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66 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
2003 Favorite, May 11, 2003
No Spoilers Present For those who haven't read the novel: Finished The Master Butchers Singing Club 5+ by Louise Erdrich and it bowled me over, promising to be my favorite selection for the year in any genre. Just such a fine reading experience! Once in a while, a book just commands one's attention and is completely gratifying. I read every word on each page very slowly to savor the language, characters and plot. Drawn in from the onset, the readers' involvement continues to increase at a breakneck pace, even though we slow down to enjoy the nearly perfect prose and comprehend the mental set and daily lives and tasks of our characters between the lines, and their places in the community. Although not 100 percent linear, and episodic in nature, there is no confusion at all for the reader, who is torn between knowing more 'later' or enjoying the 'now'. The novel is about a young German butcher, Fidelis, who emigrates to the USA after serving in WWI, carrying only a suitcase full of sausages and a perfect set of carving knives. He ends up in Argus, North Dakota, where he establishes his business. The dynamic of Argus itself becomes a character. The book covers only three decades, but feels like an awesomely enduring saga of the complexities of life, over time. In addition to Fidelis... Delphine (it remains her story), Cyprian, Clarissa, Roy, and especially Eva and her boys are characters who remain embedded in the on-deck circle, and each is integral to the fabric of the novel. The Master Butchers Singing Club also incorporates mayhem, madness, murder, and intrigue. I have few words to convey the depth of my experience while reading this novel, so what follows is an excerpt from the book jacket: >>TMBSC unfolds its themes of love and death, lightness and gravity...with the eloquent prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling that only a masterful writer can offer. Creating a fictional world filled with memorable characters who grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature is an impressive achievement, but doing so with the compassion and intelligence, lyrical style and wit, of Louise Erdrich is a gift to readers everywhere.<< Oh yes, Oh yes! Roe
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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
style matters, July 27, 2004
The Master Butchers Singing Club is not much about master butchers or really about their singing, but rather uses this title as a taking off point to tell a story about transplanted people living in the northern midwest of America.
Fidelis, a German, emigrating to America between the two world wars works so hard to keep his family afloat, that he does not have the time or energy to reflect or even interact upon his wife and sons. They do their jobs with him, but his inner life is all but invisible.
Delphine, on the other hand, who befriends Fidelis' wife, Eva...cares for her as she is dying...and later marries Fidelis herself, has a strong inner life. She worries about Fidelis' boys as each of them experiences life's trials, she agonizes about her own father, Roy, the town drunk, drifts in and finally out of a loveless relationship with Cyprian, a circus performer who has taught her balance ( a metaphor for her being able to deal with her future problems), and works her way through additional relationships with her best friend, Clarisse and with Mazarine, who is in love with one of Fidelis' sons.
This inner life/outer life differential between the two main characters is explored in poetic detail by Loiuse Erdrich in this very fine novel.
Bring your patience when your read this book...it is sometime languid and wordy...but it is well worth the effort.
It is beautifully written and it explores an important part of
of our country which is rarely presented.
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47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Survivor in the true sense, March 27, 2003
As soon as I finished this book, I started over on the first page to scan through the story and stopped to re-read sections to fully savor the connections and events over again. Delphine is a character I will remember for a long time. She is a true survivor, "No matter what they might have heard at the lumberyard, she wanted to give the impression of an extremely respectable woman, but not one who could not afford, say, a hat with a little green feather. A plain person. Trustworthy. Not a person who had a murderer for a best friend or who'd lived with a vaudeville acrobat or who had a gabby old souse for a father. Delphine, she wanted people to say of her, she's awfully quick, but she's solid and reliable." The account of Eva and Delphine in the night garden drinking beer while they set the beer out to catch slugs is tender and funny and so full of life and death that it alone makes the book a treasure to read. I checked this book out of the library but I am going to order it. I want to keep these characters around, not return them.
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