Book review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

So as part of my schools compulsory summer reading I decided to read this book. It's quite a short read (it's only 50 pages long) And there is a movie based on the book!

Today, F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for his novels, but in his lifetime, his fame stemmed from his prolific achievement as one of America's most gifted story writers. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," a witty and fantastical satire about aging, is one of his most memorable stories. 

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 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

To be honest I expected a little more from this novella.. It has such a great hook but it didn't follow through. The beginning  of the story itself is quite intriguing and you can easily tell that Benjamin Button is very similar to his father Thomas Button. They are both stuck up and self absorbed. The same characteristics are passed down to Benjamin's son. So overall the character's personalities were quite homogenous in my opinion.  I also felt that there were too many characters for a 50 page novella. There were too little words/scenes/descriptions given to each character. One other thing is that all of the characters were very pompous, or rather quite conceited. I think that F. Scott Fitzgerald chooses to portray the majority of a novels characters with one common trait. True my hypothesis is purely based on two of his novels and may not continue throughout all of them but it's food for thought. 

Even though the hook of the novella is well beyond its years, the actual medical reasoning was not explored at all. True it would be quite difficult to explain it but none the less some attempt should have been made. I feel that Fitzgerald just ignored the medical aspect. It is quite impossible to expect a mother to carry a fully grown man in her womb for 9 months and then give birth to him, all whilst he is conscious and has the mental capability to comprehend what is happening. 

I also felt that Fitzgerald's writing style for this novella is not at par to that of The Great Gatsby, but this was published before. The words in The Great Gatsby were put together to mean much more than what they were simply stating. Please don't misunderstand that I'm saying that his style in The Great Gatsby was better than in this novel because I'm not. The wordplay and various quotes in the novel were, well I wouldn't say better but they were different in the sense that this novella has much less romanticism and portrays a different side to the upper class society than that of The Great Gatsby. But it is also the change in Fitzgerald's style that makes the novella interesting. The entire novella was more of a tell instead of a show if you understand? (I'm not sure you will) Basically the plot and the dialogue was quite simple, and in it's simplicity the readers are open to think about what is happening to Benjamin and just process and appreciate the story more.

At first when I finished reading it I thought it was quite a plain novel with a wonderful hook. But I was quite disappointed that it wasn't as similar to The Great Gatsby and that Fitzgerald produced something like this. I had different standards of him and his novels (Probably because I read Gatsby first). But after some time you realise that there is much more to the novella that meets the eye. And I also liked change from The Great Gatsby, it allows the two novels to co-exist without being replicas of each other and it also shows a different side to Fitzgerald's writing. The thing is that people living in the early 20th century would probably not have the same opinion as me, they might have read this book, they might not have but I think they would understand that Fitzgerald had more time to develop and grow as a writer between the two books. That is also the main reason I prefer The Great Gatsby to this novella. 

All in all I would still recommend you read it, it's still a better than mediocre novella even with it's shortcomings. 

That's all for now, more book reviews will be coming shortly!