The Sand Fiddlers by Les Burns
What's It About?
“War is not something left behind, like a bad relationship. It’s a curse that attaches itself to you and never goes away.”That message comes through loud and clear in Les Burns’ riveting, deeply moving and beautifully written novella, The Sand Fiddlers: A Rogue Green Beret’s Escape From the Memories of Vietnam. It’s the story of Alex Driscoll, who has recently returned home from battle, painting a vivid, uncomfortable portrait of a man confronting a new battle — the difficult transition back to civilian life with a mind forever affected by his Vietnam experience.
As the colonel warns him during his psychological assessment, “Just because your body is out of the jungle doesn’t mean your mind isn’t still there.”
This book is not so much about the plot as it is about the psyche of the protagonist. In the story, Driscoll finds an isolated part of an island, a deserted beach, to begin his rehab. “I breathe in deeply to savor the welcomed change from the putrefying stench of jungle rot.”
MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS, MASTERFUL PORTRAYAL
Hoping to spend his time alone, he is suddenly approached by a mysterious woman, Jessica, whose origin and agenda are not clear. But she is curious and asks Driscoll lots of questions, which gets us into his head. “I can see it in your eyes,” she says, “that faraway look like a person’s seen things people shouldn’t see and done things civilized people shouldn’t do.”
Driscoll is an unsettled soul. His nerves are frayed, as illustrated by his sudden reactions to sights or sounds, constant checking of his surroundings for booby traps, and a general state of paranoia.
Burns presents a masterful portrayal of his protagonist, creating a frightful image of a troubled man with personal demons, struggling daily to separate fantasy from reality. At times, he even wonders whether Jessica is real. She seems to know a thing or two about soldiers through an “old boyfriend” whose personality she couldn’t recognize upon his return from war.
Driscoll tells Jessica of his high school girlfriend, who served as an inspiration and a reason to carry on when stuck in a foxhole while heavily mortared. “We were just a couple of kids swearing we’d love each other forever. Hell froze over in a letter seven months into the Nam. Did you know eternity is only two sentences long? ‘I’ve met somebody, and we’re getting married. Goodbye, Alex.’” Oh how readers can feel the anguish!
INTERNAL COMBAT
When Jessica gets emotional over her own story, Driscoll finds himself in a situation that is foreign to him, and he explains, “Ruthlessness I can manage without gun or knife, but this drama is contrary to the principles of war. Combat is black and white. Kill or be killed … Armed conflict is where I am in my element …Why then, standing barefoot on this mound of sand, am I as helpless as a fledgling?”
In reading The Sand Fiddlers, I was struck with Burns’ psychological drama and magnificent character study captured in brisk pace and beautiful language. While it’s basically Driscoll and Jessica in a two-person performance, their interactions are easily enough to carry the day. The dialogue is compelling and the emotions commanding.
At times, Driscoll’s feelings and recollections are so raw and disturbing, yet as a reader of Burns I was all in and couldn’t even contemplate turning away. To get a good idea of how Driscoll sees what he has gone through, just listen to his words: “When I die, I know I’m going to heaven, because I’ve served my time in hell.”
Reading this marvelous novella was indeed heaven.
