Fidelis walked home from the great war in twelve days and slept thirty-eight hours once he crawled into his childhood bed.
-- The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich.
That sentence grabbed me because family lore has it that my great uncle Georg also walked home to Germany when WWI finally ended. Poor Georg -- although he was too young to fight in WWI (only 14 when the war started), he was conscripted and, although to old to fight in WWII, was conscripted again. He walked home to his farm in Bavaria again after WWII.
So I am sucked into this story from the get go. And even deeper when Fidelis goes to America and finances his immigration by selling sausages to New Yorkers. Mmmmmmm . . . sausages . . .
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ReplyDeleteIt takes confidence to come out with a novel with "The Master Butchers Singing Club" for a title. Of course, author name recognition helps.
ReplyDeleteBut, I digress. I, too, like the first sentence of this novel. It's so straight forward and without need for pyrotechnics or sentimentality.
It will be interesting to read your review later on.
Malcolm
P.S. Sorry about deleting my previous comment: I left something out and there was no way to edit it.
SS: It's funny, I never thought of the title as anything particularly odd. I mean, the idea of butchers singing was odd, but I didn't think having "Master Butchers" in the title was anything but an incitement for me to read the book.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I have things on my calendar like "Celebration of Pork" (this Monday at 11:30 a.m.), so maybe I see butchers differently than the general reading audience. :)
That is a tantalizing opening...love the title of the book.
ReplyDelete