The Curious Case of The Confessions of Max Tivoli
Posted by: Keir Graff
I’m sure I’m not the only person to notice this, but I just stumbled across our review of Andrew Sean Greer’s The Confessions of Max Tivoli (2004):
Max is one of the most unusual people one could ever meet, even in a novel. He ages backward. Mentally and emotionally, he progresses as do other children. Physically, however, he is born quite old and gets younger every year. Should he live long enough naturally, he will become a baby and die.
It sounds an awful lot like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Oscar-nominated short story, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” (Which, incidentally, you can read in in 11 easy installments by subscribing to DailyLit.)
February 24th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I confess to having been unaware of Fitzgerald’s story when I read “The Confessions of Max Tivoli.” I will read the Fitzgerald, and see the film sometime to compare. I really loved Greer’s book, even if I now know that its device is not an original one.