Comp IIIPer 4What’s in the water? That’s the question the characters in this book wondered too. White shark is a story about a monster in the water that makes Jaws look like a goldfish!The year is 1945.There was a German U-boat that was carrying a few of these ” White Sharks”. The submarine began to take on water and eventually sank. The sub sits on the bottom of the ocean still containing these “White Sharks” in steel boxes and will sit there until someone or something sets them loose. The year is now 1996. An oceanographer named Simon Chase, is a shark and environment lover.One day him and his partner, Tall Man, found a pregnant shark that was sick and they were trying to help her. They heard something on the scanner and they had to come back their small marine institute off the coast of Connecticut. They marked their spot with a buoy and went about their way.
That same day two fisherman were fishing and found the buoy that had the marine institute logo on it so they decided to take a dive. They ended up diving right down to the steel boxes that contained the “White Sharks”. The men were curious and so they opened the box.Nothing happened at first and then glowing eyes caught their attention. One guy was killed. The other guy managed to get away and swim for about 200 yards and then he was down. The men’s bodies washed up on shored weeks later. That’s when Chase and Tall Man knew there was something in the water and it was up to them to figure out what it was. More strange things were happening. The ocean life began to act strange and Chase couldn’t figure out what that had anything to do with the killings. Tall Man was a rather large Indian man that had many reasons to be fearless. The reason I’m drawing attention to this man is because he is the hero. After all the hard work and long hours of trying to figure out how to approach this large tiger like fish with silver metallic teeth, Tall Man decided to take care of it himself. Tall Man approached the animal with no fear. He stabbed the animal to death and he himself was very injured and the monster’s claws stabbed him a number of times. The animal eventually died and the others just disappeared. Tall Man was washed to shore and found between two rocks and was unconscious. Tall Man made it and the small island and the marine life went back to normal. But the question is, were exactly did the others disappear to?I really enjoyed reading this book. I’m into stuff that has to do with oceans. Sharks happen to be my favorite animal so the title White Shark really caught my attention. The book had a great plot and the characters were very interesting. Tall Man was my favorite. He was a very logical man with a very odd outlook on life. People found him very intimidating but he was quite a teddy bear at heart. Chase was a very smart man that worried a lot about his family life, and that was a good quality in him. The book itself kind of had a false title considering that the creature wasn’t even a shark at all. This thing was feeding off sharks. It was not much different than Beast. Like Beast, it doesn’t lead you into the action right away and keeps you wondering what exactly the animal is. The thing I really liked was that you could get almost a perfect image of the story in your mind. You could picture who would play this character and what the setting would be if they made a movie. The detail was absolutely amazing that it made you feel sick to your stomach at times. Peter Benchley is beginning to get more of an imagination than a story about the world’s largest man -eater that everyone already has an image of. He’s at least giving unbelievable details that are almost impossible to imagine anything of the sort but that’s the fun of reading a book. There is a lot of inventive language and masterful storytelling. Benchleys descriptions of marine life are very vivid and quite interesting. Benchley probably would have had more fun being an oceanographer or marine biologist. The talk of a movie being made about this book isn’t a bad idea. It probably wouldn’t be as big of a hit as Jaws, but it then again it might be compared too much to Beast considering they have somewhat of the same story plot just different creatures. I would definitely be interested in seeing what kind of movie would come out of this book. Movies are never as good as the books because they leave out all of the good stuff and your image is always destroyed about the setting and the characters. I would suggest this book only if you’re interested in marine life, and a slow pacing story. It was quite interesting and very imaginative. It also gave a lot of details about oceanography and used very big explanatory words that made a lot of sense. If you liked the movie Jaws, then you will definitely like this book that leaves you wondering the whole time.
I really enjoyed reading this book and the best part was I started reading it before this report was assigned so I was reading at my own will and that made it more interesting. I would suggest this book if you’re willing to be on the edge of your seat and if you like long books. Well, if you are still a little curious on more details about what is lurking in the water, then go check out or buy Peter Benchley’s White Shark!
