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Summary: Good sense of place, great characters, but weak plot.
Review: Louise Erdich's latest novel has some wonderful characters, each one with his or her own horrific memories. I found myself feeling all their emotional upheavals as they played out their lives in a small town in North Dakota beginning in the 1920s. The sense of place is wonderful. But it's the people who are unforgettable.There's Fidelis Waldvogel, a German butcher who has seen death and disaster in WW1. And there's Eva, his wife, and their four sons. There's Delphine, who we first meet doing a vaudeville act with Cyprian, a good looking man who can never me more than a platonic friend. There's Roy Watzka, Delphine's father, the town drunk. And Delphine's friend Clarisse the town undertaker. And then there is the mysterious woman who roams the streets collecting junk. They all have stories, and all have secrets. And as their stories unravel I found myself drawn right into their little town with its rhythms and realities and disasters. Their lives certainly aren't simple. There's mystery and murder and natural disasters. And just plain human weakness. Time passes, the children grow. WW2 looms. The stories grow more complex. Always they are fascinating and I found it hard to put the book down. The author's descriptions of people and places are rich and dramatic. She's a wonderful writer. Some of the parts towards the end dragged. Also, like life itself, not all of the threads of stories were ever completed. Some questions raised went answered. But then there was a surprise last chapter, which pulled a lot of the mystery together. In spite of its few weakness, however, I loved the book and couldn't stop reading it.
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Summary: The mistress of her place
Review: Louise Erdrich has staked her claim to the seldom-tilled soil entangling her roots, tapping the rich earth of her heritage to tell even richer stories where it's often delightfully difficult to know where fact and fiction intersect. And now in her new novel, "The Master Butchers Singing Club," Erdrich again explores the landscape of both her geography and her heart, of nature and nurture, the best and worst impulses of humans. Erdrich's northern Plains, the pregnant emptiness of North Dakota, is one of those places described as "richly imagined" by Eastern critics, but her place and moment are authentic. Erdrich, a North Dakota native of German and Ojibwe bloodlines, is not inventing this place of "appalling flatness," where streets are lined with half-grown trees, scoured by wind that is "both unbearable and comforting." She lived in it, absorbed it through her pores. Erdrich is among the most lyrical American writers today, weaving rich imagery with deep, complex metaphor as she explores the distant reaches of American spaces and spirit, where death and survival dance. "The Master Butchers Singing Club" blends her talents for memorable voices, personal history and compelling characters, against a canvas seldom painted as realistically and lovingly.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: Louise Erdrich weaves a magical thread through the lives of imaginary, but very real, characters. Through many related sub-plots she affirms that all life is sacred, and every act, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, has the possibility of being life changing. Some reviewers of this book were apparently looking for a more definitive ending, but real life isn't like that. It ends with as many questions as answers.
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Summary: other Wars and other Peaces
Review: Louise Erdrich's Master Butcher's Singing Club is a Masterpiece of Epic proportion. Tolstoy's epic revolves around Russian life during the Napoleonic Wars. Erdrich's masterpiece spans two continents at the end of WWI through WWII and beyond, with a horrifying flashback to the atrocities at Wounded Knee. Both books are great literature and great stories. Fidelis Waldvogel, former German boy soldier/sniper in World War I, makes his way across the Atlantic and half way across the North American continent, to Argus, North Dakota, by selling his sausages. He is a Butcher, a Master Butcher, and he Sings. He later recruits Argus townsmen into a Singing Club reminiscent of his Old Home (whose Singing Club we will hear from later.) Delphine Watzka is the daughter of the Argus Town Drunk. These are the central characters around whom the epic swirls. Erdrich's excellent oeuvre has previously focused on her Native American heritage. This time she expertly interweaves her Native American and German heritages. I listened to the Unabridged Audio of the author Herself performing this masterpiece. It is a true gift to her readers and listeners. Reviewed by TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer.
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Summary: 2003 Favorite
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: Great writing - great characters
Review: Several years ago I read "Tales of Burning Love" by Erdrich and didn't like it at all. I picked this book up because of the cover and almost didn't read it because of past experience with the author. I'm so glad I let that face on the cover draw me in. The characters in "Master Butcher" are real people who are products of the land, environment, and times in which they live. Their lives are hard, but yet are sometimes filled with humor and song. Their thoughts and feelings are repressed but not depressed. The book is not "pretty" yet it is not "ugly." In our neat, clean, government inspected lives, we are so far removed from the act of butchering that it seems dark and violent, but to Fidelis and those around him, it is merely a fact of life -- an occupation and a good one at that. Fidelis is a butcher who sings. Erdrich does a great job of weaving humor, fear, anxiety, and love into characters and events that are never contrived but are straightforward and almost passionless. I'm definitely going to explore more of Erdrich's works.
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Summary: Jaw dropping conclusion
Review: The book club I belong to had decided to read this book. After the first 50 pages, I was bored to tears. However, once the initial backdrop is established, the story started to really get good.
The book is set in post WWI where a soldier from Germany comes to America and sells sausages in North Dakota. At the same time, he crosses paths with another woman whose own life has been trying and difficult. Thru cirmcumstance, the lives of these two intertwine and the author does a good job of establishing real, three dimensional characters. Additionally, Erdrich masterfully describes the challenges of the late 20's and early 30's, before the modern conveniences we have so grown accustomed to.
After writing a moving piece, Erdrich blows the reader away with a jaw dropping conclusion that will leave you speechless.
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Summary: A Fine Title
Review: The Master Butchers Singing Club is a fine title to the wonderful story Louise Erdrich has put down for us. Immigrant American lives and Native American lives intertwine and I am so grateful that Ms. Erdrich continues to tell the story of her people, of Americas people. This country has continually suffered and still does from a strange amensia about history that involves war. The Master Butchers Singing Club tells us to remember what happens.
This story is about many things, family and community, war and its long range affect on people's lives. The intriguing characters serve us a good lesson on morality. I don't want to give any of the complexities of this story away, I'll end by saying when I finished the book I found myself wanting to step out of the house and walk away into the wind.
Rating: 
Summary: Needed a Little More Focus
Review: The Master Butchers Singing Club is a novel made up of beautiful sentences and wonderful paragraphs that somehow don't gel together as a good novel. The novel lacked enough focus to make it truly enjoyable, and thus winds up all over the map. As an example, the first chapter of the novel deals with Fidelis, the master butcher of the title, how he gets to America, etc. Then we meet two other characters in the next chapter Delphine and her partner Cyprian and at a certain point the charcters meet, but Fidelis is never developed as a character and Delphine and Cyprian's antics just didn't seem to fit with what was happening with Fidelis. I am not saying a novel has to be perfect and tightly packaged with everything fitting together--I just think that this particular novel lacks a certain cohesiveness that would have made it a much more enjoyable read.
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Summary: style matters
Review: 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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