The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the movie, as most people know, is based upon a short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not one of his best, Fitzgerald’s story is relatively brief, a rather obvious playing-out of what he must have considered a clever idea — a life lived backwards. It’s written in the same fabulist mode in which he wrote several other stories. Two of them, “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” and “Oh, Russet Witch,” are two of my favorite short stories of all time.“The Diamond as Big as a Ritz” is the story of John T. Unger’s vacation visit to his schoolmate Percy Washington’s home in Montana. The boy’s family is enormously rich. With great visual vitality, the story describes a kind of opulence that even today seems over the top.

There was a white-haired man who stood drinking a many-hued cordial from a crystal thimble set on a golden stem. There was a girl with a flowery face, dressed like Titania with braided sapphires in her hair. There was a room where the solid, soft gold of the walls yielded to the pressure of his hand, and a room that was like a platonic conception of the ultimate prison — ceiling, floor, and all, it was lined with an unbroken mass of diamonds, diamonds of every size and shape, until, lit with tall violet lamps in the corners, it dazzled the eyes with a whiteness that could be compared only with itself, beyond human wish or dream.

But there’s a dark secret behind all this wealth, which Unger discovers when he comes across an imprisoned pilot. The story unfolds like a Spielberg movie, complete with the perfect girl and a great escape. All of it is great fun, but with an allegorical undercurrent that makes it more than an entertaining “read.” It’s surprising no movie’s ever been made from this gem of a story.

“Oh, Russet Witch,” is the story of Merlin Grainger, a lowly assistant in a New York bookstore. One day a beautiful redhead comes in and, as Merlin’s boss cowers in the back, proceeds to trash the bookstore. At the young woman’s invitation, Merlin joins in the melee.

In a perfect orgy of energy they were hurling book after book in all directions, until sometimes three or four were in the air at once, smashing against the shelves, cracking the glass of pictures on the walls, falling in bruised and torn heaps upon the floor. It was fortunate that no customers happened to come in, for it is certain they would never have come in again — the noise was too tremendous, a noise of smashing and ripping and tearing, mixed now and then with the tinkling of glass, the quick breathing of the two throwers, and the intermittent outbursts of laughter to which both of them periodically surrendered.

As you can see, there’s more than book-throwing going on here. So, who is this wild beauty and what’s her problem? The story recounts several other altercations, just as mysterious, that take place over the years, each time leaving the assistant in awe, and ever more in love, with the beautiful woman. Merlin’s wasted life is revealed when they meet one last time, when both are old, and the story comes together like a string-drawn purse.

Of course, Fitzgerald was a master of the short story. His primary subject — in great stories like “The Rich Boy,” “The Ice Palace,” “Winter Dreams,” and “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” — was the love lives of wealthy young men and women of the 20’s and 30’s, the Jazz Age. Later in his career, which suffered from his severe alcoholism, stories such as “Babylon Revisited” took a dark, backward glance at that raucous era. Fitzgerald’s stories are found in numerous collections, including the The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I recommend highly, and you’ll find “Oh, Russet Witch” in Six Tales of the Jazz Age and Other Stories, which also includes the Benjamin Button story.

Other recommended works: Tender is the Night, The Great Gatsby (of course), and The Basil and Josephine Stories.

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Christopher Guerin

Christopher Guerin is the author of two books each of poetry and short fiction, a novel, and more than a dozen children’s books. If he hadn’t spent 26 years as an arts administrator, including 20 years as President of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, perhaps he’d have worked a little harder getting them published. His consolation resides in his fiction and poems having been published in numerous small magazines, including Rosebud, AURA, Williams and Mary Review, Midwest Quarterly, Wittenberg Review, RE: Artes Liberales, DEROS, Wind, and Wind less Orchard. His blog, Zealotry of Guerin, features his fiction and poetry, including his sonnet sequence of poems after paintings, “Brushwork." He is the V.P. of Corporate Communications at Sweetwater Sound, Inc., the national music instrument retailer.

Latest posts by Christopher Guerin (Posts)

• A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (Seurat) - August 3, 2013
• Hyde Mill (Sandy Ellarson) - July 27, 2013
• Hands and Feet (Alice Bea Guerin) - July 20, 2013
• Cafe Terrace at Night (Van Gogh) - July 13, 2013
• Winter Landscape (Sesshu) - July 6, 2013

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