The Middle of the Journey

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I came to this novel after immersing myself in books about the Hiss-Chambers case. As part of my reading, I discovered that the famous literary critic Lionel Trilling had written a novel that had a character based on Whittaker Chambers. I was fascinated by the fact that Chambers was sufficiently well-known in literary circles to be the basis of a character in a novel. Equally fascinating, this book was written and published before Chambers came to national attention in the summer of 1947. Nonetheless, the character in The Middle of the Journey and the character disclosed in Chambers' biography “Witness” seem to be the same person.

In the 1975 preface, Trilling explains that his original plan was to write about death, but after his Chambers-based character the story took on a new direction. This division was clear to me. The first part of the book established the character of the narrator, John Laskell. Laskell is thirty-three years old and is vaguely associated with “planning.” He has written a book and recently survived a debilitating attack of Scarlet Fever that could have killed him. He had a lover who died of pneumonia a short time before.

I was reading this book as much, if not more, for historical flavor as for its literary qualities. The first thing I noticed was how easy it was to die in the 1930s. Back then, people - young people - died suddenly of diseases that we would cure with anti-biotics. I also wonder if Laskell's Scarlet Fever was a memory of a Scarlet Fever epidemic in the 1930s in New York. I remember my grandmother talking about how her young children survived Scarlet Fever, while other children died. This was also in New York in the 1930s.

Also, Laskell describes himself as old, and he seems old, but he's only 33. We consider 33 to still be young in our day and age.

Laskell leaves New York to spend the summer in the country with his friends, the Crooms. Arthur is a brilliant economist in his late 20s and Nancy is his 24 year old wife, and both are committed to Communism - the Party - although they are not actually members. Laskell is a liberal who admires the commitment of the Communists but is not willing to sign the party papers. Before he leaves New York, Laskell is visited by his friend, Maxim Gifford, a Communist party member who performs mysterious task for the party who Laskell admires for his commitment. Gifford, however, explains that he has broken with the Party and imposes on Laskell to connect him with an employer so he can live openly and establish an “existence.” Gifford fears that without an existence, the party may cause him to disappear. Laskell scoffs at this idea since the Party is composed of people who are admirably committed to revolution and improving society.

The first part of the book is really quite dreary. Mostly, we hear Laskell talk about his fear of death and how much he wants to share the experience of his near-death with others. He also watches the Crooms idealize a ne'er do well handyman named “Duck” and put down Duck's wife as being too much of a social climber for her efforts to read and discuss works of literature. Laskell is attracted to Duck's wife, Emily, and has a brief, improbable tryst with her.

Again, this is a fascinating historical-cultural study of life in the depression and the attitude of the intellectuals who actually existed and provided the seedbed for Communism and, eventually, the New Left. Trilling says that the Crooms were not based on the Hisses, that he did not know the Hisses, but it is fascinating that the Crooms would have such an unpleasant name so similar to the Hisses unpleasant name. Also, the Crooms and the Hisses seem to have been cut from the same mold of elite, intellectuals drawn to Communism because of its appeal to their romantic nature.

The book improves when Maxim Gifford returns. The book becomes by terms more philosophical and dramatic. The Crooms despise Gifford for betraying the Party. Gifford repeats his statement that the Party will murder him if it can. Laskell and the Crooms and Gifford's new boss, publisher Kermit Simpson, consistently refuse to comprehend that such nice people as Communists could actually kill anyone (although Laskell and Simpson - both liberals - eventually come to believe Gifford.) Gifford is by turns witty, intelligent and pretentious with what Laskell believes is religious mysticism. Much of the best and most philosophical dialogue is given to Gifford. Try this on for size:

““Let Nancy speak for herself, Arthur,” Maxim said peremptorily. “Nancy thinks he did something bad. That is the source of her dilemma. And she is right, deeply right. You are right, Nancy. For that man is bad, and everything he does is bad, even if he wants it to be good.”

“Oh, come, Giff!” said Kermit. “What is this, Calvinism?”

“His will is a bad one,” said Maxim, in answer to Kermit's expostulation, but addressing Nancy to confirm her in her perception. “His will is a bad one and what he does is bad.” Maxim spoke like a medical professor summarizing a case to the assembled students. “Nancy's dilemma is an inevitable one. She refuses to say that Caldwell has any responsibility, any blame or guilt. And then she refuses to allow him to come near her.” Nancy was both the case and the students. “Let me show you the advantage of my system, Nancy. You won't believe it, you won't agree, you won't even hear it, so there's no danger in listening.” He paused. “You see, Nancy,” he said, “I reverse your whole process. I believe that Duck Caldwell— like you or me or any of us— is wholly responsible for his acts. Wholly. And for eternity, for everlasting. That is what gives him value in my eyes— his eternal, everlasting responsibility. His every act, to me, involves the whole universe. And when it breaks the moral law of the whole universe, I consider that his punishment might be infinite, everlasting. And yet in my system there is one thing that yours lacks. In my system, although there is never-ending responsibility, there is such a thing as mercy.”

Maxim was not finished with what he had to say, but he paused here for a moment to let the world have it full weight. He went on. “Duck can be forgiven. I can personally forgive him because I believe God can forgive him. You see, I think his will is a bad one, but not much worse, not different in kind, from other wills. And so you and I stand opposed. For you— no responsibility for the individual, but no forgiveness. For me— ultimate, absolute responsibility for the individual, but mercy. Absolute responsibility: it is the only way that men can keep their value, can be thought of as other than mere things. Those matters that Arthur speaks of— social causes, environment, education— do you think they really make a difference between one human soul and another? In the eyes of God are such differences of any meaning at all? Can you suppose that they condition His mercy? Does He hold a Doctor of Philosophy more responsible than a Master of Arts, or a high school graduate more responsible than a man who has not finished the eighth grade? Or is His mercy less to one than another?”

Laskell offers the liberal's middle ground:

“He said, “Is it really a question, Kermit? I can't see it as a question, not really. An absolute freedom from responsibility— that much of a child none of us can be. An absolute responsibility— that much of a divine or metaphysical essence none of us is.”

If you have read Witness, you can see the parity of this dialogue in The Middle of the Journey and what Chambers says for himself in Witness. There is the same appeal to religious mercy in both. In a way, this corroboration implies that Chambers was providing a picture of himself that other people saw. Likewise, it is fascinating that Alistair Cooke describes the Chambers who testified in court as intelligent and witty, which is the same reputation that the fictional Chambers has in his alter ego Gifford in this book.

This is fascinating stuff in that the impression one gets from reading Witness and Cooke is that Chambers really wasn't well-known during his underground years. This would seem to be clearly false. In this book, Chambers' quirk of being the most public secret agent, who everyone knew was doing party duty, is skewered, but Gifford is respected by left-leaning intellectuals for his willingness to live the life that they only fantasize about.

There is also this bit of resonance between history and literature:

“above them subjectively.' I think that is verbatim. And in the logic of the situation— it is called the inexorable logic of the situation— you were drawn only to the ideational aspects of the movement, to the emotional superstructure of the movement, not to its base in reality. So much so, that when I made one single attempt to— as you say— draw you in, to involve you in the more practical aspects of the movement, I had no success whatever. I asked three of you— John Laskell and Arthur and yourself— to do a certain thing, to receive certain letters of great importance. You all three, every one of you, refused. And when I thought that perhaps I ought not take Arthur's refusal as valid for his wife, too, and asked you again, when you were alone, whether you would give me this help, you refused again.”

With his eyes on Nancy's face, Laskell saw that Maxim's odd point of honor had been communicated. He saw the puzzled, stopped look that Nancy wore as she understood what Maxim was saying to her, that he was telling her he would not even now betray her secret. She had opened her mouth to reply. She had been on the point of replying to this man she so hated. But he had stopped her, if only for this moment.”

In his biography, Chambers makes a point of describing how he would ask potential patsies to do relatively trivial things for him at first to test the level of their commitment to the Cause. He described how some refused to be a letter drop, for example. He also went to great lengths - such as committing perjury - to avoid implicating the people he dealt with as a Communist in espionage.

These passages echo that history. Nancy clearly involved herself in clandestine practices and had cause to fear and resent Gifford. He openly communicates to her that he will protect her by lying.

Again, this passage was written before Chambers actually perjured himself to hold back information from the Grand Jury that Alger Hiss was a spy. Apparently, though, Chambers must have gone through this exercise - or had a character such that people believed he would - before the Hiss episode.

It is amazing that Trilling was such a keen observer of his society that he could anticipate events that would soon transpire. Perhaps a better way of putting it is that “there are no secrets.” It wasn't just Hiss who was implicated, but many others. People in Trilling's social circles knew the implications of Chambers' departure from Communism and his embrace of religion during the period from 1939 to 1947. Perhaps they were just waiting for the shoe to drop.

As literature, I am not sure how this book fares. I liked it, but I liked it a lot better after the focus was moved from the gloomy Laskell to the sparkling and eccentric Gifford. I particularly liked it as a history piece that sheds some light on a time not so far away.