Who's read the Book? VERY Different from the movie....

It's been quite some time since I read the book "Jaws", but I do remember that it was somewhat duller than the movie. I don't remember Hooper dying such a gory death, however.

To follow the book exactly would result in one of the biggest anti-climaxes in cinema. I remember, even as a kid reading this for the first time, thinking that the end was a disappointment after such a great story. Brody holding his head under the water, watching the shark sinking to the depths until his lungs are about to burst.

There's one post on here that I think nails it, in terms of justifying the novel's existence and/or worth.

It's NOT a shark story. It's a story about small-town corruption and general melodrama with the shark as a McGuffin that brings it all to the surface. In that regard, it's not as bad as I thought when I first posted on this thread four years ago.

Spielberg made it into a shark story, and improved it enormously.

And I still maintain that Benchley's "Beast" was what "Jaws" would've been, had it been closer to the movie.

But I no longer think the novel's all that bad (it's not literature by any means). It's just not a shark story, the way the film is a shark story and the way "Beast" is a squid story.

I don't like books. Reading is boring. I am forced to use my imagination. I rather watch something from the directors point of view