Fidelis had fallen asleep to the sound of his mother's quiet, full, joyous weeping. He thought he still heard her now, but it was the sunlight. The light pouring through the curtains made a liquid sound, he thought, an emotional and female sound as it moved across the ivory wall.The Master Butchers Singing Club is my first book by Louise Erdrich and I see now that it's not considered typical of her work, so it may not have been the best book for me to start with. As I listened to this audiobook, I had the strange sensation that the story was both interesting and mundane; engaging line-by-line but a little dull overall; I wanted it to end and also not to end. (And as an aside, the narrator of the audiobook had a quirky sense of inflection -- so much so that I wondered what the author would make of such an idiosyncratic reading -- so I was highly amused to learn at the end that Louise Erdrich had narrated the book herself.)
There was the promise of some big themes in The Master Butchers Singing Club that never really played out: As it opens, Fidelis Waldvogel is a young man returning to his home in Germany after fighting in WWI, and soon enough, he decides to emigrate to America. I expected there to be some sort of discrimination against the former master sniper when he settles in a small North Dakota town, but there is only one brief scene of tension, years later, with an American veteran, and that had more to do with sexual jealousy than bigotry. The Great Depression is glided through (the only real effect being that Fidelis' two youngest sons were sent back to Germany where they could be cared for better), and then with the rise of Hitler, I expected soul-searching and divided loyalties, but when WWII breaks out, and two sons are American soldiers and two are Nazis, it's all just matter-of-fact when it could have been tragic. But, I know better than to fault an author for not writing the book I expected to read.
There are many scenes from The Master Butchers Singing Club that stand out positively in my mind: Fidelis standing in Grand Central Station with his tireless arms outstretched, selling the sausages that will pay his way across America; Delphine as "the human table" under Cyprian and his balancing act; the gruesome discovery in Roy's cellar; Eva's morphine-deprived suffering; the remembered massacre at Wounded Knee. And there are many scenes that seem like they could have been left out: the attack on Fidelis by the pig (and why is its aftermath never mentioned? He never limps or suffers despite crushing his kneecap and losing a hunk of flesh); everything to do with Clarisse and Sheriff Hock; Marcus and the dirt pile; Tante's strange metallic suit.
There are many scenes where something big and important happens that don't end up being important to the overall story, and while that was frustrating at the time, here is what I realised: If I were to write a memoir, it would be a series of big and important events that don't have greater meaning in my overall personal history; there are no big themes running through my life; people have appeared, made important contributions, and then disappeared forever. So there's something natural and unforced about the plot of The Master Butchers Singing Club -- no showy literary tricks or cleverness -- and that might explain the experience of it being interesting and mundane at the same time; like real life.
As for the characters, they were more stereotypes than living/breathing people. As for the writing, Erdrich has a slightly overblown style that, while pretty to listen to, often left me grasping for sense:
Fidelis lifted his best friend's fiancée into his arms and stood in the doorway of the house, holding the woman effortlessly, as he would have held a sleeping child. He could have stood there with her for hours. The strength required to hold her was a minute portion of the strength he actually possessed. For he was one of those born in the phenomenon of strength. He'd always had it, from the beginning, and each year it increased. It is said that some people absorb the cellular essence of a twin while still in the womb -- perhaps Fidelis was one of those. Maybe he was simply of that old Germanic stock who roamed the forests and hung their god from the tree of life."Hung their god from the tree of life"? I can't say that I didn't like this book but it didn't leave me eager to try Erdrich again (though I probably will -- I always like to give a new author more than one shot at reaching me).
