I’ve wondered if this was Mario Puzo’s form of a PSA. It sounds almost like he knew somebody- his wife maybe?- who had this problem and wanted people to know “help is available”. Otherwise it doesn’t work at all and I’m surprised that his editor didn’t make a big X through it since it’s such a non-sequitur for such a minor character. This would be like having a chapter in Gone With the Wind deal with Scarlett’s aunt Pauline’s battle against incontinence until Prissy fashions her an adult diaper.
Kind of funny that her vagina is retconned to produce Vincent Mancini considering how much attention it was given in the book.
If I was writing a textbook on book-to-film adaptation issues, I would work that into the title. Something like “Tom Bombadil, Lucy Mancini and other easily-jettisoned Characters”
fantastic!
I came here to read up a bit on the topic and I immediately saw the thread was 15 years old, so I said to myself that I would read and that would be it, only to discover the thread has rekindeled, not once but twice and is still alive, and its stuck on topic and is still getting great answers.
That’s the first time I’ve seen this since I began using internet in 94.
Thank you all!
As long as this thread (unlike Fredo) is back from the dead, I will say that the parts in the book about Lucy Mancini and Appollonia are purely salacious and don’t advance the plot at all. Lucy is just there to emphasize that Sonny is Biggus Dickus, and once her excessively large vagina is fixed, she only appears once again. Appollonia is just there for Michael to be hit by “the thunderbolt”, there is a great deal of attention paid to how great it is to boink a virgin, and then she gets blown up. She is never even mentioned again, and she was pregnant with Michael’s first child.
Well…in the book there are a lot of pages devoted to Lucy being pursued by the doctor Jules which does end with him testing out her new vagina. But yeah, it’s kind of a strange plot line.
The Apollonia story line can be seen as an example of Michael negotiating with people to get what he wants. He and his two bodyguards end up in the cafe which is owned by her father. He is upset by Michael having the “thunderbolt” over his daughter and mutters about getting revenge. While the bodyguards urge Michael to leave, he insteads has them get the father. apologizes if he inadvertently was disrespectful, draws the man into his confidence by saying he is a wanted fugitive and mixes reward with a threat by saying he wants to date his daughter under adult supervision (no shacking up in hotels like he did with Kay). If he refuses and tells the police, Apollonia will lose a father instead of getting a husband.
Apollonia is mentioned later when Vito asks Michael if Fabrizzio, who planted the bomb, has been found and Michael says he found him a year ago in Buffalo running a pizzeria. Michael does tell Kay after they meet again (the book and movie differ as to how they reconnect) by saying he hasn’t been with anyone in six months (she hasn’t been with anyone the whole two years).
But certainly there is a large salacious aspect in both the book and getting a long shot of breasts for the movie. Although a lot of being in Sicily helps Michael to understand his parent’s generation better and also more determined than ever to get the family legitimate because he feels Sicily is a land populated by ghosts.