LEWIS P. SIMPSON
25
tells himself, that the breach exists, somewhat enigmatically imply–
ing that when, under compulsion of the "liberal-democratic ideal,"
the writer attempts to join imagination and action he contributes to
the "spiritual collapse" of his age.
At this point Trilling was engaged with two books. One, a crit–
ical work, was to give him fame; the other, a work of the imagina–
tion, was to give him some credibility as a novelist but would likely
have been little noticed save that it was taken to have been written
by the critic, and is an expose of the fallacy of his commitment to the
radical politics of the 1930s. But intended by its author to be a "work
of the imagination,"
The Middle of the Journey
is at once more than
an expose, and less than a work of the imagination. Both works–
The Liberal Imagination
and
The Middle
of
the Journey
-
are, it seems to
me, fundamentally devoted to the same theme, which may be summed
up as the illusion of a "continuity between imagination and action,"
and both seek the true relationship between criticism and fiction, or
between ideas and poetry.
How much and at what depth the problem of the relationship
between imagination and action preoccupied Trilling in the period
from the middle 1940s to the 1950s - how it was a question that now
presented itself to him as a most urgent crisis of vocation - cannot be
dealt with fully here. But
I
think that the nature of Trilling's "career
crisis" is presented in what may be the most intensely personal, the
most dramatic, and it may be the most enigmatic, passage in the
published notebook selections . This entry was made in 1946 .
. . . I
meant to write here a note that
I
had just got over a period
of abt. 6-8 weeks of insatiable desire for praise
&
notice–
nothing satisfied and the more
I
got the more
I
wanted - grew by
what it fed on -
I
had to make conscious effort to check this
&
not
allow it to be publicly seen - I would
court
affirmation and flat–
tery-also about this time a period of terrible sleeping,
in
which
consciousness seemed increased in sleep
&
nightly problems
were presented to me which
had
to be solved - I could see-smell–
feel the aura of philosophy-the classroomy, textbooky aura of
abstraction, terribly engaging, terribly repelling-life depended
on solving the abstract problems presented to me - I wId wake
with a hideous sense of desolation and loss - absolutely hopeless
- dominant in my thoughts the desire for children - one night
near the end of this period a great sense of being on the point of
connection
-
th<il connection between 2 things never before con–
nected, which if reconciled would be of incalculable good - it all
