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(WARNING: If you think you might actually want to read this book and don't want it to be spoiled by some jackass giving away key plot points, you probably shouldn't read this review.)

In keeping with my pathetic habit of only reading books for which I've already seen the movie, I recently read Peter Benchley's JAWS.  When this book was first released in 1970-something, it flew off bookstore shelves and convinced a terrified nation to stay out of the water.  "What with all these flying books," the nation reasoned, "we don't even want to think about what's going on in the ocean."

The story takes place in and around the haunted beach-resort island of Amityville.   The story represents man wrestling with primal fears: the ocean as the unknown, the shark as his inability to control nature.  This all adds up to a thematic foray which is notably distinct from the rest of Benchley's body of work, which includes such varied offerings as "Island", "The Deep", "Beast", "Creature", and "White Shark".

If you're a fan of the movie, you'll be glad to know that all your favorite characters are in the book, including Richard Dreyfuss -- except in the book Dreyfuss is a scientist from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, whereas in the movie he is a whiny moppet of an actor from Hollywood.  One significant subplot not featured in the movie has Dreyfuss diddling Chief Brody's wife, Mrs. Brody.  Benchley refuses to serve up the easy titillation of a blow by blow (ha ha) account of this sexual congress, but thankfully the reader is treated to a scene at a seafood restaurant where the two flirt like raunchy 14-year-olds.  Tensions mount as Chief Brody begins to suspect the tryst, and things finally erupt into a near-pugilistic almost-bout of would-be fisticuffs.  But all's well that ends well, because (unlike the movie) the book has Dreyfuss gobbled up by the shark, whose taste for human flesh is eclipsed only by its insatiable appetite for moral vindication.

There are other differences from the movie as well.  The book does not give us the grisly shock of seeing Ben Gardner's decaying head pop out of the hole in the bottom of his boat -- an omission which could easily be rectified with a special anniversary collector's edition featuring pop-up illustrations.   John Williams's score, as expected, is superb -- but it's magnificence is somewhat diminished when you have to read the musical notes printed across the bottom of the page.  Also, Brody's final dispatchment of the shark is handled differently: instead of shooting an oxygen tank half-sticking out of the fish's mouth, he feeds it a box of Pop-Rocks immediately followed by a can of Mountain Dew.  Not only does the shark's stomach explode, but the Mountain Dew also renders it sterile -- just to be on the safe side.

All said, an entertaining read.  But I won't be trading in my JAWS DVD anytime soon. -Shawn

NO-SHADOW KICK?: Not even close.

BEST LINE: "I can see your cock, you bastard!"

MOST OBVIOUS RIP-OFF FROM ANOTHER BOOK: Quint's death -- caught up in a harpoon line attached to the fish and dragged to a watery death, just like Captain Gregory Peck in Herman Melville's novelization of the Warner Brothers technicolor spectacular, Moby Dick.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: No Indianapolis speech.  What gives?

IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK, YOU'LL LOVE: The Reader's Digest condensed version of Mr. Holland's Opus.

Ahem! It was Amity Island. Amityville was the place with the haunted house….

- Garry, Oct. 18, 2001

On reading your review of Jaws, I wonder are you actually a fan of Jaws the movie or is it all just hearsay? I am a great fan of the movie (have it on DVD 25th anniversary edition) and did read the book years ago and anyone knows it is based in Amity not Amityville (totally different book) as one reviewer did point out. The movie made a mediocre book do well. The idea was there but didnt quite make it. How dare he make Brody's wife into a wee slapper? Anyway go Steven!!! I have also read The Beast and White Shark by Peter and they were better. So Im not trying to slate Peter Benchley ok.

- Tracy H, April 13, 2003

[Editor's Note: The above e-mail was written in "Comic Sans". Interpret that as you please.]

Re: Robert Shaw's speech in Jaws: The Movie based on the book written to land a movie deal was improvised by Shaw on-camera after Spielberg reportedly told Shaw that his character seemed too gay. Call this wag old-fashioned, but the image of Quint and his fellow seamen all floating in the water together holding on to each other really just seems more gay.

- Jedediah Smith, former Northamptonite- Brooklyn, NY

Yeah, getting torpedoed by a japanese submarine is so fucking queer. Trying to swim away from your sinking ship through a two-inch thick layer of fuel oil that burns your eyes and mucus membranes is so gay. Baking under a merciless sun in the middle of the Pacific all day and then going hypothermic at night while people all around you are picked off by sharks is totally homo. Only a complete fudgepacker would watch his friends go loony from drinking saltwater as his life jacket became more and more waterlogged while he waited five days to be spotted and rescued because the Navy, due to an astonishing list of bureaucratic oversights, didn't even know his ship was missing . What a bunch of faggots, huh? Sailors? Pfft -- how about
ass pirates?

- Shawn Reynolds, proud American- Easthampton, MA

Ah, now you are the master, and I am the student.

- Jedediah Smith

Sometimes I feel so nice.... I jump back, I wanna kiss myself.

- Shawn

Sounds like the talk of a homosexual to me.

- Jedediah Smith

Takes one to know one, fairy princess.

- Shawn

I knew a dude who took it.

- Jedediah Smith

Was his name Jedediah Smith?

- Shawn

his name is alive.

- Jedediah Smith

I thought his name was Walks-funny-cuz-his-bum-hurts. From ass-plowing.

- Shawn

Shit, dude. You win.

- Shawn

Ahem! It was Amity Island.

- Tom, No-Shadow Kick

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