. *g*

[alwayswondered]

I read it for the first time last year and I love it (I'm 31). I had the same reaction you did when I read that scene. Now my relationship with it is similar to the one I imagine my close friends have with my singing: god you're awful at this and it's so awkward watching you attempt it, but you wouldn't be you otherwise so what the hell, crack on. ;)

[princessofgeeks]

I had the exact same reaction to Lucy. That subplot is the main thing I remember about that novel.

So you are not alone. You make me want to reread the book. It's been awhile.

[seperis]

I just grabbed the kindle edition. It's like, Mario, baby, what the hell were you thinking and how the hell did you make it work?

[alwayswondered]

OMG that whole subplot is so great. I love the book, all of it (except Michael in Italy, because whatever, and fix your busted dripping face already, ew), but that is one of my favourite things about it.

[seperis]

God, the hell with his nose? I'm surprisingly okay with your trigger finger, but that nose thing's gotta go.

[alwayswondered]

I can hardly stand it when I have a cold for a week. How did he COPE with it for that long? How did the people around him cope? How much did he spend on hankies per year? I am full of questions.

[seperis]

I KNOW. MY GOD WHAT THE HELL MICHAEL.

[mecurtin]

I don't think I'll ever be up to his clinically distant descriptions of rape and murder, so spoil me plz: What Is Lucy's Problem?

[seperis]

Congenital defect in the pelvic floor; she was really--large, and not kidding, Sonny's Cock is a character and a sizable one for just that reason.

Note--when I say clinical descriptions, I mean rape is never on screen, not even by word. It's chillingly implied in before going into the bedroom and after, but from my memory, no on-page sex scene was anything but enthusiastically consensual--if rather observational rather than voyeuristic, if you can see the difference.

It was a very--for me--interesting approach to what I suspect is Mario's dilemma when it comes to his subject matter. As I said, his approach is very much in keeping with this is the world, and approval/disapproval didn't apply; he was doing the fictional equivalent of a narration of events and people from their pov.

Women are chattel in this world, as much as they were when it was by law and not just custom, he does nothing whatsoever to make any apologies or judgements when it comes to teh characters who think this way. Having said that: it's a mafia book, people die for every reason under the sun, and some that you have no idea why they survived, but one guarantee--abusing a girl or woman, and it was like a signal something completely and utterly unrelated in their lives and business would go abruptly, unexpectedly, and catastrophically wrong.

I wouldn't call that under any other circumstance except in Las Vegas when we meet Dr. Jules--a former surgeon turned full time abortion doctor, and both jobs were primarily about women. The surgeon hated his work because the woman he saw would die from childbirth when he told them not to get pregnant, from cancer he couldn't save them from, the list goes on. Abortion--it's not like it was his life's calling, not the job itself--h9is life calling was women. He did it because--very simply--what he did made their lives better.

Again, taken in parts it's nothing, but in a book that is very much Old World Italian Values Mafia, Roman Catholic down to teh blood (even Kay gets sucked in by virtue of marriage by sheer accident) traditional weddings and traditional marriages, we get to decadent Vegas and showgirls and prostitutes and then takes the time to switch to the earnest Jules, where several pages are devoted exclusively to literally no shits given about girls getting knocked up (as I said, Mario writes the world as he believes it is) but the usefulness of being an abortionist for them. Progressive modern novels skirt the issue like it burns on contact, but in the most conservative possible world as Mario wrote it, pro-abortion Jules soliloquies on the subject like a cold and kind of strange evangelist.

It doesn't mean that The Godfather isn't sexist; yeah, you could bathe in it. But take it apart, there are some extremely interesting threads running through the subplots that--though minor in each one--together make an interesting argument for there being a story he's telling and a completely different one he's simply showing. It's one of the reasons that I argue in this book, if no other, he knew what he was doing with this style and exactly how to use it.

[leoraine]

I love that book, and I loved it since I read it first when I was twelve, heh. It was my first "grown up" book to read, and really the first time I read any description of sex in a book, so.... it was interesting, lol. I fell in love with Michael, and when I read it first I was listening to the album of Hanson - Middle of nowhere. Ever since, any time I hear a song from that album, I have to think of The Godfather. But I didn't read it in a long time, and your description made me want to check it out again - and this time I might read it in the original English version, instead of translated:-D

[cathexys]

Mine too! I was 12 or 13 and I remember that first Lucy/Sonny scene very clearly (And yes, Sonny's cock!!!). I've read it several times since but not in a decade or two.

I adore the film though...it's one of those things, where I can separate out and analyze all the problematic things and at the end of the day when I watch it, I fall into it nevertheless...

seperis, fascinating reading!! (And yes, the abortion discussions are remarkable in the book but to a degree in the film as well, esp the idea that the woman is "taking something away" from the man...chattel indeed!)

[seperis]

I adore the film though...it's one of those things, where I can separate out and analyze all the problematic things and at the end of the day when I watch it, I fall into it nevertheless...

seperis, fascinating reading!! (And yes, the abortion discussions are remarkable in the book but to a degree in the film as well, esp the idea that the woman is "taking something away" from the man...chattel indeed!)

Something new every time I read it.

[seperis]

It's such a readable book, adn thinking about it, Mario's prose probably translats fantastically (I mean, it did great from book to movie with little effort).

If you re-read--MARVEL AT THE LUCY PLOT.

[nagasvoice]

I read part of it--I think I was borrowing it as a much younger person than was popularly supposed to be reading such adult content--and as best I recall I didn't get to finish reading it. But I do remember the strange reportorial tone. Some parts of it sound like the flat affect you get from abused people talking about what happened to them in the least-dramatic manner they can.
Later on when I ran across gonzo reporting, such as Hunter Thompson talking about the LA Riots, it struck me the same way--although that whole style was inserting the reporter's emotions and opinions, it was about being honest with what the reporter as participant understood about the situation because it was so outrageous that as a human being you had to have opinions on it. You couldn't just maintain an artificial distance from it.
I think it also takes something from the noir mystery traditions that are described as running in completely the opposite direction--along with Hemingway, suppressing all emotional content, leaving descriptive bits out as much as possible in a sort of delicate consideration that you'll build that whole scene in your head without much guidance from the writer.

There's a wierd strictness of observing without slanting the phrasing to push the reader in any given direction on what to think about the violence.

[seperis]

That is the best description of how it felt that I've read, and clarifies what I meant about Puzo's style; this was very much a choice, and there are some very, very strict rules he's following on what to show and how to tell.