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| 1977, Pan UK edition |
Author: Peter Benchley
First Published: 1976
Pages: 251pp
Publisher: Pan
Not currently available in eBook format
Sometimes, when I'm falling endlessly down the internet version of Lewis Carrol's rabbitt-hole looking for a new novel to read, I come across an author whose lack of presence in eBook format is rather baffling. I've been a fan of the film Jaws since an early age (who isn't?), so it was only natural that my attention would at some point land on Peter Benchley and, at first, this led a re-watch of the film The Deep, based upon his 1976 novel. This reawakened my interest in his books, and my web browser dipped its toes warily into the depths of the world wide web, expecting to find a plethora of sunken treasure. I was genuinely shocked to discover that Jaws is the only title from Benchley available in eBook?*
*I'm aware that The Girl of the Sea of Cortez may be available in other countries.
Peter Benchley was born in 1940 in New York City in 1940. The son of a writer himself, he lived his early life flitting between New York and Colorado while his father fought in the Second World War. He graduated from Harvard College on 1961, majoring in English. He had already experienced working as a writer, due to his father allowing him to work as a part time professional. As he describes in a biographical piece on the Peter Benchley website;
Two early books in the sixties were based upon travels, but a stint in the U.S Marine Corps interrupted any further work. After the end of his service he began working for The Washington Post and then Newsweek. This was followed by a period as a speech writer for President Johnson. In 1969, he moved to New Jersey and began life as a freelance writer and reviewer, taking on all kinds of jobs. Following some encouragement by a editor friend Benchley decided to concentrate on honing his skills in order to publish a piece of fiction he had been considering for a while. The end result was Jaws - and the rest is publishing and movie history.
The Deep centres around newlyweds David and Gale Sanders as they enjoy a honeymoon on the Islands of Bermuda, scuba-diving for fun, and hoping to discover anything unusual or valuable on their trips. On one such expedition they come across some unsual items, including an encrusted coin and a strangely-shaped piece of glass containing a small amount of liquid.
They are enjoying dinner at their hotel when one of the waiters, a man named Slake, spots David toying with the oddly shaped glass container. He mentions that there are glass collectors on the island who would be interested in it, and offers to purchase it from them. David declines, and the couple are shocked later in the evening when someone appears to be spying on them in their room. When challenged it turns out to be the collector named Tupper, who also offers to take the object off them. By now, they are curious as to the value of what they have. A trip out to St David's Island puts them in touch with local treasure seeker and diving specialist Treece. He is a giant of a man, living on his own in the lighthouse that dominates the island. He tells them that they have discovered an ampoule of morphine from the wreck of the Goliath, a World War Two wooden vessel that was wrecked in the Forties. There has been talk of the stash of drugs for years, a local seaman, Coffin, was one of only a couple of survivors from the wreck, but his stories had largely been thought to be untrue.
They also show Treece the coin they found - he doubts it came from the same area, its a couple of hundred years older than the Goliath. He asks them to go back to the same site, and if they discover any more ampoules or coins to let him know as soon as possible.
Leaving the morphine with Treece, they ride back to Bermuda. On the way they are kidnapped. A local black drug dealer by the name Cloche has them stripped naked and searched. He wants the morphine, and warns them from diving near the wreck anymore. Cloche has been informed by the waiter, Slake, and he threatens them with physical harm should they not leave the islands at the next opportunity.
David, fuelled by his adventurous nature, and a worrying tendency to refuse to show any weakness in front of his young wife, insists that they continue to search the same area the next day. Gail, despite suffering from a mild nosebleed, accompanies him down to the Goliath, where they do indeed find more morphine vials, another coin, and a large piece of ornate iron...
I really enjoyed reading The Deep. Benchley has a gift for description, his passages where the Sanderses are underwater are all very well detailed, and allow you to follow the action without getting lost. His dialogue is also very good, I was impressed with how natural it was, because it adds to pushing the plot along. The story is rich with dialogue in places, and Benchley manages to not only tell his story, but also add characteristics to his players, and inform the reader on topics they might not previously understood.
There is not a great deal of action in The Deep, but it is still an very enjoyable tale with the occasional threat of violence just a whisker away from David and Gail Sanders. There is something about underwater escapades that entrances, you can almost feel yourself holding your own breath when you are reading some passages. There is also a certain amount of pleasure that can be had from tales about discovering lost treasure that holds a story together. The finale of the novel is quite frantic, almost out of sync with the rest of the book, and I think the pacing of the plot was a little slow to warrant such an ending.
There were a few flaws. Like the lift that is described in detail, but never amounts to anything (later used to better effect in the film); a few too many minor characters that don't get much time to make any impression, and the main threat of Cloche being under-utilised, and eventually overshadowed by the henchman, Slake, as the story comes to its climax.
Benchley based The Deep on research he had conducted in Bermuda around 1971 for National Geographic. When there, he had made contact with a famous salvage diver and treasure seeker, Teddy Tucker. Tucker was clearly an enormous influence on the character of Treece. He may also have passed on the idea for the plot of the book through the telling of a historical incident. The story surrounds the shipwreck of a vessel named the Constellation, which sunk off the coast of Bermuda in 1943 carrying a consignment of drugs. Constellation settled on top of two old Spanish ships, that had wrecked hundreds of years before. He clearly thought that readers would struggle to accept that situation, so he revised the tale and made it about a ship full of drugs coming to rest on only one ancient wreck.
I can't help wonder if my reading experience in this case is being influenced to some extent by my appreciation of the movie adaptation (that Benchley contributed to). I love the movie, so is my reading of the novel just an extension of that? Am I willing to put up with the slower pace because I know what is about to happen? For sure, when I started reading, I had actors Nolte, Bisset and Shaw in my head - but the Treece character is not physically the same as his film version. There are a few areas where the book diverges, in location, character and situation. That was enough to avoid the book feeling like a straight novelisation.
I have no idea why more of Peter Benchley's books are not in eBook format. But its a crime that needs to be corrected, as some of his other works are going to disappear very soon.
Publisher: Pan
Not currently available in eBook format
Sometimes, when I'm falling endlessly down the internet version of Lewis Carrol's rabbitt-hole looking for a new novel to read, I come across an author whose lack of presence in eBook format is rather baffling. I've been a fan of the film Jaws since an early age (who isn't?), so it was only natural that my attention would at some point land on Peter Benchley and, at first, this led a re-watch of the film The Deep, based upon his 1976 novel. This reawakened my interest in his books, and my web browser dipped its toes warily into the depths of the world wide web, expecting to find a plethora of sunken treasure. I was genuinely shocked to discover that Jaws is the only title from Benchley available in eBook?*
*I'm aware that The Girl of the Sea of Cortez may be available in other countries.
Peter Benchley was born in 1940 in New York City in 1940. The son of a writer himself, he lived his early life flitting between New York and Colorado while his father fought in the Second World War. He graduated from Harvard College on 1961, majoring in English. He had already experienced working as a writer, due to his father allowing him to work as a part time professional. As he describes in a biographical piece on the Peter Benchley website;
But once he saw that I was interested in writing, he did a wonderful thing. For two summers, when I was 15 and 16, he paid me the going wage I might make as a gardener or a soda jerk or a club attendant, and my only duty was to sit alone in a room with a typewriter for four hours every day, or until I produced a thousand words, whichever came first. He didn’t want to read it; I never had to do anything with it. But I had to produce it. He wanted me to experience both the solitude and the discipline that are requisites of a writing life, to see if I could tolerate them. If I couldn’t, he said, I’d better start looking in another direction. As things turned out, I not only tolerated discipline and isolation, I liked them, and so, at the age of 17, I became half a professional writer: I say half because although I sent story after story to The New Yorker and other magazines, none of the stories sold. So I was a professional in that I wrote to make money, but I wasn’t a professional in that I never made any. I sold my first freelance journalism at 18, and my first fiction at 21, to Vogue magazine.
Two early books in the sixties were based upon travels, but a stint in the U.S Marine Corps interrupted any further work. After the end of his service he began working for The Washington Post and then Newsweek. This was followed by a period as a speech writer for President Johnson. In 1969, he moved to New Jersey and began life as a freelance writer and reviewer, taking on all kinds of jobs. Following some encouragement by a editor friend Benchley decided to concentrate on honing his skills in order to publish a piece of fiction he had been considering for a while. The end result was Jaws - and the rest is publishing and movie history.
The Deep centres around newlyweds David and Gale Sanders as they enjoy a honeymoon on the Islands of Bermuda, scuba-diving for fun, and hoping to discover anything unusual or valuable on their trips. On one such expedition they come across some unsual items, including an encrusted coin and a strangely-shaped piece of glass containing a small amount of liquid.
They are enjoying dinner at their hotel when one of the waiters, a man named Slake, spots David toying with the oddly shaped glass container. He mentions that there are glass collectors on the island who would be interested in it, and offers to purchase it from them. David declines, and the couple are shocked later in the evening when someone appears to be spying on them in their room. When challenged it turns out to be the collector named Tupper, who also offers to take the object off them. By now, they are curious as to the value of what they have. A trip out to St David's Island puts them in touch with local treasure seeker and diving specialist Treece. He is a giant of a man, living on his own in the lighthouse that dominates the island. He tells them that they have discovered an ampoule of morphine from the wreck of the Goliath, a World War Two wooden vessel that was wrecked in the Forties. There has been talk of the stash of drugs for years, a local seaman, Coffin, was one of only a couple of survivors from the wreck, but his stories had largely been thought to be untrue.
They also show Treece the coin they found - he doubts it came from the same area, its a couple of hundred years older than the Goliath. He asks them to go back to the same site, and if they discover any more ampoules or coins to let him know as soon as possible.
Leaving the morphine with Treece, they ride back to Bermuda. On the way they are kidnapped. A local black drug dealer by the name Cloche has them stripped naked and searched. He wants the morphine, and warns them from diving near the wreck anymore. Cloche has been informed by the waiter, Slake, and he threatens them with physical harm should they not leave the islands at the next opportunity.
David, fuelled by his adventurous nature, and a worrying tendency to refuse to show any weakness in front of his young wife, insists that they continue to search the same area the next day. Gail, despite suffering from a mild nosebleed, accompanies him down to the Goliath, where they do indeed find more morphine vials, another coin, and a large piece of ornate iron...
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| Nolte and Bisset on the set of The Deep, 1977 |
There is not a great deal of action in The Deep, but it is still an very enjoyable tale with the occasional threat of violence just a whisker away from David and Gail Sanders. There is something about underwater escapades that entrances, you can almost feel yourself holding your own breath when you are reading some passages. There is also a certain amount of pleasure that can be had from tales about discovering lost treasure that holds a story together. The finale of the novel is quite frantic, almost out of sync with the rest of the book, and I think the pacing of the plot was a little slow to warrant such an ending.
There were a few flaws. Like the lift that is described in detail, but never amounts to anything (later used to better effect in the film); a few too many minor characters that don't get much time to make any impression, and the main threat of Cloche being under-utilised, and eventually overshadowed by the henchman, Slake, as the story comes to its climax.
Benchley based The Deep on research he had conducted in Bermuda around 1971 for National Geographic. When there, he had made contact with a famous salvage diver and treasure seeker, Teddy Tucker. Tucker was clearly an enormous influence on the character of Treece. He may also have passed on the idea for the plot of the book through the telling of a historical incident. The story surrounds the shipwreck of a vessel named the Constellation, which sunk off the coast of Bermuda in 1943 carrying a consignment of drugs. Constellation settled on top of two old Spanish ships, that had wrecked hundreds of years before. He clearly thought that readers would struggle to accept that situation, so he revised the tale and made it about a ship full of drugs coming to rest on only one ancient wreck.
I can't help wonder if my reading experience in this case is being influenced to some extent by my appreciation of the movie adaptation (that Benchley contributed to). I love the movie, so is my reading of the novel just an extension of that? Am I willing to put up with the slower pace because I know what is about to happen? For sure, when I started reading, I had actors Nolte, Bisset and Shaw in my head - but the Treece character is not physically the same as his film version. There are a few areas where the book diverges, in location, character and situation. That was enough to avoid the book feeling like a straight novelisation.
I have no idea why more of Peter Benchley's books are not in eBook format. But its a crime that needs to be corrected, as some of his other works are going to disappear very soon.
1 comment:
good
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