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PARTISAN REVIEW
tha t p ass ion ate revulsion from the experi en ce o f Stalinism tha t can
create ano ther kind o f distorti on . His view h as the disadvantages as
well as the advantages o f distan ce, but his study succeeds in tou ching
upon mos t o f the important issu es in Trilling's wo rk in a way that
en abl es the reader to advan ce and complicate the discuss ion .
The first three ch apters o f the book attempt to place Trilling in his
histo ri cal context, particul arl y in his rela tion to politi cs and his J ewish
identity. I will return to them la ter , but I want to begin by address ing
m yself to Chace's first con sidera tion of a m ajo r work by T rilling, the
novel
Th e M iddle of the Jou rney
(1 947), publish ed eight years a fter the
book on Ma tthew Arno ld.
The po liti cal center o f the n ovel is th e libera ls' exp eri en ce of
Sta linism in the thirti es and fo rti es . Trilling was no t alon e among his
contemporaries in his repudia ti on o f Stalinism , but h e h ad p erhaps a
deep er understanding of the pro blem ati c ch arac ter of a ltern atives to the
Sta linist temptation (it was no t call ed Stalinism by fellow traveling
liberals until the Khru sch ev R epo rt o f \956) than his cont emporaries.
Aga inst the two abso lutism s in
Th e Middle of the Journey,
one
incarnated by the p assion a te commitment to communism (i.e., Sta lin–
ism ) o f Nancy Crooms and the o ther by the fan a ti cal, though deepl y
m editated Christi anized anti communi sm o f Gifford Maxim, Trilling
posed the liberal sen sibility of J ohn Las kel l. T rilling dem ys tified the
anger of the two fan a tics in a way which clearl y sugges ts the superior–
ity of the liberal idea.
" It
was th e anger o f the m asked w ill a t the
appearan ce of an idea in modul a tion. " But the burden o f the no vel
strongly qualifies the sense o f superiority, for if the libera l resists
ideologizing his anticommunism (n o t wanting to becom e a distorted
mirro r image o f his adversary) h e rem ains insufficient in ch aracter a nd
doctrine. Chace acutely, if no t w ith entire accuracy, n o tes T rilling's
modula ted respon se to " the idea in modul ation ":
The " liberalism" of this novel, then , is at bes t a piety. Precariously
main tained, and made uneasy in the presence of another force that
mixes il1lelligence, aggress iveness, and a strange honor in shrewd
proportions, it exists onl y to be threa tened.
It
finds its solace in
refl ection upon death , and with death in mind it judges the effu sions
of po litical pass ion stridentl y surrounding it. T rilling's loyalty
to
such liberalism is odd and diffident. Perhaps the nature of that
loyalty is one sign of the malaise and discomforts of politica l
engagemel1l in the 1940's in the United States . That so important a
university il1lellectual in that "haunted" pos twar time could put
forward as a protagonist such a figure as John Laskell , and yet offer
him such frail support in his contes ts of mind and will , revea ls that
even the more skeptical forms of liberalism had been placed under
great stress. Liberalism in that time was provisional and wary.
