J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [146]
Exactly how Salinger felt about his new life can be gauged through a story that Claire’s half brother relayed to Time magazine reporters in 1961. “He wanted to be self-sufficient,” Douglas commented. “He had this vegetable garden, and Maxwell and all the others would send him things to grow. It was a primitive sort of life—you could call it Zen or whatever you like.” When Salinger took Gavin on a tour of the property shortly after the wedding, he pointed out an abandoned barn. “They’re gone,” Salinger said of the previous owners. “They couldn’t make it. But I’m here now. And I’m going to make the land profitable.” In an exceptional moment of perception, Claire’s brother interpreted Salinger’s declaration as “an affirmation … a statement of belief in humanity.”2 Indeed, Salinger seemed to thrive in his new life. When his friend the author S. J. Perelman visited the newlyweds that June, he remarked on the positive effect the marriage and lifestyle had had upon Salinger.* “Jerry, in all justice, looked better than I’ve ever seen him,” he told Leila Hadley, “so evidently he’s flourishing under matrimony or over it.”3
Yet the cottage at Cornish bore two faces, each reflecting a mood of the couple’s life there. The face that overlooked the sloping meadow with its spectacular view of the Connecticut River Valley was bright and indeed “sunny as hell.” But the cottage was also enveloped by dense New Hampshire woodlands, a face of Salinger’s reality that was veiled in shadows.
From the start Salinger worried that Claire would be unable to adapt to the solitude and simplicity of life at Cornish. Her life had thus far been a turmoil of constant movement, and she had always been surrounded by people. She had grown up in a family of intellectuals with homes throughout the world, a rarefied aristocracy that exuded wealth and position. Like Oona O’Neill before her, she might have been comfortable in the company of wealthy socialites, but the life of a New England farmer was something foreign to her.
During their engagement the couple had spent much of their time traveling, as if Salinger were staving off Claire’s reaction to the austerity that awaited her. They had frequently visited New York, where they had stayed with Salinger’s parents and Claire had been introduced to his professional family at The New Yorker. Salinger had also taken her to the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center around the corner from his parents’ apartment. Claire fell in love with the center, as Salinger had hoped she would, but whether or not she could sustain a life of pious simplicity in rural New England was a question that time alone would answer.
The relationship began to falter almost immediately. Within a month of their marriage, Claire apparently began to reexamine her idealistic view of Salinger’s Vedantic faith—just as Salinger himself was becoming increasingly immersed in it. Inspired by their readings of The Autobiography of a Yogi during their engagement, the couple had written to the book’s publisher, the Self-Realization Fellowship, inquiring where they could find a teacher who might guide them in further studies. In response the fellowship suggested that they visit the guru Swami Premananda, who maintained a temple at College Park, Maryland. In March 1955, they boarded a train bound for Washington, D.C., to meet with Premananda.
Aside from her studies alone with Salinger, Claire’s previous experience with Vedantic philosophy had been limited to her visits to the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center in New York City. Well funded and located in a brownstone in an upscale neighborhood, the center had entranced with its luxurious atmosphere and exotic decor. The temple in Maryland was a different story: an insignificant redbrick storefront situated