The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Stories

Although this collection contains other short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I'm basing my rating solely on the main title short story of this anthology. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is wonderful and thought provoking and definitely shouldn't be missed. I did not realize until recently that it was a short story which motivated me to bump it up my list and read (I listened) to it sooner. Many times, I wish short stories elaborated more because I love great character and plot development, but I feel this was more about the concept of Benjamin living his life backwards than anything else. 4.5 stars.<br /><br />I didn't rate the other handful of short stories on here because they varied from me really liking them to scratching my head. Overall, they were an average 3 stars and didn't want to take the rating away from the main title. It was a quick 3 hour audiobook for all 5 stories.

A strong collection of short stories from F. Scott Fitzgerald. Oddly enough, I thought that Benjamin Button was the weakest of the bunch! It was interesting to see someone age in reverse but the story skipped over so much and although Button was a tragic character, he was also a dick so...you know.<br /><br />The Lost Decade was an interesting story about a person who (wait for it) was out of society for a decade for unknown reasons and what they missed.<br /><br />Bridal Party is kind of the anti-"The Graduate." A man thinks he can stop the wedding of a woman he loves. It doesn't go well.<br /><br />Three Hours Between Planes is my favorite of the bunch. A guy has (wait for it) three hours between planes so he looks up a girl he was obsessed with when he was 12 (he's now in his early 30s). She's married and he has never stopped being in love with her. This plays out with such brutal honesty it nearly broke my heart.<br /><br />Babylon Revisited was short and strange.<br /><br />All in all, a very strong collection indeed.

I'm not the biggest fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald but I also don't hate him. This audiobook is a collection of short stories he wrote. I've read these stories before but it's been a while so I thought it would be a good time to see if my opinions on the stories changed over the years. Turns out they have not; I would still rate Benjamin Button 4 stars and the rest of the stories 3 stars. The reason why this certain collection gets a 4 star rating is because of the narrators who read the stories. They MADE this audiobook experience wonderful and more intriguing than if I had just reread the stories in print. I'll definitely be keeping this audiobook in my collection.

I disliked "The Great Gatsby" when I read it in high school. As an adult, I tried to read it in paper, but couldn't get into it. I finally listened to it in audio. It was pretty awful, but he's held up as one of the great American authors. There must be some reason, so I thought I'd try some of his short stories. Overall, they were pretty good. They capture the height of the 1920s<br /><br /><b>Curious case of Benjamin Button </b>-- was a waste of time. The premise was ridiculous &amp; unbelievable. The characters were remote &amp; so barely sketched that I couldn't feel anything for them. The point was obvious &amp; unsurprising. I think I saw a film that I liked based on this &amp; the love interest is what made it so good, but very different than this short story. It's really bad when Hollywood does it better. 1 star<br /><br /><b>Babylon revisited</b>-- Wow! An extremely good look at excess, dissolution, &amp; what it costs when a person changes. I've done it in a different setting, but it's about the same &amp; he captured it really well. 5 stars<br /><br /><b>Three hours between planes</b> -- another really well done story about old memories &amp; meeting again. 4 stars<br /><br /><b>Bridal party</b> -- was a bit long for the payoff, but pretty good. Love is fickle &amp; weird. It's a great look at the period, too. 3 stars<br /><br /><b>Lost decade</b> -- was a bit too short &amp; didn't really make its point well for me, but now I know where Spider Robinson got the idea for his time travel story in <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/218677.Callahan_s_Crosstime_Saloon__Callahan_s__1_" title="Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (Callahan's #1) by Spider Robinson" rel="noopener">Callahan's Crosstime Saloon</a>. The latter had far more impact on me than this one. Part of that is because I was more in tune with the times, but Robinson also did the characters better. 3 stars<br /><br />Overall, worth reading since it was fairly short. Definitely worth reading if you skip the title story. Well narrated.

I love his prose. No one can place words together like him. Strangely enough I found Benjamin Button the least engaging, and I'm taking a star off the rating because of its inclusion. It's an interesting idea but Fitzgerald is not at his best when he attempts magical realism.<br /><br />The stories mostly follow Fitzgerald's well mined themes: the unattainable woman, regret about the past, and lost opportunities.

While I didn't like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" at all (what was the point of it?), I quite liked the other stories: "The Lost Decade," "Three Hours between Planes," "The Bridal Party," and "Babylon Revisited." "Babylon Revisited" is am amazingly poignant and beautifully-written account of a man who has been an alcoholic trying to get custody of his young daughter. I found the stories all very unique and memorable, a testament to Fitzgerald's narrative talent.

Short collection of short stories by Fitzgerald. If there's a common theme, besides dealing with the well-to-do of the time, they are about the past and how it can't be re-realized. My favorite of the bunch was "Three Hours Between Planes" because it dealt with how your memories of unrequited love might not be remembered in the same way by the object of your long-term longing. This felt the most personal of the bunch.

Strange plot but somehow it works! You have to tell yourself often though that this is a fantasy because it's a story that manipulate time: Benjamin ages in reverse.<br /><br />It's such a clever way to reflect how we build social norms around "age".<br />I can see that a lot of things have changes in a better way (e.g. we now see a 70 yr old lady attending university) but still Fitgerald's story about Benjamin Button is a classic that illustrate the way we relate to each other using age and physical appearance as a criteria. <br /><br />I like that the conversation between Benjamin's father and 70 yr old new born Benjamin finally shows that you can not treat an old man the same way as you treat a baby or a child. Yet people often say, old folk is like a kid all the time! Yes, it's true in many aspects of aging but "it's not always so"...so treat them and respect them even they might act like a child. They've been through this world before you. <br /> <br />By the way, Brad Pitt is to play Benjamin in the 2008 movie version.

Dora and I listened to the first story, Benjamin Button, on our way up to Wisconsin; it's only a little more than an hour long. We agreed it was interesting and enjoyable. The premise is pretty well known since the movie came out: it's about a guy who grows old backwards; that is, he's born an old man and as time progress he gets younger. I thought it was impressive how Fitzgerald managed to make this premise work, even though it's so absurd. It must have taken some doing, but he's a good writer. I listened to the remaining three or four stories on my own. They were interesting, too, and much more realistic. But they seemed <em>too</em> short to me, like extracts from longer works. I don't have much experience with short stories. Instead of having beginnings, middles, and ends, these stories seemed to just be middles -- or even parts of middles. Still, I enjoyed the pictures they painted of life in the early thirties.

A great collection of shorts by one of the most amazing writers of the twentieth century.<br /><br /><br /><br />"Babylon Revisited" is a story that delves into the life of a man that made the big bucks in the Jazz Age and how his life was affected by that "wealth". A beautiful, touching, and frustrating story. One of my favorite shorts of Fitzgerald.<br /><br /><br /><br />"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a fantastical short story that is an insightful view of the progress of life. The story is much different from the film that was based on it; I would recommend reading the story first.<br /><br /><br /><br />"Three Hours Between Planes" is a nostalgic short that leaves the reader crushed in a brilliant way.<br /><br /><br /><br />"The Bridal Party" was very similar to The Great Gatsby in many ways.