Multicultural Book Review: Amish

Genre:  Fiction

Culture:  Amish

Book:  Payne, Holly.  (2009). Kingdom of Simplicity.  Sausalito, CA:  Skywriter Books.

Brief Synopsis:  The author of this book wrote it as a response to an event in her own life.  Holly Payne grew up near the Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and therefore knows a great deal about Amish culture and customs.  In 1994, she was struck by a drunk driver and left unable to walk for nearly a year.  The driver wrote her a letter asking for forgiveness.  Instead of writing a letter back, she wrote this book.  The plot explores forgiveness through the life of protagonist Eli Yoder, an Amish boy who is nine years old when the book begins.  We follow Eli through major events in his life, including his theft of an English boy’s camera, which he believes sets in motion the string of events that follow (the Amish call people by the language they speak, so English is their term for non-Amish Americans).  Cameras are a major theme in this book, as the Old Order Amish believe a picture steals a person’s soul, a belief based on the Biblical warning against graven images.  Events following the theft include an accident which takes the lives of his five sisters, but which he and his father survive.  The plot then follows Eli through his rumspringa, which is a time that Amish youth enter at the age of sixteen to explore the “Outside World” and decide whether they want to join it or return to the Amish to kneel for baptism, joining the Amish for the rest of their lives.  The reader follows Eli through the discovery of the identity of the hit-and-run driver who took the lives of his sisters, and his path to forgiveness of the driver, and forgiveness of himself for the guilt he’d carried his whole life about the camera theft and its role in the accident.  Finally, we watch as Eli is struck by “the lot,” which is the Amish calling to be a minister.  The course of all these events take the reader through Eli’s life from age 9 to age 45.   Eli’s hands are a focus of the storyline as well, as he has syndactyl, a genetic disorder common among the Anabaptists, and more commonly known as webbed hands.  Laughter is also a focus of the storyline, as Eli is taught how to laugh by Leroy, a black man, and the only Englishman, that Eli’s community allows into their inner circles. 

In a note to the reader, the author writes of the Amish, “Although they value simplicity, they are by no means a simple people but a complex and complicated subculture…it is perhaps the Amish practice of forgiveness for which I am most grateful to have learned from them…”  She concludes, “Although the Amish wish to remain separate from our world for many reasons that I have hopefully brought to light in this story, their compassion and forgiveness remain boundless.”  

Comparisons/contrasts with traditional American/Western culture:  On the topic of language and the arts, Locke writes, “…the arts of the Amish are utilitarian products that are always completed by a group of people and not by individuals” (p.44).  This was accurately portrayed in Kingdom of Simplicity, as Eli’s mother and five sisters would work together to create quilts that fetched as much as $5,000 at market.  Locke also writes, “The Amish speak three distinct tongues; Pennsylvania German, High German, and English” (p.45).  Language was prominent in the book as Eli consciously chose the appropriate language for the appropriate situation/company.  For example, he spoke what he called Pennsylvania Dutch in the home, High German when answering his teacher in school, and English when interacting with English customers at market.  The Ordnung, or district rules and standards, played an ever-present role in the plot, and was the guide for Eli’s Amish community, especially vital in maintaining their beliefs about education, separation from the English community, and teaching new generations about the Bible.

Response:  This book was lengthy, and needed to be in order to accomplish all that the author set out to do.  It is a history book, a bildungsroman, a cultural narrative, and the author’s personal exploration of forgiveness.  Although it is a work of fiction, it is completely accurate in its details of the Amish culture, aligning precisely with my own research into this culture, which included the Locke chapter on Old Order Amish, Dr. Alexander’s multicultural website with Amish website links, and the Windows of Hope Project website (http://www.wohproject.org/), which informed me on inherited conditions of Anabaptists.  Payne did a remarkable job of weaving a readable plot, and believable, fleshed-out characters, with cultural sensitivity.  Locke writes, “The two most important lessons learned from nature and the soil are the main focus of the Amish religion.  First, a seed, placed in the earth, must die before it can give birth.  The images of death and resurrection surround the farmer.  Second, one reaps what one sows, either in this life or the next.”  These two Biblical parables are accurate for Eli’s journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and spiritual maturity.