The Master Butcher's Singing Club

De: Louise Erdrich

Narrado por: Louise Erdrich

What happens when a trained killer discovers, in the aftermath of war, 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, 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 Argus, North Dakota, where he settles, building a business and a home for his family, which now includes Eva and four sons, and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town.

What happens when the Old World meets the New, in the person of Delphine Watzka, becomes one of the great adventures of Fidelis's life. 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 in which Louise Erdrich creates a world filled with memorable characters who grapple with the worst and best of human nature.

©2004 Louise Erdrich (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"An enrapturing plunge into the depths of the human heart." (Washington Post Book World)

"Bordering on magical realism, this marvelous yarn introduces a world of rich, expansive imagery and an abundance of memorably compelling characters." (Publishers Weekly)

"Erdrich narrates with expressive intimacy, bringing authenticity to the exceptional people who populate Argus, North Dakota.... A master storyteller, Erdrich creates charismatic characters, and her reading makes each distinctly memorable." (AudioFile)

"Powerful, richly detailed....It's clear that Erdrich, one of our finest writers, is working at the very peak of her considerable powers." (Booklist)

The characters.

Newburgh took me to a time and place I had never read about. very good characters to hear about. only one thing was that one of the characters was in developed enough. I would still highly recommend it someone reading this

Reader

The author read the book. Very boring. I ended up listening to at 1.25 speed.

Please try again

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I hope this wonderful book will one day be re-recorded by a professional narrator and with a higher quality production. The book deserves so much more than this audio recording gives it. Although the author did better narrating her book than do many authors, she nevertheless is a bit tentative -- she sounds apologetic to be intruding in our lives with her story. It's too bad. The book is masterful. It's still worth the time to listen to it.

This is a wonderful, dreamy saga

Louise Erdrich is a fine storyteller, and this is a decades-long familial saga that depicts the difficult life of hard-working German immigrants to our Midwest in the early 20th century. It seems to contain every human emotion, from the sweetest love and loyalty to envy, to retaliation and murder, to war; and, or course, loving beautiful music. Easily my favorite by Ms. Erdrich. It is many hours long, and I could have listened longer. She is a wonderful narrator of her own work.

Touched my heart

What made the experience of listening to The Master Butcher's Singing Club the most enjoyable?

The intricate development of the characters.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Master Butcher's Singing Club?

Step and a half. I loved her character, with a brilliant surprise that had an element of magical realism.

Which character – as performed by Louise Erdrich – was your favorite?

Step and a half

If you could take any character from The Master Butcher's Singing Club out to dinner, who would it be and why?

It would be wonderful to have them all at my table. I could narrow it down to Cyprian, Delphine, and Step and a half. Couldn't choose just one.

Beautifully landscaped characters

This book was a worthy read. The characters are so wonderful and rich. A great book to listen to for the whole family.

Excellent story, poor recording

As I said in my title, the story is excellent however the publisher did a horrible job recording the audio.

Took me a couple goes to get into.

Hard time getting past the slow start. Restarted a couple times. But all I had while at a project and I made it past to a good long story after several chapters.
I will save to listen again list!

The writing was very detailed and made the story more interesting

I loved this book! It’s a greats story, but my only complaint was in the audible version, there were sentences left out , at first. Then later in the book, there were almost full pages that were skipped.

The Master Butcher's Snoring Club

I am surprised to see the glowing reviews listed here. Frankly, this book does not deserve them. True, the prose and language are somewhat engaging, but the author tends to take herself too seriously, droning on and on about people, places and things with barely any dialogue between characters. It seemed like I was halfway through this book before there were any characters speaking more than one or two sentences. As a result of this verbal vancancy, I found the book to lull me into a state of disinterest.

Not wanting to give away too much plot, I will simply mention that one of the characters is revealed to have done something quite surprising and seemingly without motive. There was really no development of this personality that would lead the reader/listener to even consider this act as requisite to any kind of evolution of the story line. The motive is NEVER explained in the least. And, as quickly as this event is brought to attention, it goes away with barely any significance to the rest of the book.

Like the Seinfeld Show, I found this almost to be a story about nothing. People doing what people do, and the author pleased with the sound of her own voice.

While not a terrible work, I found this book to be quite lacking and unsatisfying. True, Ms.Erdrich's voice and language are soothing and not unpleasant- sort of like a mild sedative. Zzzzzzzzzz