The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Tales

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Tales by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922/2008) An audiobook version of four stories from the Tales of the Jazz Age story collection, read by Grover Gardner, includes “Tarquin of Cheapside” and “O Russet Witch!”—both good, and the remarkable story, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which is about a man aging backwards. (Never saw the movie version.) An idea everybody has had, and everyone who ever wrote fiction wanted to write—but it’s one of those things, when you sit down to do it—it’s way too overwhelming, I think. FSF pulls it off, somehow—it’s not a drag, which one might imagine—and it all seems to make sense, in a weird way, while also being hilarious. He’s like 70 when he’s born, and people just have to deal with it. As he gets progressively younger, you can imagine the difficulties and twists, but also the story presents you with a lot you didn’t think of. It’s about much more, of course, than the sci-fi spectacle of the premise, and it really quite soulful and melancholy. The reason I picked up this collection was because, in something I was writing, I made an oblique refence to “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” but realized I’d never read it, and wanted to make sure I wasn’t barking up the wrong tree or anything. So, it turns out this story is amazing, and I was compelled to listen to it several times. I should read it on paper, sometime. It's about a guy who visits his friend’s family home, out west, and it turns out they own land that’s actually a mountain-sized diamond. It’s absurd satire, of course, and delightful in its logic, and somewhat shocking. It’s naturally about wealth, power, America, capitalism, slavery, greed, etc., the outcome inevitable but also satisfying—and it’s, first of all, very, very funny.

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