So, farewell then, Peter Benchley. You assured that generations of us can never, ever swim in the sea without a nervous tremor in our stomachs, turning to pant-shitting terror if we so much as brush up against some kelp. Ta for that.

Then again, you also gave some of us our first taste of literary lovin’. In STML’s school library, the most thumbed books were a copy of Benchley’s classic Jaws and some appalling James Bond ‘tribute’ wherein 007 had his balls coated in pig fat and hung out for wild dogs (please, someone else remember this).

Benchley’s original novel concerns itself more with the amorous adventures of Matt Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfuss in the movie) and Chief Brody’s wife Ellen. His clumsy seduction (“Some women have really tight ones.” “You sound like a comparision-shopper.”"Just a conscientious consumer.”) is not exactly unwelcome (“That’s supposed to be every schoolgirls fantasy… To be a… you know, a prostitute”), leading quickly to a somewhat disturbing climax in a nearby “Kleenex and spit” motel:

A vision of Hooper, eyes wide and staring – but unseeing at the wall as he approached climax. The eyes seemed to bulge until, just before release, Ellen had feared they might actually pop out of their sockets. Hooper’s teeth were clenched, and he ground them the way people do during sleep. From his voice there came a gurgling whine, whose tone rose higher and higher with each frenzied thrust. Even after his obvious, violent climax, Hooper’s countenance had not changed. His teeth were still clenched, his eyes still fixed on the wall, and he continued to pump madly. He was oblivious of the being beneath him, and when, perhaps a full minute after his climax, Hooper still did not relax, Ellen had become afraid – of what, she wasn’t sure, but the ferocity and intensity of his assault seemed to her a pursuit in which she was only a vehicle.

Hooper’s frenzied intensity carries the others repeatedly out to sea, until the moment when Brody is given his last chance to look in the eye the man who cuckolded him:

The fish broke water fifteen feet from the boat, surging upward in a shower of spray. Hooper’s body protruded from each side of the mouth, head and arms hanging limply down one side, knees, calves, and feet from the other.

In the few seconds while the fish was clear of the water, Brody thought he saw Hooper’s glazed eyes staring open through his face mask.

Benchley aspired to higher literary ideals than the airport thriller, and the book shades in the grey areas that summer blockbusters bleach out. In the film, Quint (Robert Shaw) goes down for his cruel and unusual attitude to life (which, given the whole Indianapolis thing, seems a bit harsh), and cheery, beardy Hooper lives to dive another day. In the book, Hooper gets his righteous comeuppance, Quint is the victim of cruel, black fate, and only Brody, the one good man in Amity, gets to swim home.