About this title: 'This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his ideas a fair trial.' Fitzgerald's thought-provoking tale, 'THE CURIOUS CASE OF ...
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER Country = UNITED STATES
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781416556053ISBN:1416556052
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 64 pages. A handsomely produced stand-alone-edition of the witty and fantastical story by f. scott fitzgerald, 'the curious case of benjamin button', is the inspiration for the upcoming major motion picture starring brad pitt and cate blanchett and directed by david fincher. (Paperback) read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2007-08-14
ISBN-13:9781416556053ISBN:1416556052
Description: Like New. May be shiny, in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, no damage to binding, may have a remainder mark. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2007-08-14
ISBN-13:9781416556053ISBN:1416556052
Description: Very good. Very minimal damage to the cover (no holes or tears, only minimal scuff marks), in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, minimal to no highlighting/under. read more
Description: Very good. Appearance of only slight previous use. Cover and binding show a little wear. All pages are undamaged with potentially only a few, small markings. Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read. Recycle and Reuse! read more
Description: New. 1416556052 New from the publisher-has remainder mark. Ships within 1 business day. Your 100% satisfaction is our guarantee! read more
Description: Good. 1416556052 Book could have shelf wear, or a bump, or sunfade to edges. These are new unread books from the publisher with one of these conditions. See are feedback as customers are satisfied in how we grade our books. Has remainder mark. Fast shipping and customer service is our number 1 priority! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9781416556053ISBN:1416556052
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 56 p. Audience: General/trade. One owner, myself. Book like new. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781416556053ISBN:1416556052
Description: New. A handsomely produced stand-alone-edition of the witty and fantastical story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON', is the inspiration for the upcoming major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and directed by... read more
"This novella, recently made into a movie (which I've heard was not so great?), is aptly titled -- Benjamin Button's case is indeed curious. Born at the age of 70 and aging backward from there, Benjamin button never can quite fit into post-Civil War Baltimore society. Every time he gets settled, his reverse aging throws his acquaintances into upheaval. No one can really quite seem to believe that he is, indeed, aging backwards.
The story seems to have two main points. For one thing, Benjamin, living his life backwards, loses out on the benefit of memory, which dissolves as he gets younger and younger. He cannot learn from experience -- he is born experienced, and loses it as he goes along. For those inclined to say that "youth is wasted on the young," this case offers an interesting paradox.
The second "point" (which I'm less convinced was Fitzgerald's intention; it may just be my reading of it) seems to lie in people's reactions to Benjamin Button. No one knows quite what to make of his situation, and they tend to place the blame on Benjamin himself, which hardly seems fair. Their reaction casts an interesting light on society's treatment of social "others," and has interesting implications nearly a century later.
Of course, these are largely my own extrapolations; on its own, the novella/short story doesn't really seem to promote a specific agenda. It's mostly just a cute story about a curious case -- intriguing, lighthearted, and quite entertaining. Even if you're not generally a fan of Fitzgerald (and I'm certainly not!), it's worth giving this story a try."
"This book took me probably an hour to read. Very quick read. I enjoyed it more the day after I read it, than the day I read it. It took about a day for the message to set in. I think it's an amazing commentary on society's view of people at different ages.
As an infant, Benjamin's father has distinct ideas for what Benjamin should eat even though Benjamin doesn't like it. Benjamin is his own person but is unable to have any control. Too often we treat children like that.
Conversely, as Benjamin grows older (and becomes younger) his family is embarrassed by him. Too often the elderly are treated like this.
In the back of my book there were discussion questions. This book would be a great book club book.
What was interesting is that I didn't like the movie all that much and wanted to see how different the book was. It was completely different. I liked the theme that you can be whoever you want to be, but I didn't like the movie because marriage was treated with disrespect (ie. affairs) and fathers were deemed unimportant (ie. not there). Those themes are not in the book."
"This is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was recently adapted into a movie with Brad Pitt playing the title role. I didn't find anything particularly special about this story as it breezed through Benjamin's reversed-aging life from being born elderly to dying as an infant. It was sad, yes, but you never really felt how living his life backwards truly affected him and those around him. There is the sense throughout it of his inevitable end and he never seems to be the right age for anything that's occurring. The language felt cold and stripped down, especially compared to other Fitzgerald works.
I suppose I would have like to see it fleshed out more which is what they did with the movie. It takes about a half-hour to read and somehow they stretched it into an almost three hour movie. One of the best changes made in the movie was the use of an inverse relationship between the aging of his mind and the aging of his body, whereas his mind and body both aged in reverse through the book."
"I thoroughly enjoyed the concept of this short story: growing younger as you age instead of growing older. Fitzgerald showed the difficulties Benjamin Button had in relating to his actual aged peers as well as peers based on his appearance without boring the reader. This was partially done through the brevity of the text; the rest of through the writing style utilized by Fitzgerald that allows the reader's imagination to flood the text and bring the characters and events to life against the backdrop of the reader's own life and experiences.
Before posting this review, I took some time and read through reviews posted by other Goodreads readers. I noticed that a lot of people felt let down by the shortness of the piece; people also thought that the characters were underdeveloped (if they were even developed at all), and that more could have been done to incorporate the time period into the text. I would have liked more references to the time period throughout the novel as a way to track Benjamin's reverse growth throughout the story, but I think it was left out on purpose because too much of it would have distracted from the story. The references to the beginning of the Civil War were important at the beginning of the story because it was what made people forget about this peculiar baby. He glossed over the Spanish/American War because the war wasn't what was important; what was important was what Benjamin discovered when he came home: that he grew younger while his wife grew older and that he was no longer attracted to her.
And as for the shortness of the story: I can see why some people think that this is more of a rough draft or outline for a full length novel than a short story, but I don't think it would have been a good full length novel. The more Fitzgerald developed the plot and characters, the more chance he had for making an unbelievable story really seem unbelievable. For these short 50 pages, it's easy for the reader to suspend his/her disbelief and open up the mind to this crazy idea and what it is really telling us about aging and life. If it were any longer, he'd be telling us too much and not allowing us to come to conclusions for ourselves.
Just a few more things (I'm afraid my review may end up longer than the story!!):
1. Did anyone else wonder how a woman could give birth to a 5 foot 8 inch tall 70 year old man? 2. I thoroughly enjoyed the depiction of the male relationships in this book. Benjamin bonds with his grandfather on a grandfather level at a "young age", but gets to bond with his grandson as a child in his "old age." I know that I would have loved to have known my grandparents at that level, even if it was just for a minute! And how true where the feelings of embarrassment Roger and Roscoe felt regarding Benjamin? Every parent is embarrassed by something their child does as a toddler and every child is embarrassed by their parents later on in life!"
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