In the story, the protagonist was born in 1860. He is a tall, bearded old man who everyone treats like a toddler. He is not thrown into a shelter, he lives with his family and eventually inherits the business of his father, a hardware merchant. He also gets younger with age, goes to Harvard in mid-life, and then dies in infancy. Fincher used the main idea, but added his interpretation, new characters, his own explanation of the ending. He "wove" the plot with a deep philosophical meaning.