The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This book was like a masterclass on how to write the perfect short story - I'd forgotten just how genius Fitzgerald is with words on a page. Some of the main threads of the stories were utterly bonkers yet totally brilliant. He manages to combine crazy plots with wry humour, and then interweaves a

Show More

heavy thread of irony. I was conscious how fresh the stories felt, despite being over 90 years old in many cases, which I think is testament to how ahead of the game he was in his day.

Of the 7, I had 3 favourites. 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' is pretty well known now, but I've not seen the film so I was able to delight in this clever tale with fresh eyes. The idea of someone living their life back to front from old to young was inspired, and it was hilarious how he played with this. I really did think this was a funny story.

'The Cut Glass Bowl' was probably my favourite of all - this was about a big glass bowl that a woman is given as a wedding present by a jilted beau with the ill words: "I'm going to give a present that's as hard as you are and as beautiful and as empty and as easy to see through". His words set some kind of curse upon the bowl, which causes a series of significant catastrophes in the woman's life.

'The Four Fists' was also so clever: a man is punched 4 times in his life, and each time he has a total revelation about his own wrongdoings, in effect literally having some sense knocked into him.

The other 4 stories are also sharp and enjoyable. In 'Head and Shoulders' there's huge irony as to the ultimate independent successes of a university prodigy and his uneducated mediocre actress of a wife. 'May Day', set around a Yale sorority alumni party, is about the harsh realities of success and failure, mobs and hard partying. 'O Russet Witch!' is set around a bookshop and a man's fleeting encounters in life with a mysterious enchantress, and 'Crazy Sunday' tells the story of a young Hollywood continuity writer and his bizarre relationship with a director and his wife.

As with most of Fitzgerald's work, many of the stories include a backdrop of parties and excessive drinking. The men invariably tend to end up disillusioned and down on their luck, and the women are generally stereotyped as one dimensional adulteresses who cause the men's downfalls in one form or another. Perhaps because of this, I wasn't always riveted the whole way through this book, yet when I think about each story in turn I'm just blown away by their cleverness.

4 stars for me I think. I'm generally not a fan of short stories - the jumping in and out of completely different characters and plots isn't my favourite type of reading, so this was never going to be a favourite book for me, but this are so well crafted I have to doff my hat to the great man once again.

Show Less

One just has to appreciate the ghastly commercialization inherent in slapping an admittedly nice cover on a fifty page short story and selling it for more than a mass market paperback, when, for a few dollars more, you can get a broad smattering of Fitzgerald's stories in one volume. Just think how

Show More

many more copies of this edition they could have sold had they plastered Mr. Pitt's beauteous facade across the front, perhaps even in a Warholesque four squares showing him at different ages (it worked for 'Brokeback Mountain' movie tie-in editions).
I cannot help but compare the story to the movie since the theatrical adaptation is what compelled me to seek this out. Fitzgerald's idea is fantastic, and yet I don't feel he did it justice with the story. There was quite a bit more that I feel he could have explicated, more he could have mined for satiric effect. I seem to be the exception regarding the movie, which I thought was an inspired interpretation of a very brief text that brought a level of humanity to Benjamin Button through his relationships, even though the movie utterly lost the social commentary that marks Fitzgerald's work and makes it more dynamic a text.

Show Less

I stumbled on this little book at my local used book store. Immediately, I was surprised that this little illustrated 63 pages book can turn into a 2 hr, 48 min movie. Well, not quite. The movie is loosely based on the book, and the book took some creative conveniences to walk a fairly straight

Show More

line in the storytelling, skipping big chunks of time as it suits FSF. “Of the life of Benjamin Button between his twelfth and twenty-first year I intend to say little.” The biggest gap is the complete absence of Benjamin’s mom, for that matter, just about all normal female characters except the future wife and nurse. When his wife turned old (~59), FSF just shipped her off to Italy and kicked her out of the story altogether. Nonetheless, I’d imagine its original release in 1922 (included in ‘Tales of the Jazz Age’) still caused a buzz.

Conveniences or not, FSF did a fine job in the timeline reversal, starting with the old age birth, stepping us through his age/year and the corresponding ‘visual’ age, through to the end. With this short length, FSF does not always take the reader in depth to address how Benjamin feels. We learn about frustrations of his father at the beginning, his inability to attend kindergarten and college, and the later years when he is too young to be a contributing member of society. I had liked the movie, and I liked this version of the plot too. (Psst, they’re different!) Perhaps I’m too practical, but with such a short book and a relatively dense story, I did not expect an emotional roller coaster. And there wasn’t one. I will give props on the words that delivered the ending. I’ll let you discover those yourselves.

One last note, this illustrated version is wonderful. And extra 1/2 star for this aspect.

Some quotes:

On jealousy:
“… He stood close to the wall, silent, inscrutable, watching with murderous eyes the young bloods of Baltimore as they eddied around Hildegarde Moncrief, passionate admiration in their faces. How obnoxious they seemed to Benjamin; how intolerably rosy! Their curling brown whiskers aroused in him a feeling equivalent to indigestions.
But when his own time came, and he drifted with her out upon the changing floor to the music of the latest waltz from Paris, his jealousies and anxieties melted from him like a mantle of snow. Blind with enchantment, he felt that life was just beginning.”

On Love and Aging – made me think a little:
“’I like men of your age,’ Hildegarde told him. ‘Young boys are so idiotic. They tell me how much champagne they drink at college, and how much money they lose playing cards. Men of your age know how to appreciate women… …You’re just the romantic age – fifty. Twenty-five is too wordly-wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is – oh, sixty is too near seventy; but fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty.’”

Show Less

I love the concept -- a person born as an 80-year-old man who gradually grows younger until he dies as an infant. Unfortunately, this story was written like a children's book -- a straightforward plot and writing style, with almost no character development or exploration of the way society reacted

Show More

to Benjamin.

For those who liked the concept, I recommend "The Confessions of Max Tivoli". Max, too, is born old and de-ages through his life. His actual and apparant age always add to 70, and he maintains a steadfast love for one woman and has one loyal, understanding friend, throughout his strange life.

Show Less

I enjoyed the book. I haven't seen the film yet. I am quite surprised that the reaction of the mother, to the baby, was ignored. I would have been interested in what the author thought the reaction of a mother, in this circumstance, would have been. Otherwise, the story was intriguing and

Show More

interesting, and proved that in God's sovereign wisdom, things proceed, naturally, as they should.

Show Less

It has finally happened! There is finally a movie which wins hands down in being better than the book! More of a bedtime story than an actual book, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a straight-forward, matter-of-fact tale about a man growing down. Too brief to have any sort of

Show More

characterization or much detail, the story lacked the passion, purpose and tragic tinge that the movie so perfectly encompassed. The only time I was even mildly invested in this short tale was at the very end, when Benjamin's life began to fade from him. I have to say I'm glad I didn't read this book first--I probably would have never gone to see the movie--which is almost entirely different save for the title. This book had an excellent idea, but lacked any appropriate follow-through. I didn't hate it, but I'm not impressed.

Show Less

The most interesting things about this short story are the illustrations and the fact that Mr. Fitzgerald wrote something fantastical like this (although I haven't read a lot of him, so maybe this isn't so surprising afterall). I did feel like there wasn't much of a point to this story. There were

Show More

suggestions that something might happen (like when he tried to attend Yale and said they would be sorry not to let him) but then nothing really happens. Obviously his aging backward made for all kinds of complications of society - and maybe that is what the point was - how society doesn't like anything out of the ordinary. But overall I wasn't captured by the story.

Show Less

An intriguing and depressing story. I enjoyed the social commentary involved in the story. It's too bad it's not a novel. I would have loved more detail. Most intriguing to me was the disdain Benjamin's son had for him as he became younger.

An interesting concept, delighfully written, although a bit far-fetched. Having grown up in baltimore, where one grabbed the "society" page of the Sun Papers every Sunday, I can well understand Mr. Buttons horror at being presented with an 80+ year old "newborn". His first thought of "what will

Show More

people say" is so true.

I wish Benjamin had had the ability to see exactly what was happening to him. That would have made an excellent psychological study. Still in all, it was an enjoyable read.

Show Less

A short story of a person who lives their life in reverse. I have not seen the movie. Of course the language is elegant, but after the first few pages, it becomes too predictable and not funny enough to hold my attention. The ending was sad, though. Imagine shrinking into nothingness...

Used an Audiobook with this one, maybe it had something to do with the reader's voice but I wasn't drawn in to the story; I was merely waiting for it to end. Haven't read much else of Fitzgerald, so want to to find out if it's his style I don't like or just that book.

This is a short story, it only took me half an hour to read it completely. The story itself is quite fascinating although it only focuses on some parts of Benjamins life, which is a pity because the social implications of living your life backwards would be quite profound. In the book the life of

Show More

Benjamin starts a fully grown seventy year old man with a long white beard and the ability to speak. How the man fitted in his mother womb isn't mentioned...
The film has a different take on it, and mainly focuses on the love aspect, which make the book and the film very different to each other (almost complementary). This is one of the few cases where you actually read the book faster than seeing the film, nevertheless I think I prefer the film in this case.

Show Less

I didn't find this story at all interesting. I had high hopes that the story which seemed so silly at the outset would draw me in. It certainly intrigued Hollywood enough to not only make a movie about it, but to also have the film garner tons of critical acclaim... that means it MUST be good,

Show More

right?
Unfortunately this story fell flat from the beginning. I started reading with the idea that I was reading a fantasy/fable, so disbelief must be suspended. Within the first two pages, disbelief came crashing back to earth. Not only was the story implausible, but the general feeling of anger from those surrounding the title character made the story very unpleasant. Instead of the sweet fairy tale I thought I might get, I was just left with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Show Less

Yes, you are reading correctly: F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s the story of a man who was born old and grew younger and younger as time passed. A little story, well told.

A unique story, particularly for F. Scott Fitzgerald. I was greatly impressed by the film which I think did a better job of capturing the profound sadness of Benjamin Button, especially at the end of the story. The book gets at it too, but the film had more of an effect on me in that you simply get

Show More

to see more of Benjamin Button's life and thus had more of a connection. Plus the love story in the film is much more profound.

Show Less

Very well written and interesting. You really felt for the characters.

Great short story with slight science-fiction undertones.

Good story, wish it was longer.

Very short novel.. Intriging premise. Felt nonsensical in the beginning but as he begins to grow younger it is easy to get caught up in the story. Some interesting issues arise most specifically his relationship with his wife Hildegarde. When he meets her he appears to be 50ish and finds her very

Show More

attractive but as she reaches middle age and he is college age the attraction is lost. Rlevant issue when this was written and clearly relevent now.

Show Less

Not really worthy of note, aside from being the inspiration for the movie. The illustrations are quite good, but I didn't like that Fitzgerald focused on the character's external, rather than internal, conflicts. By keeping Benjamin's mind at the same age level at his body, rather than having his

Show More

mind age normally while his body ages in reverse, he misses out on a lot that made the movie interesting.

Show Less

A very fast read (what else from a short story?) that captures the essence of the differences between old and young. You truly feel for Benjamin Button and his "Curious Case". I haven't seen the movie based on this short story. I found the book at my local bookstore, and bought it to support the

Show More

business. I suggest borrowing or locating a collection of Fitzgerald's short stories.

Show Less

Not sure what to say that this story was about, but an entertaining, absurd plot. Very short.

Nice read, but not extraordinary.

In 1860 Benjamin Button is born an old man and mysteriously begins aging backward. At the beginning of his life he is withered and worn, but as he continues to grow younger he embraces life -- he goes to war, runs a business, falls in love, has children, goes to college and prep school, and, as his

Show More

mind begins to devolve, he attends kindergarten and eventually returns to the care of his nurse.
This strange and haunting story embodies the sharp social insight that has made Fitzgerald one of the great voices in the history of American literature.

Show Less