Witness

Rating:
Summary: Great Book By A Prime Grade A Large ...
Review: Though over-flowery at times, this is a great book written by one of the most prominent ... of the 20th century -- a fellow from a fouled-up family who accordingly developed his own severe personality impairments. He appeared to constantly seek some force other than himself for improving his life -- such as communism then mysticism -- and seemed to believe we should all spend our lives tilling carrots in a truck patch.

His quote, "Anyone can commit a murder, but it takes an artist to commit a good natural death" was significantly relevant to communism, one of the most effective ways-of-death that civilization has ever formulated.

This is an important book, by an extremely pitiful individual.

Rating:
Summary: Dostoevsky & Malcolm X Would Have Loved It; So Will You
Review: Two things may strike anyone who delves into this masterpiece for the first time: the Dostoevskian nature of Chambers' life, almost an exact parallel of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (ideological sin, conspiracy, facing the law, and finally, redemption); and the uncanny way in which Chambers' life resembled that of Malcolm X. Both men were captured by an extreme ideology, and both came to renounce it--experiencing great inward suffering and the ostracism of their friends as a result. (Just as was the case with Dostoevsky as well.) Chambers and Malcolm wrote moving and deeply-felt autobiographies; Dostoevsky put these experiences into novels instead. Both Dostoevsky and Malcolm X would have seen Chambers as a kindred spirit.

One is also also struck by the empathy Chambers feels for the members of his Communist cell. His testimony that he denounced them with remorse and pity was not mere cant; it is obvious throught his book. At several places he comments on their compassion and sense of humanity. He sees Communism as a mass movement that one simply gets caught up in, not realizing the consequences. In Chambers' eyes, it is Communism that is evil, not individual Communists. His charitable treatment of his ideological enemies makes a refreshing contrast to the tactic that is ubiquitous today among the intelligentsia--to engage in ad hominem attacks in place of arguments. Opponents cannot have reached their conclusions by conviction; they simply "represent" or are "apologizing for" capitalism, racism, or other "mean-spirited" institutions. In WITNESS you will find an answer to this dishonest self-righteousness; one that will stand for all time--the story of a man who, on his own, painfully threw off the ideology that had once meant everything to him, simply because he arrived at a different and very heartfelt conviction--for which he suffered and sacrificed everything. One need not agree with Chambers' religiosity to see, as he saw, Communism's monstrous evil.

He seems to have made one error, when he said that he was leaving the winning side (Communism) for the losing side (the West). He could not have foreseen the collapse of Commuunism in 1991. But was this really an error? Could a Marxist government ever seize power in a major nation again, as in 1917? My answer would be yes, if there is some crisis, such as a war or a depression, that would allow it to succeed. Chambers wrote that Communism simply worships man instead of God, and therefore sees all things as possible--not in the hereafter, but in this world. (Hence, Marx's dictum that it is necessary to change the world.) I would disagree with Chambers on this point. Marxism exists--and may reassert itself--because there will ALWAYS be those who NEED to keep a utopian dream in their pocket. Why? Because they cannot accept reality and their role in it, holding themselves to blame for every evil. If you want to dissuade Marxists, the strategy is not to try to persuade them that religion or capitalism are good, but that they themselves are not evil, "privileged" people who are partially to blame for all the world's ills.

Posterity may very well hold WITNESS and Malcolm X's autobiography as the two greatest autobiographies of the 20th century. Don't miss out on reading this one.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most important books of our time
Review: When Ronald Reagan was asked by a reporter what the most important book that he ever read was he answered without hesitation "The Witness, by Wittaker Chambers". The book has influenced the lives of many including my own. Wittaker gives a very honest veiw of himself, what influenced him towards communism, and then what drove him away. The book is not all about the Alger Hiss case, it does however give Wittakers point of view on this. Of course today it is well known since the declassification of the VENONA papers that Alger Hiss was indeed a communist spy. This book comes very highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: psychotic masterpiece
Review: Whittaker Chambers is my hero in life. I have come to believe that he was deranged, delusional, and that Alger Hiss was innocent, but still Chambers represents to me the triumph of the misfit.

Apparently this book is replete with falsehoods. Still, Chambers' style of self-expression really latches on to you. He was a genius in a bizarre, unproductive sort of way. It amazes me that this guy was able to hold a high-level editor position at "Life." Nowadays, he wouldn't rise above the mail room.

Reading of his strange, tortured oddesey through life has often given me hope when things looked bleak. I look forward to meeting Mr. Chambers in heaven.

Rating:
Summary: Whittaker Chambers is not a Conservative
Review: Whittaker Chambers may have left the Communist Party, but all he did was remake his collectivist delusions around something else. He is about as far away from Ron Reagan as you can get. If you read Chambers you might as well read Stalin because there isn't a lot of difference between their thinking.

Rating:
Summary: Yikes.
Review: Whittaker Chambers' self-aggrandizing, self-indulgent, and self-pitying tome of a memoir. I read it because of the recent resurgence of interest in the Alger Hiss case, but I think I wasted my time. The book is so long and detailed that one has to be seriously attracted to the issue (i.e. writing about it) to profit from reading the book. Even worse, Chambers' Manichaean and simplistic ideology (freedom loving Christians versus Satanic communists), which is ubiquitous throughout the book, is boring and uninteresting--so much so that he doesn't even infuriate me when he cavalierly shrugs off the idea that the House Un-American Activities Committee was unethical or scapegoating innocent people--as he says, "I was even less impressed by such shrieks of outraged innocence uttered by some of the Committee's witnesses as sometimes reached my ears. Experience had taught me that innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does." It's great that Chambers takes joy in talking about virtuous Congressman Richard Nixon triumphing in this sinful world, but it definitely doesn't lead to a particularly nuanced or satisfying account.

Rating:
Summary: Infinitely more than a mere polemic
Review: Whittaker Chambers, one of the enigmas of the American 1940s and 1950s, has written not only a compelling representation of his experiences with the American Communist Party, but an intimate narrative of his family and spiritual life. He was an intellectual giant whose contributions went largely unheralded and in fact reviled, even to this day.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and still relevant
Review: WITNESS had been on my shelf for years, but after reading TREASON by Coulter, I finally started to read. I can now understand why some consider this the best book they have ever read. I found it relevant to and descriptive of our present time. Versions of "fellow-travelers" still abound. Those wanting to change America to something no longer described as the "land of the free" remain influential. The response to Mr. Chambers and his charges among the elite media and those in government and academia will sound very familiar to our time. .

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and still relevant
Review: WITNESS had been on my shelf for years, but after reading TREASON by Coulter, I finally started to read. I can now understand why some consider this the best book they have ever read. I found it relevant to and descriptive of our present time. Versions of "fellow-travelers" still abound. Those wanting to change America to something no longer described as the "land of the free" remain influential. The response to Mr. Chambers and his charges among the elite media and those in government and academia will sound very familiar to our time. .