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because it was on one of the times I reread it in that first year, back in elementary school, that I was suddenly thunderstruck by the impossible existence of the sled at the end of book, that it just could not happen--that it meant Jonas and Gabriel had both died. The house was heaven I realized, but I knew that was not a happy ending, that Jonas' mission had failed and I was hammered by a more profound sadness than I think any book had ever evoked in me, at the tragedy of it all.

So I was relieved that although the film is marred by the schizophrenia of notes and it's own false happy ending, that it preserves that exact scene. that exact perfect ending of death in the snow, and the arrival at home (at heaven) that is tragic and beautiful all at once.

Of course the film has a lot of over explaining of its world, of the mechanisms of the mileau, of the specificity of Jonas' goals and the layering on of an additional component of 'rescuing' the whole community. A lot of that feels like a second writer to me, and of notes, the 'boundary of memory' is shoehorned in to add Griffith-esque tension to the ending, which is irritating, but well-enough pulled off as to not ruin the story. Because for all that this is not the book, well it's not the book, they expanded the story in ways that make sense for the screen, at the same time they are unnable to work within the stringent limitations of the community parameters, thus we have anachronistic slips, such as Meryl Streep saying 'a charade'. I don't think the story really needs a Pleasant-ville ending of restoration, I think it'd be far stronger without it. but I understand why it's there.

Because overall the film is beautifully acted, well paced, and actually in spite of the structural problems and combative voices of the writers and/or notes, the film is also very well written beautifully designed and decently photographed.

But there is a new thing that is niggling at me now, in revisiting a story I haven't read in fifteen years or more. and it gets at what the story accomplishes within our culture.

At it's most basic level, the story is something of an anti-communist parable. but it is far richer than that, as it uses this structure to explode and explore into tangible scenes the anxieties of youth and adolescence about impending adulthood and the untrustworthyness of authority--all mitigated by the lens of transforming the relationship of author and reader--the central metaphor of giver of memory and receiver of memory--into a sacred rite that passes on the secret knowledge of the world to the worthy and exceptional young one.

That sort of flattery of the audience is intoxicating, for all the profound literary effects the story had on me, it had them because of these mechanisms by which it persuades the audience of the special and exceptional qualities of themselves when they become Jonas in reading the book.

I find it so interesting now, that I had a youth in which I experienced only uplift and encouragement from the communities around me that nurtured and raised me, whether it was teachers, my family, or my parents, every community always encouraged advancement, inquisitiveness, going my own way. In many respects these groups were all strongly driven by exceptional women, though I did have some profoundly excellent male teachers in high school as well.

And yet the stories often encountered that I most attached to were always stories about the misunderstood brilliant young one suffering from the nefariousness of communities in trying to keep ME down, trying to force ME to not be an individual, to make ME to give up MY dreams. Although thankfully I never found Atlas Shrugged as a child nor teen, the books I was reading over and over again were all harping on the same persistent message and structure of protagonists as a JOHN GALT figure, brought down by the communities around the protagonists who were all suppressing his excellence and inherently not as awesome and special, and INDIVIDUAL as they were supposed to be.

I was raised in incredibly giving communities of support that encouraged individuality and achievement always and I was constantly seduced by stories of individuals in conflict with and contemptuous of their communities.

This in and of itself is not really a bad thing, I mean, I also watched professional wrestling semi-religiously for a year or two in junior high, there are phases of interest in our lives we all go through, when you're exiting childhood and entering adolescence, you're craving stories of individual achievement and it's damn hard to write such a story if the individual isn't on one's own and severed from a community and forced to do it themselves.

But the thing is, the message I internalized was not one of 'go achieve it you can do it!' the message I internalized was 'you cannot fail, you can only be failed by all those who are causing you to fail.' Instead of teaching me to critically think and problem solve and build relationships and communities and successes into a lifetime of achievement, these John Galt esque stories wound up teaching me to always outsource the responsibility (and blame) for not achieving what I wanted to at all times right now instantly.

And I think that's my ambivalence to this kind of story now, that in a way it promotes the thing I still struggle most with in my own life, the nexus of achievement or failure that seems to underwrite most of life, mundane or magnificent.