“May a cat eat him and may the devil eat the cat.”

The mountain has eyes. Walking the Postmans Track, Rocky Cape National Park, Tasmania. January 2021.

Paulette Jiles works magic with her writing. Much like the marvellous News of the World, the story within Simon the Fiddler flows like molasses from a spoon. Despite moments of violence and hardship, and its Civil War setting, this is a surprisingly gentle book.

Given the centrality of music – we follow Simon and his companion musicians through Texas at the tail end of the war and immediate years of the Reconstruction – the text's lyrical beauty is unsurprising. While Simon himself is hot-tempered and ill-suited to company, he is no misanthrope, and I found myself warming to him as the story progressed.

Much as life, the journey is a meandering and unpredictable one. Trials and tribulations abound, love is sighted and perused, sadness and grief felt, and the converted goal of just being left alone to play music and carve out a life always seems a ways away.

Jiles constructs a Texas under military law vividly to the reader. The heat, danger and opportunity are rich on every page. The central love story struck me as sweet and worthy, resembling the folk tales of virtuous maidens trapped behind high walls.

It strikes me as unfair to compare the tale of Simon Boudlin with News of the World, as many have done. Yes, this is the lessor book, but most books are indeed inferior to that one, so one must treat it on its own merits. Simon the Fiddler is indeed more old-fashioned and sentimental in tone, but one should expect that in what is ultimately a love story.

As the story approaches the necessary climax, in which Simon’s temper and the injustice of the periods must inevitably collide, I was not let down by the conclusion. The subtle nod to the News of the World was appreciated, and it warmed my heart to feel that these stories exist within the same universe.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Comments

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

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There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

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Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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