Gelassenheit: Yielding.

摘要

Gelassenheit: Yielding is a novel about a New York City musician, Cody, who, traveling cross country with a girlfriend, is kicked out of the car in Mennonite and Amish country in Ohio. After meeting a Mennonite girl, Emma, in traditional dress at the Amish Kitchen Restaurant, he decides to try to win the girl, put his hand on the plow, never look back, and become one of the "simple folk." Cody finds that what looks simple is anything but. He discovers that the Mennonite community has become a virtual reality of the simple life, owned by outsiders and being decimated by the forces of globalization: the Amish Kitchen is owned by Pakistanis, the Mennonite farmers have been put out of business by cheaper imports, McMansion-style real estate developers are moving in, meth drug labs are taking over barns and the young people are moving away to urban areas. The Mennonite community, too, will learn that what looks simple in Cody is anything but as Cody moves from calculative, opportunistic, impulsive thinking to one of yielding to the present reality. Assisted by Sam, who is a member of Alcoholic Anonymous, Cody moves closer to the way of Gelassenheit, though on his journey he creates havoc in the community, including impregnating the teenage Emma. While my previous book, a graphic novel, The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom (Hyperion, 1998) tells the story of a teenager who has a child and struggles to go to college, in this novel we do not know at the end whether or not Emma will choose to have a child, but Cody will lose his life to protect her freedom of choice. Gelassenheit is a Mennonite and Amish term that means the abandoning of selfish willfulness, a moving from self-centeredness toward a yielding to God's will, a present-ness, a letting-go-ish-ness, a releasement to the mystery, as also discussed in Discourse on Thinking, or Gelassenheit, by Martin Heidegger. The writing method of Gelassenhiet: Yielding also follows this yielding-ness, following the characters as they proceed from the initial incident to the logical and bleak end.