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Fiction Review by The Mortician
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10.11.07
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JAWS is one of my favorite books of all time. I read it once every few years or so and it's always very interesting. If you're a fan of the movie, you should check it out, simply to compare it to the finished movie. Yes, the movie is a little better than the book, but there are some nice twists, turns, and surprises in the novel that aren't in the movie. At the core of things, it's still the story of a monster attacking summertime swimmers on Amity island and how Chief Brody tries to handle the situation and save lives. By the end of the book, Brody, oceanographer Hooper, and rugged captain Quint set out to kill the shark in the Orca. If you haven't experienced the novel before, here's some of the "extras" that might give you food for thought. Ellen Brody, the Chief's wife, is a superstar superslut, baby, and Hooper turns out to be a mad dawg in heat in the books soap operatic centerpiece, which is a quite frankly, a hoot, especially when Brody (SPOILER HERE) ends up shooting Hooper in the neck later in the book, er, accidentally! Quint is a bald madman in the novel, almost as colorful as the character that Robert Shaw owned in the movie. There's extra attack scenes, including one that Brody is involved with first hand while a 16mm newscrew captures the action! Brody is much more cold-hearted in the novel than Roy Scheider played him in the movie. Overall, the book moves at a fast pace and is very enjoyable, the shark attack scenes are wonderfully written, still packing a poweful punch after all these years, and amazingly, the great white monster has as much villainous "character" in the end of the novel that the movie presented. So if you're into JAWS and just want a retro good time, consider checking out the novel that started it all, it delivers a bunch of old stuff and new, and is eye-opening in the way they took the best elements of the book and used them in the script, amping things up so one of the best movies of all time could be made. JAWS...a true legendary book and movie...available now at any used bookstore for you to read again.
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Rating: nan out of 10.0 - votes cast total
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