Jaws: Peter Benchley’s Thriller of a Great White Shark and a Summer Resort That Stays Silent
In a small town called Amity, during the summer season, the remains of a woman wash up on the beach. Everything suggests she was eaten by a shark, but the police, the press and the local businesses agree not to spread the news, so as not to scare away the tourists. Amity depends on tourism, and closing the beaches could ruin its people.
Author: Peter Benchley (1940–2006)
Title: Jaws (1974)
Format: English Kindle edition (50th anniversary edition)
Scope: Thriller; basis of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/B008FZZI86 (ASIN B008FZZI86)
Silence
Soon afterwards a boy is attacked by the giant fish, and the police chief’s concern for the safety of swimmers grows. He decides to organise a hunt for the shark. In the end there is no choice but to warn of the danger of another attack, despite the economic losses it means.
The Hunt
Summer turns into a nightmare for the little town, which manages to overcome its difficulties and face the killer fish. A group of skilled men, determined to put an end to the situation, join the hunt, but who knows how many victims the beast will claim before it dies?
From a News Story to a Bestseller
Peter Benchley, grandson of the humorist Robert Benchley and son of the novelist Nathaniel Benchley, had long been fascinated by sharks. In 1964 he read about a fisherman who had caught an enormous great white off Long Island, and he began to imagine what would happen if such a fish refused to leave a resort town. Working with the Doubleday editor Tom Congdon, he turned the idea into a novel; the title was chosen at the last moment before publication in 1974. It became one of the bestselling novels of the decade.
More Than a Shark
The novel’s Amity is a less pleasant place than the film’s. Chief Martin Brody is a decent but limited man, his wife Ellen is bored with her life and has an affair with Matt Hooper, the young oceanographer who comes to help, and Mayor Larry Vaughan keeps the beaches open partly because he owes money to the Mafia. The town’s politics, class tensions and marital strains take up much of the book, which gives the shark attacks the force of a judgement on a community more interested in money than in safety.
Book and Film
Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film, for which Benchley co-wrote the screenplay and made a cameo appearance as a reporter, cut the subplots and changed the fates of several characters, including Hooper and the obsessive shark hunter Quint. It became the first great summer blockbuster and made the film far better known than the book. Readers who know only the film will find the novel grittier, slower and in some ways more adult.
The Author’s Second Thoughts
Later in life Benchley became an ardent campaigner for shark conservation. He acknowledged that his novel had fed an unjustified fear of sharks, many species of which are now endangered, and said that, knowing what he later learned, he could not have written it in the same way. His non-fiction book Shark Trouble (2002) tries to set the record straight.
Who Will Enjoy It
Fans of the film curious to meet the original story, and readers who like thrillers set in small communities. The shark scenes are as frightening as ever, and the final hunt at sea is superbly paced.
Why Read It
The novel is darker and more concerned with the town’s politics and the characters’ private lives than Spielberg’s famous film. It is a gripping read, and it will make you think twice before your next swim.
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Part of the reading recommendations featured on books.sapiensverbum.com.
