Peter Benchley is an American writer, screenwriter and environmental activist first known for writing the best-selling novel “Jaws,” which was adapted into a famous 1975 film. Benchley has also written several other sea, diving and amazing adventure-related novels such as “The Deep,” “The Island” and the novel “White Shark,” which is to some extent a sequel to “Jaws.”
Jaws (1974) Jaws – book
The protagonist of the story is the village of Amity. An invented town on Long Island next to New York City for the film. The book begins with an incident when a Great White Shark kills a young tourist who is bathing at night. Well, and the problem arises whether to inform the public that someone was attacked and killed by a shark. People affiliated with the town’s homeowners want to hide this situation so as not to cause an exodus of tourists ahead of the upcoming season, which for Amity is something that keeps the town going all year round. The village makes its living renting houses during the summer. The information is withheld, the beaches are not closed. At this point, the main character of the book appears – the policeman Brody. Unfortunately, after the beaches open, a young boy dies and after a while a second adult male dies. The beaches are closed and Brody with the support of Math Hooper. An ichthyologist from a nearby university, hunts sharks to protect the beaches. The hunt ends when the shark destroys the boat of a local fisherman who specializes in shark hunting, but before that the shark is shot hard enough and wrapped in ropes by the fisherman that it slowly sinks to the bottom dragging the entangled fisherman behind it. Fisherman and shark specialist Hooper die, policeman Brody survives and so the book ends.
So much for the “official” summary.
Jaws is a story about very difficult life-threatening decisions when you don’t know what decisions are best. Informing everyone about the risks of a shark swimming along the beaches could bankrupt the township. This, of course, will also cause a lot of misery. People living and working there will lose their jobs, will have to leave to look for work elsewhere and, at the same time, on the other side of the scale is the risk that the shark will kill another person. On the other hand, it is still uncertain whether an accident will happen. Whether the shark is there or has swum away. This type of decision is something very difficult. The second iconic element associated with the book and then especially with the film is that the hunt for the mighty fish turns into a battle between man and nature and sacrificing one’s whole self to it (a bit like in Moby Dick). This is not a story about there being a swimming and shark hunting contract. Contract accepted by shark fishing specialist. You can see that the fisherman is devoting his soul to this, moreover, along with the police officer accompanying him.
Jaws (1975) Jaws – filmHistory of the famous film based on the book “Jaws”, which hit the screens in 1975 and influenced the public perception of the problem of shark risk like no other film. This film what can be seen in the statistics of diving organizations has collapsed the diving market. In the year of the film’s release (1975), the very rapid growth in the 1970s in the number of divers collapsed (Fortunately, it later quickly made up for the losses created by the film). “Jaws” was not the first shark movie but this amazing film directed by Steven Spielberg was simply in great movie. That’s why he has had such a strong impact on the perception of sharks and diving safety by all of us.
The book also describes scenes of a large shark attacking bathers, including, very much like in the film, an attack on a girl bathing at night as well as an attack on a bathing child or the death of a fisherman who was trying to find the fish. However, it was Spielberg’s genius that brought out the atavistic fear associated with the appearance of the big shark. We transfer this fear to the situation when we are about to enter deep blue water. After the movie “Jaws,” every diver to the first encounter with a shark thinks and first feels “what it will be like.” It is only through many encounters with sharks that we lose this atavistic fear and look out for sharks just like mantas or other large sea creatures.
The movie Jaws doesn’t deviate that much from its original, which is Peter Benchley’s book Jaws, but of course the book just describes the whole story more accurately. The story of Amity, a vacation town on Long Island near New York City, describes the problems of people who have to decide what is more important. Whether the risk is that the shark will attack again and someone else will die or the entire town living off tourism will collapse. Many people will lose their jobs, their money, the basis of their livelihood, and it is against the backdrop of such problems that all the action takes place.
Of course, in addition to the collapse of the diving market, the book and later the movie Jaws have this connection with diving that there are some diving episodes. The film’s protagonists dive at certain points whether in connection with a boat survey or a search for a large shark. These scenes use some diving elements as in other Peter Bentley books “The Deep,” “The Island” and “The White Shark.”
There is a little Polonicum in Jaws – quote “the girl was under the influence of drugs , which were provided by the son of a potato farmer of Polish origin”, we sometimes have an opinion…..
Jaws (1975) Jaws
The film, is the first film in history whose receipts exceeded $100 million.
It is listed in the rankings as the fifth film in history. It was certainly good enough to shake up the diving market.
In “Jaws” (in the movie) there are two iconic scenes related to scuba diving; including the first is taken from the book i.e. diving in the famous shark cage and the second (added to the movie, it is not in the book) related to killing a shark by blowing up a diving cylinder in its mouth
Shark cageThe shark cage is an ideal movie prop. A close-up of the diver, his face, the limited space of the cage and at the same time the blue tone from which at any moment a powerful Fish can flow.
Cylinder explosionThis second scene with the cylinder blowing up is a movie-only scene, a strong ending to the film. In the book, the shark just slowly descends into the abyss without any special action on the part of the station commander, dragging the body of Shark Hunter Quint with it.
Of course, the specific situation for a given dive cylinder will never be certain, but experiments conducted by filmmakers and shown on YouTubes show that a shot through a loaded dive cylinder will resemble a flying rocket rather than an exploding bomb. It’s just that the material from which the cylinder is made is strong and flexible enough for a bullet to make a hole in it, and this does not lead to the tearing of the cylinder body. That is, through the hole similarly to the hole left by a torn valve, air flies out quickly at tremendous pressure causing the cylinder to tend to fly but not turning it into a bomb. Of course, a particular cylinder subjected to certain stresses or previous damage, after such a space, may also tear into a few pieces and this will resemble a bomb explosion, but probably statistically this is not the most likely scenario. Anyway, the famous TV “Mythbusters” also addressed this problem and achieved a similar result. A rocket not a bomb.
In the book, Hooper is also killed when kidnapped by a shark from a torn cage. Only policeman Brody saves himself.
The Deep (1976) The Deep – more in a separate textThe Deep is a book set in the Caribbean. A diving couple comes across the remains of a World War II sunken transport ship at an old Spanish wreck. Among other things, the transport ship was carrying vials of morphine. The drug is being hunted by the local mafia and everything in the atmosphere of Caribbean beliefs, problems, turns into a struggle to extract and seize the drugs found.
The Island (1979) The Island – more in a separate text.
Related to maritime problems, the book “Island “is the story of 20th-century pirates who, attacking yachts in the Caribbean Sea, are responsible for some of the legends surrounding the existence of the Bermuda Triangle. More about the book in the next text.
White Shark (1994) White Shark – Creature (1997)
The published book “White Shark”, on the one hand, can be considered a continuation of the book “Jaws”, however, it should not be confused with the films Jaws 2 or Jaws 3, which deal with the continuation of the story of the great shark and the town of Amity. “The White Shark” is a science fiction story about an underwater monster created by the Nazis during World War II, half man half shark, which is responsible for attacks on the Caribbean coast.
Peter Benchley’s other books:
- The Girl of the Sea of Cortez (1982) The Girl of the Sea of Cortez
- Q Clearance (1986) Q Clearance
- Rummies (1989) Rummies
