The curious discussion of Benjamin Button

When a film version of a book comes over the horizon, I often hurry to read the book before the temptation to, say, see Brad Pitt riding a vintage motorcycle gets too much. In the case of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," I was in luck -- it's based on an easy-to-finish short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, online here at Project Gutenberg with the rest of "Tales of the Jazz Age" and here on its own. A few bloggers generously agreed to talk to me about what they thought of the story, and their expectations for the movie. That discussion will appear here over the next two days, a  kind of literary break from your Christmas madness. Please chime in.

Our bloggers:

John Fox of Bookfox, who has been focusing on short stories this year.

David Gutowski, who blogs about music and books at Largehearted Boy.

Baby Got Books' pseudonymous blogger Shaft.

Amy Shearn, whose debut novel "How Far Is the Ocean From Here" was published by Random House earlier this year. She blogs at Moonlight Ambulette.

And me, Carolyn Kellogg, lead blogger at Jacket Copy.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Comments

[Rachel]

Why?: Movies based on literary works aren't exact copies. This seems a rather pointless exercise, unless you can get the screenwriter involved. Random expectations for a film from people not knowledgeable about how stories are adapted is sort of wanking.