The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
And Six Other Stories
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Full grown with a long, smoke-coloured beard, requiring the services of a cane and fonder of cigars than warm milk, Benjamin Button is a very curious baby indeed. And, as Benjamin becomes increasingly youthful with the passing years, his family wonders why he persists in the embarrassing folly of living in reverse. In this imaginative fable of ageing and the other stories collected here – including ‘The Cut-Glass Bowl’ in which an ill-meant gift haunts a family’s misfortunes, ‘The Four Fists’ where a man’s life shaped by a series of punches to his face, and the revelry, mobs and anguish of ‘May Day’ – F. Scott Fitzgerald displays his unmatched gift as a writer of short stories.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The impending release of a movie version starring Brad Pitt has made this humorous tale, formerly among the least known of Fitzgerald's short stories, a hot property. DeFillippis and Weir's adaptation preserves the original's straight-faced tone describing the career of a man who begins life in his 70s and grows progressively younger. If bystanders find this more than "curious," they usually are just irritated at Benjamin for not behaving like other people. He himself is surprised as his body morphs, but is always open to new possibilities; his good-natured adaptability gives the social satire a gentle edge. Readers should, of course, look up Fitzgerald's original, but there's much to enjoy in this handsome little hardbound book. Cornell's sepia watercolor panels are especially clever at showing physical and emotional changes as Benjamin moves backward through life while America rolls forward for 70 years. A useful, gracefully written afterword by Donald G. Sheehy, professor of English, completes the volume nicely.
