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The Middle of the Journey (The works of Lionel Trilling)

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The Middle of the Journey (published 1947) is a NYRB classic which I finished reading some time ago but have only gotten around to reviewing now for reasons which will probably become evident. I have long been aware of Trilling's essays on literature, particularly his take on Henry James, and was not surprised to find out that Trilling's novel is very Jamesian in its psychological detail and fine probing of character, motivation, and action. I suspect that this sort of narrative complexity may be enough to kill the pleasure for a reader wanting something to take to the beach.

Having said that there is one sex scene and one scene of violence in the book, but Trilling's carefully marinated prose shows that sex and violence take place in a person's mind long before the acts happen. Trilling shows us what happens when four East Coast intellectuals--who espouse communist, socialist, or progressive and liberal ideas--meet for a summer month in the Connecticut countryside. (Note that at the time of publication in 1947, Trilling claimed that none of his characters drew upon any living person; later, Trilling confessed otherwise.)

The Middle of the Journey shows the development of the lives of people we ought to care about: sensitive, intelligent "knowledge workers" who have the power and ability to use their brains toward the good of the nation and to benefit marginalized people. But these literati and intelligentsia are human, and they have typical weaknesses: difficulties recognizing their own emotions, particularly when they are vulnerable to fear and delusion, and they have difficulties communicating with working-class, provincial people (the very ones they intend to help).

The central consciousness through which the reader perceives events is John Laskell, a 33-year old economics professor (if I recall), who is in the process of recovering from a near-fatal case of scarlet fever. Regarding the craft of writing, Trilling created Laskell to be the best moral compass for this novel for many reasons: Laskell is a liberal thinker who wants his life work to benefit the working poor at the same time he has a conflicted relationship to the United States Communist Party, which was still believed to be the best hope for the oppressed. The book opens while Laskell is boarding a train for the countryside, to the home of his friends, the Crooms, to recover from his near-death illness. After a close brush with the complex Maxim Gifford, Laskell waits in the destination train station for the Crooms to pick him up. Laskell begins to ponder why his friends are late to meet him, and thus begin the reader's suspicions as well. Laskell is also trying to find out what "recovery" means, recovery from his brush with death: "The vertigo of fear began in his stomach and rose in a spiral to his brain. He did not know what he was afraid of. He was not terrified by anything, he was just in terror" (10). Trilling continues, "Laskell sat there, sweating and trembling, but able now to find a difference between his mind and his terror. Then he was able to look at the fear with a curiosity that was horrified but nevertheless an act of intelligence, and then able to think about the incongruity of this happening to him, a man so much in control of his life" (11). Clearly, Trilling's protagonist is a man who, though thrown off his feet by life, will eventually right himself.

Laskell's bout with scarlet fever, and the recent, tragic death of the woman he loved and expected to marry (before the novel begins), have brought him to a point in his life where he must re-construct his future. The hope the Crooms have for their future is characterized by their young son, Micky, and their remodeling of an old country house, but all is not well in the countryside. Eventually, these friends--and the intriguing Communist Party insider Max Gifford--will come to see each other as potentially dangerous. When the summer is over, nothing will ever be as it was.

I should draw this review to a close, but let me say that Trilling's way of writing is haunting: exact word choices describe the interior consciousness of complex people while also describing the 1940s: "The picture of the world that presented itself to his mind was of a great sea of misery, actual or to come," Laskell mused, "He did not think of it as forces in struggle" (40). Trilling's insights--which can come only from a habit of getting to the bottom of things--give texture and sensory palpability to his characters' lives.

If The Middle of the Journey were made into a film, it should be as spare and elegant as _Good Night, and Good Luck_. While Edward R. Murrow butted heads with McCarthy, the academic class was waging a much quieter but no less crucial battle. The cover of the NYRB edition is a detail from a painting by Milton Avery, and is just as subtle as Trilling's prose: a sand dune running up against a dark green line of trees against a cloudless cobalt blue sky.

A neglected semi-classic, Lionel Trilling's only novel is less of a traditional story and more an inspection of liberalism's purpose and effect outside of narrow intellectual circles in 1930's New York. The actual story line, a summer vacation for a man coming to terms with life, death, and his philosophy, is the catalyst for intellectual introspection as opposed to the underlying purpose of the novel.

In the story, John Laskell is a New York intellectual who takes a summer vacation in New England after emotional and physical devastation (his lover died and he later contracted scarlet fever). Invited to the country by two people from his circle, Arthur and Nancy Croom, he boards with a local family and gradually moves from pastoral observer to active participant in the rural life of New England. Throughout the summer, he slowly overcomes a small portion of his initial arrogance and allows himself to become involved with various locals. Most notable are his foil Duck Caldwell, Duck's wife and daughter, his hosts the Folgers, and the Folger's aristocratic and feudal benefactor, Julia Walker. These continued involvements force him out of some long-held beliefs and a final, unexpected tragedy forces Laskell to break with his earlier philosophies and, consequently, his inner circle of friends. Aiding in this change is Gifford Maxim, a mutual acquaintance of Laskell and the Crooms, whose earlier break with the Communist Party and subsequent religious fervor places an additional strain on the relationship between Laskell, his friends, and his ideas. (It is important to note that the Communist Party held a certain sway amongst intellectuals in the 1930's and 1940's that did not fully diminish until Stalin's atrocities became irrefutable.)

The pace of the novel is extraordinarily slow at first. In early chapters, Laskell's every word is excruciatingly planned and subsequently reviewed for appropriateness, potential misperception, and consistency with his stated philosophies. As he moves away from constant introspection and towards a gradual embrace of the simpler things in life, the pace quickens and begins to approximate a traditional novel until the climax moves us violently out of the intellectual world and into a much more humane realm. Through it all, Laskell's painstaking inspection of each word in each exchange stands in stark contrast to Duck, a man who Laskell holds in cautious contempt but whose actions he follows almost without realizing (specifically, Duck's philosophy on sexual relations).

One of the book's chief arguments is whether or not an intellectual should hold true to an idea no matter the cost. I personally do not believe that betrayal of an idea is morally repugnant, but this is obviously the position of the Crooms. It is also the key struggle for Arthur throughout the novel as he considers both Maxim's break with the Communist Party and his own break with long-held ideals. An interesting idea hinted at by Maxim's conversion is the inability of the liberal elite in the 1930's to understand that ideas are not people and, therefore, not sacred - whereas people can be forgiven, it is not necessary for people to seek forgiveness from an idea. This is the idea that serves as the heart of the novel's dénouement.

The latter half of the book offers an excellent quote on Nancy Croom's personality: "He had seen in Nancy a passion of the mind and will so pure that, as it swept through her, she could not believe that anything that opposed it required consideration." That sentence is easily applied to any number of people and pundits these days, be it on the right or the left, and all would be well-served to read The Middle Journey to understand how little progress has actually been made in our political and philosophical flexibility in the past 80 years.

Trillings sole novel is an adequate telling of the delusion of Communist leaning intellectuals in the light of Stalin's excesses. While "Darkness at Noon" hit home with those in the midst of Stalinism, "The Middle of the Journey" resonates more closely with those on the outside, looking in.
This book may not be quite on par with classics of the Stalinist era, but is worth a read.

A novel with a political point that is a good read, and that avoids being didactic or preachy. That many liberal intellectuals, writers, and artists in the 1930s allowed themselves to be beguiled by the profoundly illiberal Great Experiment of Communism is well known. Lionel Trilling was a prominent literary critic based at Columbia University who was a liberal, but who also managed to remain skeptical about Stalin's paradise. That stance put him out of step (to use Sidney Hook's phrase) with very many of his colleagues and fellow members of the New York intellectual and artistic communities. This novel is built around the political, intellectual, and moral conflicts of those times, with one of the main characters based on Whittaker Chambers. Trilling's own views are pretty well represented by these three quotes from the book:

"Nancy's feeling was not about conforming or not conforming, not about freedom or submission. It was a feeling about human nature, a profound dissatisfaction with the way human beings had ever been..."

"And never has there been so much talk of liberty while the chains are being forged. Democracy and freedom And in the the most secret heart of every intellectual, where he scarcely knows of it himself, there lies hidden the real hope that these words hide. It is the hope of power, the desire to bring his ideas to reality by imposing them on his fellow man."

"You believed me when I brought you good news of it. Now that I bring you bad news of it, you not only will not listen to me, but you fear me and call me names. I am sure you will say that I have no proof. But I had no proof before. You believe as you want to believe."

Nicely done, with a good deal of subtlety, and without spitefulness or malice in any direction. Everybody had their reasons and ideals, after all, misplaced as some of those turned out to be.

Lionel Trilling only published one novel but he was an esteemed literary critic at Columbia University. That should not limit the work since others such as Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)only published a novel once. Having read Witness by Whitaker Chambers many years ago, I was impressed with his depth in explaining how he broke with communism. I was pleasantly surprised how Trilling, who knew Chambers and made the story about him, could put a hint of that depth buried in the dialogues among Gifford Maxim (Chambers), the Crooms (possibly Alger Hiss and Spouse), and other neighbors who were either socialists, Communists or fellow travelers, in a short summer interlude with the pivotal character John Laskell, a grieving, life threatened by illness but surviving communist sympathizer who could not ever grasp what he believed. The scene takes place over a few weeks in a country area of Connecticut and reveals a great deal of the attitudes of communist sympathizers in the late 1930's before the horrors of Stalin were known. It is easy to understand how the desire for equal treatment for unequals during the depression could have blinded one to those realities with an idealistic world view and that pattern persists even today among secular progressives. The novel was a bit tedious more in the Hemingway rather bthan LeCarre style but ok.