The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Tales of the Jazz Age

As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at Home.  At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one.

source-wikipedia

A quick summary of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by me-
One day in 1860 a strange baby was born in a Baltimore hospital.  The new born baby appeared to be 70 years of age.

His father was determined to raise his baby as normally as possible and tries to ignore the appearance of his child.

They soon discover, the old man-baby, ages in reverse.

He contiues to live his life.  He goes to school.  He works.  He gets married.  He enlists.  He has his own family.

Eventually he ages back to the age of zero.

My Thoughts on the Curious Case of Benjamin Button-

I have never thought of Fitzgerald as a fantasy writer, but after the Diamond and Benjamin Button, I am hooked on his fantasies. 

Fitzgerald acknowledges the idea for this story came from a quote by Mark Twain- "Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen".  However, Fitzgerald takes it a bit further and applies it to a whole life.

I love the heart of this story.  It is not a love story per se, it is just a story of a man trying to get through and life and the unusual circumstances of his birth.

As with my favorite Fitzgerald stories, it plays with how an individual navigates life and experiences.  How, as Benjamin gets younger, must deal with the realization that his wife is no longer doing it for him, or that he needs to have his son enroll him in prep school, or that he is unable to even understand the ways of the world.

As with all fantasies, you need to suspend belief.  I suspended my belief and have become enchanted with the life of Mr. Benjamin Button.

Read The Curious Case of Benjamin Button online