Please Don’t Forget That American Classic The Godfather Had An Important Subplot About A Big Vagina -The Toast

Please Don’t Forget That American Classic The Godfather Had An Important Subplot About A Big Vagina

ByDaniel Mallory Ortberg

on October 9, 2014 in Books

I’m worried that not enough people are aware that Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, bestselling classic and source material for beloved films The Godfather, parts I and II, features a significant subplot about a woman named Lucy Mancini, who is friendly with the Corleone family and whose biggest problem is her roomy vagina.

A lot of people think I’m joking, when I tell them that. I’m not joking. There are a significant number of pages given to Lucy’s vagina problem. As someone on Twitter pointed out, “this is sort of like if a fifth of The Great Gatsby was about how one of the party guests had one leg that was shorter than the other.”

Think, for a moment, about how close we all came to living in a world where universally-acclaimed masculinist classic The Godfather devoted a half-hour of screen time to a minor character’s vagina surgery. (She is in the movie, albeit briefly; she’s the bridesmaid Sonny is seen having sex with during his sister’s wedding; in the book she’s devastated after his death because she’s convinced he is the only man in the world with a penis large enough for her terrible, enormous vagina.)

This world:

what

THAT IS NOT BEST MEDICAL PRACTICES

this really happened in the book you know

hand to God, go check the book right now if you don’t believe me

this has NOTHING TO DO with the main plotline of The Godfather and never does, if you’re wondering

“IF IT WEREN’T UNETHICAL”

REAL

TIGHT

WALLS

this book was a BEST SELLER, the movie based upon it is HIGHLY RESPECTED

This is also how Saving Private Ryan ends. “Earn this.”

In lieu of flowers, please make donations in Mallory’s memory to some sort of charity for snatch repair.

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

Comments (96)

Logging you in...

Dashboard | Edit profile | Logout

Logged in as

+112 Vote up Vote down

anninyn 124p · 550 weeks ago

I saw you talk about this on twitter, but all these excerpts laid out one after another, like this...

(a woman would never get away with dedicated a fifth of her book to the male characters penis enlargement, concetrating on female opinions of it, and it having nothing to do with the book)

HER BIGGEST LIFE PROBLEM IS HER CAVERNOUS VAGINA

2 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+111 Vote up Vote down

cosmia 123p · 550 weeks ago

I JUST SLOGGED THROUGH THIS SHITTY BOOK AND ALL I GOT WAS A SUBPLOT ABOUT A GIANT VAGINA

(seriously though I'm italian and everyone goes on and on about omg what a seminal piece of work and I was like "really do I have to read another book about italian organized crime like my people do nothing else", and then I read it and it was thousands of pages of giant vaginas and 750 different relatives and slutshaming and gross descriptions of Sonny's fleshy lips)

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+186 Vote up Vote down

nopemobile 125p · 550 weeks ago

If the author had known about fisting, this would have been a much different (better) subplot.

4 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+41 Vote up Vote down

littlehuntingcreek 135p · 550 weeks ago

This is IN THE BOOK which I read when I was an impressionable teen. And since I had never even known that this could possibly be a thing, I just figured that Puzo made it all up.
Also plastic surgery there to make MEN happy? Really? NOPE

3 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+8 Vote up Vote down

anon210 126p · 550 weeks ago

I was about to scroll back through your Twitter timeline, past the enormous number of Dad stories, to find the crack about Saving Private Ryan. Thanks for saving me the trouble!

+156 Vote up Vote down

cosmia 123p · 550 weeks ago

Also I listen to Greg Proops' "The Smartest Man in the World" podcast a lot (guys you all have to listen to this he is the greatest misandrist and talks about social justice issues all the time and slams the fuck out of those who rightfully deserve it) and I remember him saying sarcastically how the greatest line in all of literature is from this book, and it is "She wept gratefully as he entered her".

SHE WEPT GRATEFULLY

AS HE ENTERED HER

3 replies · active 494 weeks ago

+36 Vote up Vote down

rubelang 112p · 550 weeks ago

The XTRA LARGE vagina from the Godfather merited a section in one of my women's studies texts. So... Go Academy!

+45 Vote up Vote down

elsamac 121p · 550 weeks ago

Once upon a time, I stayed with friends who had just moved into a new apartment (and yes, they are saints to let a friend visit them so soon after a move) and when I burned through both of my paperbacks in the first days of my visit, I discovered that the only non-technical book they had unpacked was The Godfather. So I started reading it.

Yeeeah, and the next day, I made a point of stopping at a bookstore so I didn't have to read The Sizable Vagina Tales anymore.

+22 Vote up Vote down

perianwen 105p · 550 weeks ago

I can't help but be glad that my brain, in an effort to protect me from the memory, had completely forgotten about it until Mallory's tweets.

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+21 Vote up Vote down

houblonchouffe 123p · 550 weeks ago

I had actually /completely/ forgotten about this. Ugh.

Probably because this is one of the few books-made-into-movies where the movie is actually better than the books, and that's entirely due to having had to cut out all the extraneous crap EXACTLY LIKE THIS SUBPLOT

+210 Vote up Vote down

Sean_Sullivan 142p · 550 weeks ago

Puzzled my way through a synopsis. All I can conclude is that Puzo set out to write a novella about a woman with a comparatively large vagina, and he idly added a little Mafia business to her back story to explain how she came to be a woman of independent means living in Vegas, and then the whole thing kind of got away from him.

2 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+223 Vote up Vote down

queenofbithynia 137p · 550 weeks ago

what were all you people even doing with your free periods in middle school if not reading this in the library, come on. I think I may even have heard about it from my mother before I read it myself, although I reckon she used some euphemisms (or DID she?? I think she was explaining why she never watched the movie.)

I actually barely even remember the surgery business cause I was so struck by the earlier part where the lady with the world's biggest vagina meets the gentleman with the worlds biggest wang and then they done sex against the wall I think. I think it would have more of a tragicomic feel to it if she had the box-smallening operation first and then met the man with the enormous affair second, when it was too late. sort of a O. Henry situation you know.

4 replies · active 549 weeks ago

+225 Vote up Vote down

lilybrisko 130p · 550 weeks ago

There is a real live wonderful and deserving charity for snatch repair though! The Fistula Foundation treats women who have been torn open from difficult childbirth and shoddy obstetrics. The resulting injury is gruesome, can cause incontinence, social ostracization, plus bad infection and brutal pain. Getting snatch repair really saves these women's lives! It's www.fistulafoundation.org, in loving memory of Mallory ;-)

3 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+37 Vote up Vote down

wonderlandchick · 550 weeks ago

When I was in grad school my roommate read The Godfather. She was so disgusted with some of this subplot, she would read it aloud to me so that she wasn't the only one grossed out. Now whenever I think of The Godfather, I think of Sonny's wife saying her insides felt like "overcooked macaroni" after being with Sonny so long. Thanks roomie!

+51 Vote up Vote down

BellaG · 550 weeks ago

For some reason, I was remembering that subplot the other day and getting angry all over again (I have no idea what triggered that. My brain is apparently fond of non-sequitors). Isn't there a part, during the surgery, where the surgeon asks him something like "so, does this size work for you?" I read that book when I was twenty, and that's the part that stayed with me: my burning desire to have a fictional doctor lose his medical license on the grounds of sleaziness.

+6 Vote up Vote down

sarah · 550 weeks ago

This is my favourite book and I read it pretty often but I always skip the entire vegas portion

+83 Vote up Vote down

queenofbithynia 137p · 550 weeks ago

"I curette 'em like you scrape a frying pan"

ugh you don't SCRAPE a frying pan, what does he mean like with a fork or something? don't do that! he must be as bad an abortionist as he is a fry cook. thank god this was before non-stick coatings were invented. he would have ruined so many.

3 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+17 Vote up Vote down

Mike_B · 550 weeks ago

This is like some Tom Robbins type shit right here

+44 Vote up Vote down

rosemarynotroses 126p · 550 weeks ago

"So that's why you kept refusing me all these months? You dope."

Damn rape culture showing its creepy head in the middle of all the unintentional hilarity.

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+18 Vote up Vote down

osutein 136p · 550 weeks ago

"The book was better than the movie."

+120 Vote up Vote down

bocadelperro 112p · 550 weeks ago

The excising of this entire subplot is why I always point to The Godfather as the only film I know of that is an indisputable improvement over its source material.

Puzo was such a terrible writer. There's a line in that book where he refers to wine as "that grapey liquid." This is a running joke in my parents' house.

7 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+165 Vote up Vote down

Hththe1st 121p · 550 weeks ago

My favorite part is: "When they went up to their suite -- they were living together now -- "

Like maybe the author just realized he had forgotten to set up that detail in advance, and was somehow legally prohibited from GOING BACK AND EDITING his damn book. What the hell, was Puzo writing this while being chased by bears?

4 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+59 Vote up Vote down

jhsaxena 136p · 550 weeks ago

A WHOLE NEW THIIIIIIIING

2 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+77 Vote up Vote down

longlostlullaby 122p · 550 weeks ago

It's too bad the clitoris wasn't discovered until the 1990s. If only there had been a way to achieve orgasm aside from penis-in-vagina!

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+18 Vote up Vote down

bocadelperro 112p · 550 weeks ago

They have an office near my house, and every time I read the sign, I involuntarily clench. They do do excellent and important work, though. Vaginal fistula is a horrific condition, that you should never, ever google.
(this is a reply to the plug for The Fistula Foundation)

+24 Vote up Vote down

pajamaralways 85p · 550 weeks ago

Personally, this might be high among the list of most important Toast articles for me.

BRB, going to start writing my essay on Lucy Mancini's giant vagina giving birth to the future of the Corleone family. Lots of symbolism. So many oranges.

+64 Vote up Vote down

Alger · 550 weeks ago

Forgive me for this, but someone is going to say it at some point and it might as well be me.

So cutting out this subplot didn't leave a giant plot hole in the movie?

3 replies · active 550 weeks ago

+69 Vote up Vote down

jackalopeia 114p · 550 weeks ago

But if not for the giant vagina, how else could you possibly introduce a doctor into the story to fix Michael's face and Johnny Fontane's vocal cords? It is impossible. The best way to find a doctor for ENT issues is to locate one who is very interested in gigantic vaginas.

+72 Vote up Vote down

farrisonhord 108p · 550 weeks ago

I think we're all missing the point here. Puzo obviously had a very small penis. Obviously.

1 reply · active 456 weeks ago

+31 Vote up Vote down

her_again 109p · 550 weeks ago

He was building a new snatch as easily as a carpenter nails together two-by-four studs

After reading the Ur-Dad thread, that sentence just has entirely too much Dad in it for my liking.

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+18 Vote up Vote down

EnchiladaTaco 123p · 550 weeks ago

I recently saw Godfather and Godfather 2 on the big screen at the Alamo Drafthouse (love you, Drafthouse! Never change!) and all I could think when I left was, "shit, he really just took the plot outline and the character names and made art out of it."

I also remembered how beautiful the Robert De Niro section of that movie is. When he's climbing across the roofs while the religious festival goes on at street level? So beautiful.

ALSO: I stole my parents' copy of The Godfather and read it when I was about 13. First I was taken aback by the crazy wallbanging Sonny/Lucy sex, then sent into a complete spiral of confusion for the entire Giant Box Dilemma. What a book!

+9 Vote up Vote down

OliviaPJones 108p · 550 weeks ago

D:

This is all I have, really.

+13 Vote up Vote down

msk · 550 weeks ago

I remember reading this book as a teen and thinking 1) WTF about the giant vagina and the creepiest "surgeon" on earth and 2) they read this and saw high-art film in it?

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+12 Vote up Vote down

Glen H · 550 weeks ago

Did "The Godfather" start out as a one page dirty joke that got out hand?

+5 Vote up Vote down

Es_Petal 120p · 550 weeks ago

How on earth did I read this book and forget this? Because I have read it, and have no memory of this subplot whatsoever. Surely that's not right.

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+4 Vote up Vote down

Jon_S611 18p · 550 weeks ago

God Mario Puzo rode the coattails of Coppola's talent. (and the talent of DeNiro, Pacino, Brando, Keaton, Duvall, and Gordon Willis - that was a talented cast and crew)

0 Vote up Vote down

Touché · 550 weeks ago

Supposedly Lucy was meant to be the mother of Andy garcia's character in godfather 3.

+31 Vote up Vote down

Unreadaethel 127p · 550 weeks ago

I get so much second-hand embarrassment from authors who just splash their blatant Freudian issues around like that.

+16 Vote up Vote down

goldfroggy 81p · 550 weeks ago

I watched the movie with my dad as a teenager. I'd read the book some time before and all I could remember then, and now, were the bits about Lucy.

My dad felt the need to warn me about the scene with Sonny - "The movie's, uh, gonna get a little racy."

NO IT DIDN"T DAD. NOT COMPARED TO WHAT WAS IN MY HEAD.

+20 Vote up Vote down

lemonadefish 112p · 550 weeks ago

Now I want a snatch built from 2x4s.

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+9 Vote up Vote down

Ruth · 550 weeks ago

I read t his book when I was 15 (before I saw the movie) and I was terrified of having a huge vagina and needing vagina surgery and never satisfying a man because of the gaping maw that was my vagina.

1 reply · active 550 weeks ago

+5 Vote up Vote down

Greta Christina · 550 weeks ago

Can't believe I'm the first one to link to Storm Large's "Eight Miles Wide"! (Warning: Hilarious and very sticky ear-worm.)

"My vagina is 8 miles wide
Absolutely everyone can come inside
If you're ever frightened just run and hide
My vagina is 8 miles wide"
http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/35308221078588...

And yes, I also (a) read The Godfather 53,000 times in middle school, (b) passed it around among all the other giggly middle schoolers, with the dirty and violent passages dog-eared (I actually used it with a student who had trouble reading and who I was supposed to be helping -- it sure did get him interested in reading!), and (c) thought for years afterwards that Ginormous Vagina-itis was actually a real thing, and was terrified that I would have it.

0 Vote up Vote down

Greta Christina · 550 weeks ago

Crap. I think I put in the wrong link for "Eight Miles Wide." Meant to link to the YouTube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5U-YT-mRmI

0 Vote up Vote down

Branko Collin · 550 weeks ago

"She is in the movie, albeit briefly"

I am now thinking about how actors prepare for roles, however minor.

+6 Vote up Vote down

emilyhcarroll 53p · 550 weeks ago

Ahhhh pelvic floor dysfunction is a real thing you can be born with or develop and this is NOT how it works. BTW, haven't read the book (NOT GOING TO NOW)--do we ever find out what "THE OFFICIAL JOURNALS" thought of his medical 2x4 mastery?

+19 Vote up Vote down

MikeN · 550 weeks ago

Don't forget the part where, in the meantime, he says she can give him a blowjob and explains that it's not a "fairy" thing because all the cowboys in the Old West whorehouses used to ask for it.

0 Vote up Vote down

Sienna Cousland · 463 weeks ago

I kinda blocked this from my memory. But the book is rather mediocre. The movie was wise to leave out all this crap (and reduced Johnny Fontane's role).

Post a new comment

Comment as a Guest, or login:

Submit Comment

Subscribe to

Comments by IntenseDebate