Simon the Fiddler

“Wherever he lifted his fiddle to his shoulder he commanded a good price and he saved every coin carefully, because when the war was over, he was going to buy a piece of land, live on it with a beautiful and accomplished wife, and play increasingly complex pieces of music. Hard cash and children would, somehow, come of their own accord.”

This quote gives the first major insight into how unformed Simon’s goals and dreams are at the beginning of the novel. While he has big-picture ideals, he has no idea how they will come about practically or even what they truly look like. This characterization of Simon contrasts with the person he becomes at the end of the novel, who knows exactly what and who he wants and how he will achieve it.

“Thus they solidified as a group as musicians do, or perhaps their minds and thoughts precipitated out of the military suspension in which they had been held and so they once again became servants of music and not of the state.”

This passage illustrates the importance of music as a living presence in the novel; while the war and government may be able to claim the men’s identity briefly, music ultimately works as a higher power. The image of “suspension” implies that each musician’s time in the military was a sort of nonexistence; it is music and freedom that revives them and gives them purpose and meaning again. “Suspension” is also a musical term that means holding a dissonant note on in a chord before resolving into a consonant note; Jiles hence suggests that the lives of the musicians are about to resolve.