Jaws Review

 

(Video Version)

Spoiler Warning

Originally released in 1974 and re-released in July 2012, Jaws is the "granddaddy" of all shark related movies and books to this day.  It should be noted that Jaws was inspired by real shark attacks which happened in 1916 across the coast of New Jersey and up Matawan Creek which is now known as "the Summer of the Shark".

Everyone has seen the film from 1975 directed by Steven Spielberg which went to not just create the "summer blockbuster" but also terrify audiences by tapping into one of our most primal fears where we are out of our element and completely at the mercy of something that we don't even see approaching.

But with the huge success of the film, the novel that inspired it is often forgotten and not in the public consciousness as a result despite being a best seller for some 44 weeks and the subsequent paperback version selling millions of copies in the following year.

The story begins with a very detailed description of the shark itself and its sensory array as it approaches the small community of Amity Island as two teenagers wander onto the beach so as one passes out, the other Christie Watkins goes for a skinny dip and is subsequently attacked and killed by the shark.

The next morning sees the introduction of our main character Chief Martin Brody who is called to investigate Christie 's "disappearance" and file a report to which he writes down the cause of death as a shark attack to which Brody wants the beaches closed as a precaution against more possible attacks however this is overruled by the Major Larry Vaughan and the Town Selectmen. During this time, the population of Amity Island is preparing for its summer visitors and The 4th of July celebration which creates the island's profit and business that sustains them through the winter months.

After another attack on a young boy Alex Kitner and an old man, panic ensues across Amity and sparks a "manhunt" for the shark responsible seeing both residents of Amity and people from the mainland taking part and some wanting to get a glimpse of the "killer shark".

While the majority of the movie follows the novel, there are quite a few differences between them.

The first change is the overall focus of the story. Whereas in the movie the shark is the focus of the narrative, In the novel the characters are in the spotlight and get much more in the way of characterization and development.

One example of this comes from Brody himself.

While in the movie, Brody comes across as your typical Average Joe/family man with a supportive marriage, however in the book Brody's personality is more or less the complete opposite to the depiction seen in the movie. Brody from my perspective comes off as a guy who is frustrated, somewhat bitter and overall tired with his day to day life and the problems that arise in the community of Amity.

This characterization of Brody becomes most obvious during his interactions with his wife Ellen who interestingly also has some much needed exposition for her character where we the readers learn that she came from a well-off family and other parts of her life before meeting Brody and when Ellen becomes the focus for one of the book's underlining subplots where she has an affair with Matt Hooper who as it turns out is the younger brother of the guy who she used to date. It is here where the story's setup takes on the dynamics of what I can only describe as a bad soap opera. Later on in the text there’s a cringe-inducing passage describing Ellen’s marital transgression that involves her rape ‘fantasies’.

That said however, the book has a few other melodramatic narrative set-pieces such as the ‘heated’ clichéd exchanges between Brody and the Town Selectmen and there are  other set-pieces in the book which are so stilted and wooden that they leave the reader wondering why an editor wasn’t a little more aggressive in limiting the overall page count.

For example, there’s a dinner get together that becomes interminable in length whose only function it seems is to list the amount of alcohol Brody can consume in about an hour and gives a recounting of the recipe for ‘Butterfly’ lamb.

However I do have a couple of things to nick pick as well as a few praises to address:

Character Focus:

 As I said earlier in this review, the characters are at the forefront of the story over the "killer" shark which is good because they get more fleshed out. This includes characters who in the film only got brief appearances most notability the journalist Harry Meadows who here serves as the "damage control" by hushing up about the shark's attacks at first and later uncovers the secret behind Mayor Larry Vaughn and his " silent partners" which turns out to be the Mafia who are putting pressure on Vaughn to keep the beaches open despite the attacks and against Vaughn's better judgement as they have invested in Amity's real estate and want to keep the values sky high.

Other characters who got changes include Matt Hooper who is a snotty, well to do, Ivy League egomaniac and generally unlikeable, Quint got an added level of  conflict between himself and Brody following the discovery of what Quint uses as bait to attract the shark which turns out to be unborn dolphin foetuses. Hendricks, Brody's deputy is also much more active in the book's story even at one point trying to save an old man from the shark following the fatal attack on Alex Kitner.

Sub-Plot Stupidity:

While I found the Mayor Vaughn and the Mafia addition an interesting aspect in the novel, the others not so much. The problem is shared between them is that the majority is not engaging like with the Ellen having the affair with Hooper for the most part which strangely I'll admit felt was kind of justified following Brody's treatment of her throughout most of the book. I get that the focus on Ellen is to give the story more of an edge which makes it somewhat reminiscent of something Ira Levin (Stepford Wives) may have written, or a rather less literate J.G Ballard - the bored housewife, ageing, having affairs, feeling unloved etc.

Themes:

Interestingly there’s a strong element of fear throughout the novel; Brody’s fear of his own fading virility, Ellen’s fear that she may have missed out on chances in her life to be happy, but curiously there’s very  little fearful tension whenever it comes to the shark appearing and this again is due in part to a lack of empathy on my part with Benchley's stiff characters in all respects.

It should also be noted that there’s a disturbing undercurrent of misogyny here along with racist and homophobic undertones that perhaps are in keeping with the spirit of the times in the early Seventies but it is worryingly significant throughout.

The Ending:

 The ending in the book to me felt very abrupt and anticlimactic as the shark stops within inches of attacking Brody abroad the sinking Orca after succumbing to its wounds inflicted earlier by Quint with harpoons  who coincidentally gets his leg wrapped by a rope on one of the harpoons and is dragged under by the shark and drowns.

Overall Jaws the novel was admittedly  a surprising light read where I'll admit it is difficult to re-read it without the movie popping into your head which is damaging because it further highlights the book's shortcomings and inherent problems and this provides an unfair contrast and is unfortunate that the core text of the story is done to such a delineated degree that you as the reader grow not to care for Benchley's characters to the extent where I wanted the shark to somehow eat each of them in turn. This aside, however, Jaws is a novel that plays to the obvious and compares extremely poorly with the film. The idea is great but Benchley's execution something to be desired.

The Rosie Project Review

(Video Review)

The Rosie Project

Released in April 2013, The Rosie Project is the first novel by Graeme Simsion who previously has written two books and several papers about data-modelling. The Rosie Project revolves around a 39 year old geneticist named Don Tillman who wants to find himself a wife.

The book begins with Don covering a lecture on Aspergers for Gene Barrow, The head of the Psychology department at Melbourne University and also Don’s best friend and colleague. After using two lunch breaks from over the past couple of days to cram in some research on autism spectrum disorders and preparing his presentation which is due for 7pm at a school, to which he arrives at 6:57PM allowing himself three minutes to set up the equipment in the hall where he meets Julie the convenor for the lecture who makes small talk while Don focuses on preparing everything not wanting to waste time.

While his attention is on the task at hand, Don doesn’t see the audience for the presentation enter and take their seats. Julie then asks about Gene who Don reveals is out on a date instead of being ill as he had told Julie and eighteen minutes later than planned, Don begins his talk which focuses on the genetic aspects of the condition and even uses a scenario where a lack of emotion could be an asset where they were in hiding from enemies but a crying baby gives them away but they also have a gun. The kids give suggestions such as ambush the enemy or even shooting the baby while everyone else is stunned by the idea and this prompts an early end to the lecture and while Don is packing up, Julie asks if he could join her for a drink but Don turns her down having got things back on schedule and he states that he has other activities scheduled.

Two days later, Don gets a call from Julie who asks him a question about a point he made during the lecture where he mentioned a company in Denmark that employed people with Aspergers for computer application testing. The question she asks is how candidates are found because as she puts it "Most adults with Aspergers don't even know they have it". Don guesses that they use a questionnaire as a primary filter which gives him an idea:

Design a detailed and strict questionnaire that filters out any unpromising candidates: women who are unpunctual, overweight, vegetarian, those who drink or smoke or have STDs.

With this measure now in place, Don hangs up on Julie and embarks on his now dubbed Wife Project and hopes to find his ideal partner and avoid mistakes like in his past attempts at finding a partner.

The subject of autism has been used in fiction before with the best example being The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon from 2003 where the story revolves around a 15 year old boy with Aspergers looking into a murder of a neighbour’s dog with a pitch fork whereas Simsion’s first novel explores how the condition affects an undiagnosed adult and how he approaches a romantic situation and everyday life in general.

The irony is where everyone else can see the variant in Don, he can’t see it in himself whereas he sees it in other people such as Lazlo a colleague of his at Melbourne University. This creates some degree of confusion in some readers due to Don regularly describing stock features of Aspergers in reference to himself – “I am not good at non-verbal communication”; “Unlike many people, I am very comfortable with repetition”.

The story is presented in a mix of past tense and present tense with Don himself providing the narration which is pitch perfect while also being precise and formal with a geeky tone that encapsulates his rigidly scheduled, rationally detached world-view.

Throughout the book we get to know Don and his routines, e.g. the very efficient standardised meal system, and as he devises his questionnaire to seek out the perfect wife, then Rosie enters the story and it starts to drift off in another direction where we see Don break away (rather reluctantly) from his structured and organised lifestyle into new expanses he has never experienced before and he also learns that life and love don’t adhere to logical thought and planning.

The relationship between Don and Rosie is primarily based on Rosie’s search for her real father as her mother never revealed his identity before she died when Rosie was a child and Don with his expertise of being a professor of genetics is the perfect person to help her. Initially there is confusion between the two with Don mistaking Rosie as a candidate for his Wife Project and Rosie thinking that Don is helping her because he has an interest in her.

Even when this is cleared up later on, they both continue with The Father Project which puts the two into an entertaining series of comic set pieces and occasionally life-threatening situations and despite their seemingly justified approach to being in each other’s company, a relationship begins to form.

However I do have two minor issues with this book and they go as follows:

• Slight misrepresentation of those on the autism spectrum:

The assumptions presented here about people with autism is that they all possess extraordinary mental capabilities, when in fact only a small minority of people with the condition do and that the majority of autistic people actually have some form of learning disability. This makes it almost a cliché view of the condition unfortunately which is shared with other books that touch on autism.

• The ending:

The final act of the book has a more brisk pace compared with the rest of the story which partly disrupts the flow and build-up. This makes it seem to some readers like it was rushed in retropect.

Despite these issues, I immensely enjoyed The Rosie Project with its originality, quirkiness, wit, interesting and well-defined characters, plot twists, and setting. I also found it to be warm-hearted and perfectly pitched. At its core, The Rosie Project is a classic feel-good screwball romantic comedy with possibly the oddest of couples which proves that love comes from the unexpected and that you don’t find it, it finds you.

Overall The Rosie Project is a very well written, well-researched, engaging, charming, funny, affectionate and intelligent novel with plenty of local flavour being set in Melbourne that makes for a very enjoyable read.

I also felt an understanding with Don because I have Aspergers myself and found it endearing to have someone like him because I feel there aren’t enough characters in media in general so it made for a refreshing change and for that alone, The Rosie Project holds a special place in my library as well as my top three.

The Rosie Project is available in paperback, hardback, e-book formats, audiobook, Audio CD, and CD-ROM.

The sequel titled The Rosie Effect is set for release next month on September 24^th.

Meg Hell's Aquarium Review

(Video Review)

Meg Hell’s Aquarium

Released in 2009, Meg Hell’s Aquarium is the fifth entry in Steve Alten’s Meg series. Set four years after the events of Primal Waters where we find Jonas Taylor back working at the Tanaka Institute closely with the recaptured Angel.

The book’s prologue begins in the Philippine Sea where the book explains the geography of the area through history as well as the evolution of life present too. Then the book focuses on a lone Megalodon who is revealed to be Scarface the vicious male who Michael Maren tried to use to get his revenge on Jonas with in Primal Waters. Scarface has abandoned his old hunting ground in the Mariana Trench to stakeout the Western Mariana Trough to search for a meal despite having killed a juvenile whale shark.

Scarface then picks up a strange object through his ampullae of Lorenzini and investigates the faint electrical field which turns out to be a World War II Japanese destroyer and after determining that it is inedible, Scarface moves on eventually entering the Western Mariana Ridge and soon picks up reverberations in the water which takes him to a hole in the sea floor about 400 feet across. As Scarface circles the void, A 68 foot Leedsichthys rises out of the gap as Scarface attacks and drives his hyperextended jaws into the giant and as Scarface becomes preoccupied and distracted by the kill, a pair of jaws about thirty two feet emerge from the gap and close on Scarface’s caudal fin reducing it to mincemeat and snapping his twin claspers off.

Scarface recovers from the sudden attack and sees the 122 feet long Pliosaur fully emerge from the gap which keeps its distance due to Scarface’s fearsome jaws but is locked onto the stream of blood pouring into the surrounding water.  The pliosaur then disappears into the darkness with a quick thrust of its front flippers and banks round and attacks again and Scarface is heavily injured and after about twenty minutes of being interlocked with each other, Scarface dies from his wounds.

Meanwhile at the Monterey Peninsula Airport, we find Jonas Taylor waiting outside Gate B with his now twenty four year old daughter Dani for his son David’s plane to land and let out passengers and to pass the time they resume talk about their own choices of music. Eventually David appears from the baggage claim exit and tosses his stuff into the Lexus Sudan and climbs in. As Jonas drives onto the car towards Highway 68, he brings up the subject of football to David on seeing his jersey and that the coach who called their home lost two wide-outs because of injuries to which David replies that his football days ended with high school.

Dani then points out Jonas’ now snowy white hair to David who remembers his father still being gray from the last time he had seen him and the conversion moves to Jonas talking to David about opportunities in marine biology internships including a recent sale of the Manta Ray with the Naval Warfare Center partly due to a piloting demonstration that David had partook in. This leads David to say that the Vice Admiral mentioned that they could use a good trainer hinting that Jonas could take the position but Jonas turns down the idea because of his enjoyment of working with the Megs and that they needed special care.

David jokes about how Angel’s “pups” who are now larger than an adult Great White after Jonas make them sound like they are a litter of cocker spaniels and the conversion touches on the subject of “the sisters” . Dani states that while all five pups shared the same womb, the three “runts” are nothing compared with Lizzy & Belle who are just as vicious as their mother Angel as Jonas turns off Highway 68 and south on Highway 1.

After the subject of David’s breakup with his girlfriend is brought up, David says it was because she was getting too serious in the relationship which put him off her with Dani saying she didn’t like her much either then David asks how his mother Terry is doing and Dani replies that she is stressed out due to an animal rights group called R.A.W. (Release Animals to the Wild) wanting the Megs released and members of the groups have been doing things like slashing tyres of employee’s cars which made Jonas hire a security firm to deal with the problem.

Jonas then talks about how the pens are too small for the Megs and no more expansions can be made at the Tanaka Institute along the coast because of the State Assembly but they offer 600 acres in Bakersfield as an alternative. Jonas then mentions a meeting he and Mac are to have with Emaar Properties out of the United Arab Emirates about a new state of the art aquarium and hotel in Dubai which presents an opportunity of them taking one or more of the Meg pups. Before the meeting takes place however two incidents occur the first being where Angel goes berserk and this results in Dani getting injured and a guest feeder is bitten in half after the swell of water created by Angel’s rampage pulls him from the A frame into the southern part of the tank.

The second incident is when Angelica, one of the “runts” is suddenly attacked by the “sisters” Lizzy and Belle and after staff manage to separate them and get Angelica into a transport net to move her into the medic pool to treat the wounds on her pectoral fin and left flank, however before Angelica can be moved into the medic pool having just been tranquilized Belle attacks again and tears a huge hole in her abdomen resulting in the Meg’s death.

While Terry goes on Good Morning America to address the accident with Angel, Jonas and Mac meet with the entourage from Dubai including Fiesal bin Rashidi, the first cousin to the crown prince and the CEO of Emaar Properties. During the lengthy discussion, a series of hand-drawn sketches are presented to Jonas and Mac depicting creatures such as the Kronosaurs that Jonas encountered during his last trip to the Mariana Trench among other species once thought extinct and Jonas recognises who drew the images as Dr Michael Maren the ichthyologist who tried to kill Jonas using Scarface.

Following the drawings, Jonas and Mac are presented with Maren’s research data and an offer of purchasing the two surviving Meg “runts” Mary-Kate & Ashley, a dozen of the Institute’s new Manta Ray submersibles and the employ of Jonas and the staff to help capture the creatures in Maren’s drawings for the Dubai aquarium.

Jonas and Mac laugh at the idea of them going due to their experiences in the Mariana Trench and their dealings with Maren so they turn down their part in the deal despite the additional offer of five million dollars each for their participation in the venture. The meeting ends with the Dubai entourage leaving but one who turns out to be the crown prince in disguise speaking with Jonas and Mac about the deal further and Jonas offers that David would show him the Manta Ray. David decides that a ride is better than a demonstration taking the prince with him and puts the Manta Ray through its paces which by the end impresses the prince so much that he offers David the job that Jonas and Mac both turned down and he accepts.

Having read all of the previous entries in the MEG series in order, I found it hard to fathom just how Steve Alten could take up from where Primal Waters left off. But yes he surprised me with Hell’s Aquarium which returns the series to form from the ridiculousness of Primal Waters. The vivid detail of the Meg’s sensory perception which is now a staple of the series returns as well as the recap for the three previous books is present for newcomers to the series to catch up which makes the book work as a standalone title fairly well.

However there are flaws present and they are as follows.

• Continuity Issues:

This first flaw concerns the age of the characters namely Dani and David Taylor considering that Hell’s Aquarium is set four years after the events of Primal Waters where David and Dani were fourteen and eighteen respectively while in Hell’s Aquarium where they are somehow now twenty years old and twenty four when they should be eighteen and twenty two. Personally I think this may just be an oversight by the author but thought I would mention it.

• Female Characters:

Most of the female cast in Hell’s Aquarium are presented poorly again with the exceptions of Terry, Mac’s wife Trish and surprisingly Dani who seems to have grown as a person in leaps and bounds since Primal Waters but still has holds onto her gangsta music preference. The others are presented as either mentally unstable, major teases, psychotic or downright stupid and generally have bigger breasts than IQs which some readers will find to be misogynistic but personally I found to be ultimately tiresome.

• Level of Detail:

This is another personal issue I have where the author describes the weight, size, lifting power, construction and tensile strength of every single piece of equipment in the book. I didn't know whether to be impressed or just annoyed by this aspect of Hell’s Aquarium mostly due to the explanations taking up sizeable pieces of a chapter which reduces the amount of story progression. Overall to the casual reader, this makes the book overly technical which maybe off-putting whereas those interested in sea exploration will absolutely love it.

• Story Direction:

While Hell’s Aquarium is a step above the previous book Primal Waters, it does suffer from similar problems like the prologue which reads like an essay on tectonic plates. Like with the previous entry Primal Waters, Hell’s Aquarium is written in the present tense over the past tense style of the first two books in the series but this time around the flow of the story is considerably better which makes a better read overall.

Steve Alten ups the ante yet again with Hell’s Aquarium with the return of Angel along with her five pups which all have their own personalities and group dynamic where the three runts don’t clash with each other while the “sisters” Lizzy & Belle form a sort-of symbiotic predatory relationship between them with Belle acting as the brawn to Lizzy's brains. Also introduced is a large menagerie of other creatures including the Kronosaurs and the new Liopleurodon hinted from Primal Waters to be the rival to the Megs.

Like with its predecessor Primal Waters, the story is split across the main focus with David going to Dubai to work at the new aquarium being financed by the Prince and the subplots of Jonas dealing the day to day problems with Angel and her brood and the activists of the group R.A.W. who are using the incidents at the Institute to push their agenda.

Hell’s Aquarium acts as a passing of the torch where we see Jonas’ son David quickly becoming the main character whereas Jonas is adjusted into a secondary role. Overall Hell’s Aquarium is an entertaining read and a welcome addition to the Meg series and the best way that I can sum this up is by saying there's a fantastic sense of dynasty and tradition, continuity of life and the interaction between the generations on both sides. 

Me as well as other followers of the series will invested a lot of time with the Taylors and their travails with Angel and her brood, and the masterstroke of Hell's Aquarium is in acknowledging that in-between toothsome adventures, time moves on, people change, and life keeps dealing new cards making this entry as enthralling as The Trench and steers the series into the uncharted waters of infinite possibility.

Meg Hell’s Aquarium is available in paperback, hardback and e-book formats.