I was personally disturbed by Puzo's attention to graphic sexual descriptions (I think he must have had problem.)
It bothered me because it had nothing to do with the storyline: it seemed a distorted need to address one of his personal hidden obsessions.
You may disagree with my take: I am interested in your opinions and reflections on this aspect of the novel (I am referring mostly to what I call the "Las Vegas" chapters but not only.)
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I agree. The Las Vegas scene that I'm thinking about in particular is the scene where it is insinuated that the movie producer has had sex with the tween-age girl whom Tom had earlier seen in his office. This disturbed me A LOT...I think mostly because I don't think it added anything to the book at all. It was just a detail presented in passing, and I could have done without it.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that these scenes were included to show us, the audience, the gruesome and dirty world of criminals. While it could have been excluded, I think it also could be used to establish the "good criminals" from the "bad" ones, the "bad" being those who commit crimes that we are personally disgusted by.
ReplyDeleteLike Kaitlyn I also believe that that the scene with the teenage girl was unnecessary and that it did not really build on the characters. Otherwise the other sex scenes I think brought a sense of reality to the story, and the sexual nature of men and women in general. Sex is a natural part of life, but we rarely see it mentioned in books due to it being taboo.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Andrey, I think the scenes were included to show the audience how dirty and care free criminals really are behind closed doors. Yes this scene was unnecessary, but I think it was there to give us a little insight on what criminals do on their spare time.
ReplyDeleteI think many of these sex scenes were unnecessary to the plot of the novel, I would agree with my classmates and say that the only plausible reason i would think Puzo would include it was to introduce us to the grimy life of these criminals in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.
ReplyDeleteLike the professor, I too was disturbed by the sex scenes. They were way too graphic and I had to look back and check the title of the book to make sure I wasn’t reading “Fifty Shades of Grey”..… The sex scenes had nothing to do with the plot of the novel and could have easily been left out. I too believe that Puzo might have himself a personal hidden obsession. However, with or without the sex scene, Puzo did an incredible job writing this novel.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the sex scenes were largely irrelevant and ultimately detrimental to the overall quality of the book. It seemed that the plot would begin to escalate, only to suddenly freeze with a graphic sex scene that offers nothing to the story line itself. I see some of my classmates offering the angle that Puzo included these descriptions to make a statement about the grimy underworld in AMerica at the time, but statutory rape and literary pornography simply pushes the boundaries too far. These scenes were unnerving anf disrespectful, and they offered nothing to the development of the story; as such, I feel that it is Puzo's biggest strike in his writing.
ReplyDeleteThe sex scenes in the book definitely came from left field at times. I agree with Andrey that maybe Puzo was trying to show that criminals are violent but they use women and sex as another outlet. I agree that the scenes were superfluous and we could have definitely done without all that detail!
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ReplyDeleteYes. I agree with this statement. I also think a lot about this topic in the book. There was a lot of sex scene that I think was not necessary at all. Yes, I also agree with some of my classmates that in some places these scenes showed who is good or bad. Also I agree that scene about twelve-year-old girl and what Woltz had to with her was awful and very sad.
I agree with Sydney, Andrew and a few other classmates. The scene where Woltz has sex with a very young girl (not even a teenager) is completely repulsive to me. At first I wasn't sure of what I was reading, but then I reread and understood my the young girl was crying and bruise. I do not understand why this was incorporated in the book. Maybe to add more hatred to Woltz then we as readers already felt for him not giving the best fit part to Johnny. Like Brandon stated, the sex scene emphasizes the power in the criminal world.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this statement as well. It was not only the sex scenes that should be eliminated from the novel, but a lot of other scenes like the Johnny Hollywood scene that do not belong in this book. In some novels, sex scenes add some spice to the story line but in The Godfather, it was unnecessary and utterly disturbing. Similar to what my classmates said, it could have been to show the criminal life style and their exploitation of women.
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