The Master Butchers Singing Club

The Master Butchers Singing Club

First edition
Author Louise Erdrich
Country United States
Language English
Publisher HarperCollins
Publication date
 February 4, 2003
Media type Print (hardback & paperback) and audio cassette
Pages 400 pp
ISBN 0-06-620977-3
OCLC 49925192
813/.54 21
LC Class PS3555.R42 M37 2003

The Master Butchers Singing Club is a 2003 novel by Louise Erdrich. It follows the life of Fidelis Waldvogel and his family, as well as Delphine Watzka and her partner Cyprian, as they adjust in their separate lives in the small town of Argus, North Dakota. Bookended by World War I, which Fidelis and Cyprian fought in, and World War II, which Fidelis’ children fight in, the title contains several overarching themes including family, tradition, loss, betrayal, and memory, to name a few.

Much of The Master Butchers Singing Club revolves around the German American cultural tradition, which is part of Erdrich's personal heritage, though she is best known as a Native American novelist.

The novel has been developed into a stage play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Marsha Norman, and premiered as part of the Guthrie Theater's 2010/11 season in September 2010 under the direction of Francesca Zambello.[1][2]

Plot summary

The novel begins at the end of World War I with Fidelis Waldvogel, a German sniper, returning to his hometown in defeated Germany from the battle lines. Fidelis seeks out Eva Kalb, the pregnant fiancée of his dear friend, Johannes, and informs her that her fiancé has died in the war. He tells Eva of his promise to Johannes, which is that he would marry and take care of her. She agrees, and soon the two are wed.

Fidelis, a butcher by trade, leaves Germany by himself to emigrate to the United States in order to escape the immense poverty brought on by the war. He plans to travel to Seattle to set up a new life for his family, paying his way by selling German sausages. However his funds and sausages run out in Argus, North Dakota. Fidelis first works for the local butcher and then sets up his own butcher shop in Argus. He works hard until he can finally send for his wife, Eva, and her child, Franz.

Delphine Watzka is the daughter of Roy Watzka, the town drunk, who grew up in Argus, North Dakota. Delphine never met her mother and leaves the town to become a vaudeville performer. Delphine meets and becomes attached to Cyprian, a World War I veteran. The two make money from an act where Delphine performs as a table upon which Cyprian balances. One day, after a performance, Delphine discovers Cyprian engaging in a sexual act with a man. This discovery changes their relationship, but the two remain together, posing as a married couple.

The two return to Argus, where they stop to see Delphine's severely alcoholic father. There is an overpowering stench in Roy’s house, and in the process of cleaning the dwelling, Delphine and Cyprian discover the corpses of three people – two adults and one child – rotting in her father’s cellar. The three corpses are later revealed as the remains of the Chavers family.

While attempting to unravel the mystery of the bodies in the cellar, as well as to eradicate the odor from the house, Delphine meets Eva. The two quickly become friends; Eva takes Delphine under her wing, allowing Delphine to work in the butcher shop, and mentoring her in many of the domestic skills Delphine had never learned.

Eva learns that she has cancer, and despite medical treatments and Delphine’s nursing, her health deteriorates. Eva’s sister-in-law Tante ("aunt” in German) Maria Theresa arrives to assist the family with the various means of daily life. Tante and Delphine take an instant dislike to each other. During Eva’s painful final days, Tante destroys prescribed narcotic medication to assist her out of shame towards Eva’s dependency on the drug. In one of the most gripping sections of the novel, Delphine tries to find a doctor and pharmacist while Eva's pain becomes uncontrollable. Finally, Roy breaks into the pharmacy and obtains the morphine that Eva desperately needs.

Soon after, Eva dies. Her death leads to the sobering of Roy, as she was one of the few people that was actually nice to him. Additionally, Delphine vows to raise Eva’s four boys and to assist Fidelis.

Meanwhile, Albert Hock, town sheriff, has been investigating the Chavers case. Beads from Clarisse's dress that were embedded in the floor over the cellar becomes the means by which Hock attempts to blackmail Clarisse into becoming involved with him. She stabs the sheriff to death and flees to the Twin Cities.

Tante and Cyprian both leave Argus. Tante returns to Germany with Erich and Emil. Cyprian returns to the life of the traveling performer. Both departures pave the way for a romance between Delphine and Fidelis, which eventually results in marriage.

Roy Watzka dies, but not before revealing the truth behind the deaths of the Chavers family. They were left in the cellar as retribution towards Porky Chavers, the father, singing over Roy in Fidelis' singing club. Roy did not intend for them to die, but due to the after-effect of an alcohol-induced binge, he forgot they were in the basement.

At the outbreak of World War II, Fidelis finds his family once again ravaged by war. His sons Franz and Markus both enlist in the United States Army, whereas his twin sons, Erich and Emil, enlist in the German military. Emil is quickly killed in the war, and his twin Erich is eventually captured by U.S. soldiers. He is transferred to a POW camp in the U.S. After Markus finds this out, he takes Fidelis there but Erich refuses to speak to either of them. Franz as well, on the American side, is gravely injured in an airplane accident, which eventually results in his death.

On a post-war trip to Germany, at which Delphine and Fidelis attend an unveiling of a memorial to the bombing of Fidelis' home town, Fidelis falls ill. He dies on their return trip to Argus.

The novel concludes with the revelation of Delphine’s true heritage, as told by the town scrap collector, Step-and-a-Half. Delphine was the biological daughter of Mrs. Shimek (Mazarine's mother). She had been abandoned when she was born and found in an outhouse by Step-and-a-Half. Step-and-a-Half gave her to Roy to raise.

Significant characters

Themes

German-American heritage

Erdrich uses some of her personal family history and background as source for The Master Butcher's Singing Club. In this case, it is important to note some of the information surrounding German-American lifestyle. Overwhelmingly, Germans immigrated to the United States in search of an improved standard of living. There were incentives from land and railroad compaines as well to insure jobs for German immigrants.

After a failed German Revolution in 1848, there was the greatest wave of political asylum seekers who left Germany. The majority of the German immigrants had in mind their idea of achieving, "The American Dream." They wanted to be where soil was fertile and space was abundant. By the end of the 19th century, most immigrants were unmarried industrial workers who came to the United States seeking seasonal work but never returned to Germany.

Many immigrants would settle with or around others who spoke their native language or were from the same area of Germany. Many settled in the Midwest where they became bakers, butchers, shoemakers, and cabinet makers. Germans also became high-profile businessmen and shopkeepers. The largest group of German immigrants in any given time period were the skilled craftspeople. They immigrated to major cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Chicago.

In 1900, Kaiser Wilhelm II instituted the idea of national German pride. His influence was felt across the sea in the United States by way of a divided feeling of German-Americans on the stand of an imperialist Germany. This idea of loyalty was felt not only in the U.S., but in Germany as well. The Socialists felt that the Kaiser's power centerred on a too militaristic reign. Millions of Americans held on to an attachment to the German language and culture. The 1830s through the 1870s saw a massive immigration of Germans to the U.S. resulting in their being an important ethnic block of society. The immigration explosion of youthful Germans resulted in their bringing a pro-imperialist view of Germany to the American public by way of the German-American press. 1901 saw the formation of the German-American alliance, a pressure group used to enforce upon the politicians propaganda geared to an imperial Germany.

The United States entrance in World War I in 1917 caused an increase in abuse on German-Americans. The public opinion of the time rejected all forms of foreign language and culture. Thus, upon the eve of World War II, there was no form of Nazi propaganda, leaving the German-Americans to have no view on the war without public retaliation. To this day, there remain untold accounts of German-American internment camps during World War II.

Reviews

"Not since Richard Russo's 2001 novel, Empire Falls, which won the Pulitzer Prize, have I enjoyed the company of such memorable characters." -Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today. Feb. 6, 2003.[3]

"Explored, exposed and cherished if not by each other than at least, unmistakably, by their author, these creatures wrench their vanished time and place into the modern mind with such force as to displace everything else -- not only during the hours and days spent reading about them, but in their interstices and the aftermath as well." -Anneli Rufus, San Francisco Chronicle. Feb. 2, 2003.[4]

"The Master Butchers Singing Club is an ambitious novel, covering 36 years and several points of view. Too ambitious perhaps, because Erdrich can't keep up with her own agenda: she has created an array of colorful people but not one credible character, except possibly for the troubled, appealing Cyprian."–Brooke Allen, New York Times. Feb. 9, 2003.[5]

"It is a measure of Ms. Erdrich's poise as a writer, her understanding of her characters' inclinations and dreams that she is able to make such developments feel not like the contrivances of a novelist playing God but like the inevitable workings of a random but oddly symmetrical fate." –Michiko Kakutani, New York Times. Feb. 4, 2003.[6]

Literary criticism

The historical facts of twentieth-century Germany, especially the traumatic events surrounding World Wars I and II, are built right into the structure of the novel…. Erdrich recognizes the political ghosts she will conjure up in writing about Germany.[7]

1. Austenfeld, Thomas. “German Heritage and Culture in Louise Erdrich’s The Master Butchers Singing Club," Great Plains Quarterly. Vol. 26 N. 1, Winter 2006, pp. 3–11.

2. Rowe, John Carlos. “Buried Alive: The Native American Political Unconscious in Louise Erdrich’s Fiction.” Postcolonial Studies: Culture, Politics, Economy. Volume 7, Number 2, July 2004, pp. 197–210 (14), Routledge.

3. Oliver-Rotger, Maria Antonia. “Literature and Ethnicity in the Cultural Borderlands.” MELUS, Vol. 29, 2004.

Theatre

In 2010, a play based on the novel opened at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

References

  1. ↑ Kerr, Euan."Guthrie will premier Erdrich's "Master Butcher's Singing Club" mpr.org, April 7, 2010]
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ USATODAY.com - 'Butchers' skillfully carves memorable characters
  4. ↑ Immigrants and acrobats storm the Midwest
  5. ↑ Her Own Private North Dakota - New York Times
  6. ↑ BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Setting Out With a Dream And a Lot Of Sausages - New York Times
  7. ↑ Erdrich, Louise. The Master Butchers Singing Club. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
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