I was in Pisa when the craving set in again. I had just finished my last David Sedaris book and was itching for a new read.
However I am a rather fussy reader, selecting my books primarily based on a mysterious tug I feel towards a particular novel, author or theme; a spontaneous curiosity that arrives out of the blue and which can only be satisfied by hunting down this particular book and devouring it in a few days. Nothing else will do until I have that particular book that is on my mind. I am known during this period of obsession to become a rather irritating shopping companion, endlessly pouncing into any bookstores I come across promising to the friends I drag along that I will be 'Just a second, I just want a quick look!' When I cannot find what I want I am not disheartened in the normal sense. Instead the longer the delay is in finding my particular novel the more I am enamored with the idea of reading it. I enjoy this chase so thoroughly that I even set harder goals for myself, deciding I only want a second-hand copy, and I cannot settle for a certain edition with a cover I disprove of. I am pretty much a madwoman.
One night soon after the craving began the children were thankfully dozing on the couch as my hostess sat curled up watching Italian tv. The Godfather part I came on and once again I was blown away not only by Al Pacino's incredibly beautiful face but by the emotional pull of the film. The sheer curiosity factor had set in and before I knew it I had decided what my next read would be. I simply had to read The Godfather by Mario Puzio. I was in Italy and everything, it was the perfect choice!
So, as a book addict does, I planned my next day around attaining this novel. I got up early in the morning when there was still a purple glow to the garden and took the bus to the local station and then the train to Florence. I dozed on and off during the trip as my train window was slowly heated cozily by the rising Tuscan sun.
Arriving in Florence was a wonderful feeling because by this stage of my trip my unhappiness with my situation in Pisa was definitely settling in. It was the first taste of freedom I had had in quite a few weeks. I ended up getting a delicious cheese, truffle honey and truffle cream sandwich, and a piece of orange cake for breakfast (as you do when in Florence) and then strolled along the beautiful streets, the Ponte Vecchio, and ducked into any shops that took my fancy. By shops that took my fancy I mean Zara...
I finished off my day out leaving the best for last. On the way back to the station I went inside a huge bookshop and found an english copy of the Godfather. While waiting to be served at the counter something very strange happened. The nearly empty store was disturbed by the noisy entrance of an haggard elderly man, dressed in a day suit worn by men two generations ago. Despite the fact the shop assistant was already in the middle of serving someone and that I was clearly next to be served the man strode right up to the counter, dropped both his hands onto the counter with slap and declared in loud heavily Italian accented English: 'I need The Godfather by Mario Puzio but in Italian.' There was something so abrupt about his entrance and the way he delivered his demand that the customer in front of me, the shop assistant and I, all stood staring at him for a few seconds not really knowing how to handle the situation. The assistant gave him cautious directions to where he could find a copy in the store and he strode away with the same almost panicked determination. But why he spoke english when he was Italian and in an Italian bookstore I still do not know.
As he strode way I looked down at the copy in my hands and thought to myself 'It's an omen! This is the right book to be reading right now!' I felt like a cog in a very strange fate machine. Maybe this man had watched film last night as well, and had been just as moved as I. I left Florence in awe of the influence of literature and film basically combusting with excitement to begin reading.
However my actual reading of The Godfather proved less invigorating as its purchase. I had heard several times from different sources that The Godfather is one of those rare situations where the film far outshines the book. I can say now after having finished the book that this is true and that I totally agreed with Coppola's editing decisions; which story lines he chose to film and which one's he chose to leave in the pages of the book.
I agreed with Coppola almost to the extent that I wondered at times, maybe a bit harshly, what on earth Puzio was thinking when he wrote the book...or more so what his editors were thinking when they were combing through his manuscripts. To me it felt like Puzio began the book as a way of exploring Mafia warfare and customs during the 1940s, but as he did so fell in love with certain characters and could not let them go, despite damaging the coherency and flow of the main narrative.
Two characters he could not let go of were Johnny Fontane (Who makes me think of Frank Sinatra...anyone else??) and Lucy Mancini. And frankly I found their storylines irrelevant almost to the point of boring and confounding. My conclusion is that 40% of The Godfather is written well, and that percentage is very engaging and very informative...but the other percent. that is not written well, those hearty chunks simply verge on the irritating.
First of all, the Johnny Fontane storyline:
Full of trysts, male sexual escapades, sexpot women using their bodies as a form of power, and a burnt out Hollywood star lamenting his damaged vocal chords, Fontane's storyline had no real contribution to the advancement of the main plot of the novel. The subjects of this storyline were clearly meant to be racy and scintillating, but the blatant sexism and pulp fiction sex irritated me because I couldn't find a way to justify it narrative-wise.
Furthermore with the Fontane storyline there was something off in Puzio's tone, something insincere. I could never quite grasp where Puzio sat on the omniscient author scale. I just couldn't pinpoint what he was trying to say or achieve by being so pointed and indulgent when it came to all matters involving females and sex. My first theory was that he was just getting really into trying to accurately portray 1940s sexism, to in fact make a statement about the sexism of the time by being so aggressive in his handling of it. But that didn't seen right either when I realized some of the language didn't fit in with the time he was trying to recreate...it was too....70s. If the lingo had been more 40s that would have removed the sexism and placed it in another time, as if to say 'this was how it was back then.' After all this book was published post-women's lib. Instead the vague indecisive tone only lent the story line a seedy indulgent tone that as a (progressive) female, more than anything else, I simply found irritating and unecessary to read.
To me Puzio's story was already fascinating enough without having to throw in what appeared to be a bunch of cheap thrills. It frustrated me to watch him try and 'sex-up' a novel that being about the complexities of mafia relationships and power struggles, depended so much on subtlety. Maybe this was to do with his editors who just wanted to 'spice' the story up, break the politics up with sex or something...Maybe Puzio didn't understand the potential of his novel to surpass the pulp ficiton standard and therefore he was lax about his own personal editing...he wrote a trashy novel not realising what absolute jems it contained, or its cinematic potential.
But what I found ten times more bizarre was the Lucy Mancini storyline:
All I know was that I had just finished Part V on a gripping cliff-hanger: The Corleone's had to work out a way to bring back Michael who had run off to Siciliy after shooting Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey. I turned the page into Part VI and suddenly found myself in the middle of the incredibly bizarre chapter dedicated, and I am not even joking, solely to discussing the problems with Lucy Mancini's vagina.
Lucy Mancini is sad because her lover Sonny Corleone is dead and he was the only man able to make her orgasm. Puzio goes into great depth, explaining over 25 pages that the reason for Lucy's unhappy love life is because she in fact has a weak pelvic floor, resulting in a vagina with too much space to create the necessary friction, a genuine medical condition. Lucy goes on to have an operation to fix her pelvic floor and the chapter finishes with her being able to enjoy sex again. By the time I finished the chapter I wondered what the hell had happened to The Godfather and why the hell was I reading a book that spends 25 pages describing this female characters vagina. I got so bored and by this directionless chapter that I put the book aside for many weeks, only continuing once I had left Pisa and was well and truly into my two month stay in Genova.
And I am not joking about his going into excessive depth. For example the following reads like a one of my old highschool biology textbooks:
'The technique of any operation to strengthen the pelvic floor required the accomplishment of two objectives. The musculofibrous pelvic sling had to be shortened so that the slack was taken up. And of course the vaginal opening, the weak spot itself in the pelvic floor, had to be brought forward, brought under the pubic arch and so relieved from the line of direct pressure above. Repairing the pelvic sling was called perincorrhaphy. Suturing the vaginal wall was called colporrhaphy.'
...Ok great. But how does this in anyway relate to how they are going to bring Michael back home from Sicily?? And what about the Don, is he going to reclaim his power?? But now, here we are, talking almost in boring depth about Lucy Mancini's vagina. The only useful thing this chapter achieved was to inform the reader about the character change of 'Fredo' in Las Vegas which becomes more important only in the second book.. It is hardly likely the chapter was written for such a purpose anyway, despite it's importance, because Fredo is only referenced a handful of times, almost as a 'btw kind of memo.'
Also again I just could not tell by Puzio's tone what he was hoping to achieve with that chapter....was he simply fascinated by 1940s surgery and thought this little story might prove to be authentic in recreating the time...did his editors once again tell him to slip in a little more sex? But that doesn't explain why Puzio then goes into tedious detail about female genital surgery because that isn't exactly sexy...it is just science.
Or am I being too hard on Puzio? Is he actually a secret feminist, breaking down myths about female sexuality? Was he simply trying to be an informative prophet for his own generation of readers, to warn them about the perils of having a weak pelvic floor!? Is he a sympathiser of all unsatisfied women?? The chapter to clarify isn't vulgar, and I don't oppose to the content because it isn't exactly indulgent as Puzio clearly sympathizes with Lucy. And as I said it isn't even really that racy. But my main qualm is: So what is the point of it??
I only have one other theory and it is a really weird one, a kooky Conspiracy theory. At the beginning of the book Puzio introduces Sonny Corleone as a man who not only has a temper but has a huge penis. Jokes about his massive genitals are scattered throughout the first chapter of the book culminating in him and Lucy Mancini having a fling at Connie's wedding.
This is when the thought occurred to me. Sonny with the over-sized penis is the only man who could satisfy Lucy with the over-sized vagina. Suddenly it has become a chicken and the egg scenario. What came first in Puzio's mind as he wrote his novel. Sonny's penis or Lucy's vagina?? What character came first?? Did he create the character Sonny only to aid his exploration of 1940s female genital reconstructive surgery and unfulfilled sexuality as a result of a conservative and patriarchal society???! Because frankly Lucy gets more in-depth character study then Sonny! I cannot even believe I am writing this. Too weird. This has become a gender studies essay...is Mario Puzio a feminist?? Why is he so obsessed with the irrelevant character of Lucy and her weak pelvic floor??
So in short I can't help but wonder whether Puzio, if asked, could justify these certain passages, or whether he would now admit he was still refining his narrative style at the time of writing the book, thus it simply shows some of that trial and error process. In any case the book was an interesting experience that was for sure.
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