The Master Butchers Singing Club: A Novel (Erdrich, Louise)
Louise Erdrich | 2003-02-01 00:00:00 | HarperCollins | 400 | Historical
What happens when a trained killer discovers that his true vocation is love? Having survived the killing fields of World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns home to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend who was killed in action.
With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious set of knives, Fidelis sets out for America, getting as far as North Dakota, where he builds a business, a home for his family -- which includes Eva and four sons -- and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town.
When the Old World meets the New -- in the person of Del-phine Watzka -- the great adventure of Fidelis's life begins. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted; she meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles. These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine's life -- and the trajectory of this brilliant new novel by Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich's The Master Butchers Singing Club is a powerfully told story of love, death, redemption, and resurrection. After German soldier Fidelis Waldvogel returns home from World War I to marry his best friend's pregnant widow, he packs up his father's butcher knives and sets sail for America. He settles in Argus, North Dakota, where he sets up a meat shop with his wife Eva, who quickly befriends the struggling yet resourceful Delphine Watzka. Delphine, who runs a vaudeville show with her balancing partner Cyprian Lazarre, has returned home to Argus to care for her alcoholic father. While most of this emotionally rich novel focuses on the changing landscape of small-town life as seen through Delphine and Fidelis's eyes, Erdrich does a masterful job of illuminating hidden dramas through her secondary characters. Erdrich's portrayal of these various townsfolk, including members of the Master Butchers Singing Club, truly shows off her storytelling talent. Her ability to infuse each character with a distinct and multifaceted personality makes this novel an intimate and thought-provoking adventure. --Gisele Toueg
Reviews
I got half-way through this book and put it down. It wasn't rewarding to that point, and I figured there are too many other, better books to spend my time with.
The book started out strong but just lost its way. Characters are flat, dialogue pointless and it really didn't have much to do with the singing club. Even the one passage worth reading, about the morphine, needs more development.
I'm going to try reading another of Louise Erdrich's books, but this one isn't worth picking up.
Reviews
As much has already been written about the Master Butchers Singing Club this review is going to be very short. In holding with the previous critques, I agree that there are way too many overburdened plotlines carelessly jumbled together, a misleading title and all in all too much pathos. In the end I skipped through the pages, eager to wrap the story up! What I found extremely unnerving, too, was that Erdrich lets her German characters interject a few remarks here and there in their mother tongue. Only, why is it that their German is so unnatural, stiff and not once orthographically correct ("Wir haben verheiraten")? Maybe it is a question of cultural assimilation or, and this seems to be more like it, Erdrich just didn't take the time to go over the pages of her book once more after finishing (neither did her editors) and simply didn't bother to render an authentic novel!
Reviews
I bought this book a long time ago intending to read it. Finally I got the chance and was glad I did. The book takes place in a small town in North Dakota plus a short time in Germany. The story tells about immigrants, Indians, metis and others who live in this little remote city if it can be called that. The time is shortly after World War I, supposedly the war to end all wars and ends just after the end of World War II.
Fidelis Waldvogel comes home after the war. His best friend has been killed. Everyone is poor, hungry and without hope. He knows he must leave his native land. To America he comes intending to become a butcher because this is his trade and he's a good one. He lands in Argus, North Dakota where he opens his store. He is fussy about the meat he uses, immaculate about his shop and so he prospers. He sends for his wife, Eva, and her son. Three more boys are born. Eva is a wonderful wife, mother, good cook, good housekeeper, good gardener, loves nature, loves life and dies too young.
Good hearted, hard working Delphine is the only child of the town drunk. She returns to town because she is worried about her father. Roy has embarrassed her many more times than she can count,but she loves him and knows that he loves her. He has brought his daughter up by himself, her mother has disappeared or died she doesn't know. He will not talk of her mother, possibly because it is too painful to speak of. There are a few blurry pictures in their small home. So the mother will always be a mystery to her daughter. Delphine has been touring the states with her partner Cyprian, a handsome Metis, whom she loves but he cannot love her because he is gay. The couple have an acrobatic act in which Cyprian stars. Cyprian is a talented acrobat, Delphine is just his partner.
Delphine gets a job at Fidelis's butcher shop. She and Eva become close friendsand se and marries Fidelis upon Eva's death because she can't marry Cyprian. There are many quirky, interesting and likeable characters. Roy even tries to do right by his daughter but falls into drininkg again and again. But he tries to quit.
There is hateful Tante, Fidelis' sister who follows him to America and dislikes this country. She dislikes both of Fidelis's wives and tries to take over his home when Eva dies. She is not a good cook or housekeeper. She stays in her Lutheran group and church, refuses to acclimate to the United States and wants to return to Germany. She gets her wish and takes Fidelis' two younger sons, twins, to Germany to be brought up as proper Germans.
Delphine's best friend, lovely Clarisse, works in a funeral home owned by her family. This is Clarisse's profession and she's good at it. But she gets into trouble, runs out of town just ahead of the police. She is never found.
This book is a good read, all the characters are fun, even hateful Tante. I recommend this book so get in touch with life in Argus, North Dakota.
Reviews
When I was about half-way through this book, I really thought I'd be rating it five stars. I loved the depth of the characters. It's something that isn't seen in a lot of books, but Delphine and Cyprian seemed so human and poignant. When I first started the book, I admit, I was disappointed that I didn't get to see more of Fidelis and Eva's early relationship, but I excused it, telling myself that the story wasn't about how they came into each other's lives.
Somewhere beyond the halfway point, however, I began feeling cheated. I felt that every event which I'd begun to anticipate because the author was building up the anticipation, simply didn't pay off. I'd be awaiting something, and then suddenly months had gone by. And then years. The latter half of the book felt as if it was just fast-forwarded, and I got a few glimpses of various events that frankly weren't as meaningful to me as those I didn't get to see. I still feel it needs a high rating for how engrossing I initially found it and how real the characters were, but as a story, it was disappointing.
Reviews
The Master Butchers Singing Club (P.S.)
The Butcher in this story by Louise Erdrich is a highly trained butcher by profession, with a background in the German military as well, who traveled to the US after the war, carrying sausages and his set of knives, and built a new business, a family and a community of friends in the US. His story is told by his wife and it is a rich story of the immigrant community, with characters I feel glad to have known.
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