' JAWS ' -NOVEL- FILM : HONOURS REVIEW

50 years ago ' JAWS ' captured an era of unease. The novel became a monster hit, embodying a feeling of political and social upheaval.

Publishing savvy, Hollywood hupe and a killer cover helped the book became a block-buster.

In 1971, the first chapter of an unpublished novel was photocopied and passed around the Manhattan offices of Doubleday & Co with a note '' Read this,'' it dared, '' without reading the rest of the book.''

Those who accepted the challenge were treated to a swift-moving tale of terror, one that begins with a young woman taking a dip in the waters off Long Island. As her partner dozes off on the beach, she's ravaged by a great white shark.

'' The great conical head struck her like a locomotive, knocking her up and out of water,'' the passage read. '' The jaws snapped shut around her torso, crushing bones and flesh and organs into a jelly.''

Tom Congdon, an editor of Doubleday, had circulated the bloody, soapy excerpt to drum up excitement for his latest project : a thriller about a massive fish stalking a small island town, written by a young author named Peter Benchley.

Condon's gambit worked. No one who read the opening could put the novel down. All it needed was a grabby title. Benchley had spent months kicking around potential names [ '' Dark White ''? '' The Edge of Gloom ''? Finally,just hours before deadline, he found it.

'' Jaws, '' he wrote on the transcript's cover page.

When it was released in early 1974, Benchley's novel kicked off a feeding frenzy in the publishing industry - and in Hollywood.

'' Jaws '' spent months on the best-seller lists, turned Benchley from an unknown to a literary celebrity and,of course, became the basis for Steven Spielberg's blickbusting 1975 film adaptation.

While most were driven to the book's shark-centric story line, '' Jaws '' rode multiple mid-1970s cultural waves. It was also a novel about frayed marriage, a financially iffy town and a corrupt local government - released at a time of skyrocketing divorce rates, mass unemployment and a presidential scandal.

At a time of change and uncertainty, ''Jaws'' functioned as an allegory for whatever scared or angered the reader.

Even Fidel Castro was a fan, describing : ''Jaws '' as a ''splendid Marxist lesson,'' one that proved that '' capitalism will risk even human life in order to keep the markets going.''

The World Students Society thanks Brian Rafterey.