Julie G 's Reviews > Jaws

Before I burn my copy of Jaws for kindling, to prepare a lovely batch of s'mores for my children on this last week of summer before school begins, I will pause briefly here to give you my review.

Jaws the book inspired Jaws the movie, which inspired my wicked, decades-long crush on Roy Scheider (I was convinced we'd be married someday). The movie also terrorized millions of viewers and inspired fear of the ocean and the unnecessary killings of no-one-will-ever-know-exactly-how-many sharks.

The author himself, in an updated Introduction from 2005 (a year before his death) explains that “I could never write Jaws today. I could never demonize an animal, especially not an animal that is much older and much more successful in its habitat than man is.”

Apparently, he was so disheartened by the unfortunate outcome of his novel (the unnecessary killings part), he devoted the later part of his life to marine conservation, writing, “I'd feel like an ingrate if I didn't give something back.”

So, he redeemed himself. Felt guilty, rather than cocky (a feeling he must have been somewhat familiar with, given all of his slips, when he mentions his Harvard education and his extensive yachting in prior interviews), and he sought to remedy his inaccurate portrayal of the Great white shark.

But, personally, I don't fault him for using his imagination to write a fantastical, fictional story. That's what writers do. That's their job.

I fault him for how damn lousy his story is.

Let's start here: if you made two sock puppets, and put them on your hands and then had your two hands communicate with each other, using the same weird voice for each puppet, then you would have accurately summed up the dialogue in this story.

I honestly haven't come across dialogue this brutal, this unbelievable, since Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived, and I still suffer PTSD from that “novel.”

Also, the characters ARE sock puppets. Stinky sock puppets with button eyes and sweat stains that can not express themselves or feel or grow. Frankly, they are not much more than a pile of lint.

And, when one character, Ellen Brody, finally breaks away from the pack of sock puppets and seems as though she might become three dimensional, she ends up in a scene where she whispers to a man that she is trying to seduce that her two sexual fantasies are (get ready, ladies). . . one, to be a prostitute, so she can have multiple partners and two, to be raped by a stranger, because she's pretty sure she'd have an orgasm, if her life was threatened and she was taken against her will.

Mr. Benchley, I know you are dead, and I hope you're resting in peace, but I CRY FOUL, SIR. I CRY FOUL.

Ain't no woman, no where, no how, (unless she's been abused or had some type of psychological troubles) has THESE FANTASIES, SIR. I do believe these are YOUR FANTASIES, not hers, especially since you started chapter 2 with a patrolman reading a detective novel where the heroine is “about to be raped by a motorcycle club,” and he is practically licking his lips.

What was wrong with you, Mr. Benchley??

Also, enough with the obsession with a man's height, a man's weight, and the size of his genitalia. Gag me with a harpoon already.

I found myself just about shouting: WHERE'S THE DAMN SHARK?? WHERE'S THE DAMN SHARK?? Could somebody CUE THE SHARK??

Three stars for the shark.