The Master Butchers Singing Club-Chapter 3-SPOILERS

[Curmudgeoness]

This thread is set up for discussion of the book by Louise Erdrich, and will be posted chapter by chapter (as I finish them or if you want to participate, you can post an OP for the next chapter). This way, we can see how our opinions of the book and characters change or not over time. If you are joining the discussion, stop after each chapter and post before going on so you don't have more information than anyone else reading this.


Chapter 3 had a lot happening, and we got some insight into Fidelis and Eva, as well as the town of Argus ND. Although I had concern for how Fidelis would survive after running out of money on the way to Seattle in Argus ND, I should not have worried. He did very well. He got work at the local butcher's (Kozka's) shop and his sausages were a hit. He scrimped and saved, as I understand was usual, and was able to bring Eva and his son, Franz to America.

Eva arrives, and she is not pleased with the town. I don't blame her...I am sure that I would be, at the least, disappointed to be in some god-forsaken part of the country. We really don't hear anymore about her thoughts on it as they prosper and grow---does she get used to it, or is it going to be a thorn in her side?

Fidelis starts his own business and we learn a lot about more about his character. He is as fair as he can be, setting his shop as far as he can away from Kozka's business. There is not much tension between the two until the Kozka dog continues to come to visit Fidelis...and this makes Kozka jealous. Add to that an escalation of jokes by giving the dog grosser and grosser animal parts to drag back home with him. I am at a loss why it was a problem for Kozka, I can't figure out why he let all the parts accumulate until they were rotten and stinking----why didn't he throw them out at some point???? But he didn't. He really starts to get pissed that the dog seems to like to be around Fidelis and the resentment grows in him. He went too far by dumping all of it in the Waldvogel's bed one day. Eva apparently will hate him for the rest of her life, if she is like me.

Fidelis gets injured by a pig that he is to butcher---apparently a pig that is not so dumb and intended to go down fighting. He blames the dog for getting the pig riled up, and I don't blame him---I have a feeling the dog didn't help matters. We find something else about Fidelis when he is injured---he finished the work of slaughter and butchering the pig before he goes to the doctor, even with a broken kneecap and bites from the pig. I have the feeling that it was revenge against the pig that kept him going, as well as a work ethic that would not let him leave a job unfinished.

While at the doctor's office, the two of them end up singing together---and Fidelis realized how much singing used to make him feel better. He puts together a group of men who meet weekly to sing.....and the plot thickens when one of the members is Delphine's father, the town drunk. So we see some connection, finally, between these two stories.

Kozka happens to love music and singing too, but he can't bring himself to join in, at first. Then one day he just shows up at the meeting, and another peek at Fidelis' personality is that he doesn't mind and they become friends again through the singing.

I have to wonder how Eva feels about Kozka being around. It seems that she is not the type to forget the sacrilege that he did went he entered their house, and their bedroom, and ruined her bed linens---brought with her from Germany.

Fidelis seems to be a very good-natured and even tempered man, as well as a meticulous worker. Almost too even-tempered. Will this last? I don't know how he can be so forgiving.

[fadedrose]

1. This was a mesy chapter, and I didn't care much for it

Fidelis got a job working for Koska who owned a butcher shop in Argus, North Dakota. When the railroad reached the town taking its commodities east and west, the town started to grow. Fidelis did custom jobs for livestock owners and butchers in other towns as well was working for Koska.

He saves money and his parents sell some land in Germany and he's able to bring Eva over to America. She sees a lot of nothing, where Fidelis sees everything as now complete.

Koska and Fidelis disagree over why dogs become attached to their owners. Koska says it's personal love, but Fidelis says it's a dog's love for food that makes him loyal. Koska's wife raises purebred chow dogs.

Fidelis buys a building way at the other end of town, and a new road is built right in front of his building just after he starts his own butcher shop. The two butchers don't fight over their stores competition, they fight about why dogs are loyal. Fidelis throws his waste in the back of his shop, attracting people, dogs or anything else that wants to eat, including Hottentot, Koska's dog, who comes daily from the other side of town, in spite of Koska's efforts to stop him.

Koska never throws his waste or bones outside, he locks them up in a barrel and sells them. Fidelis deliberately gives Hottentot the ugliest largest bones and other parts he has, including chicken feet, and takes great delight in the dog coming to his shop every day from clear across town. Once, when Koska tries to take a bone away from his own dog on his front stoop, it bites him, and he is angry.

Now Hottentot knows the routine, he knows when a sow is about to be killed and can't wait to get the scraps. Fidelis is going to kill a private sow, a prize pig, and Hottentot is there all excited, more or less terrifying the pig who now suspects something funny is going down. The pig attacks Fidelis before he can shoot it, breaks his kneecap, chews the soft tissues above it. Wounded and in pain, Fidelis finally shoots the pig between the eyes, and ashamedly, weeps for it, and he doesn know why. He then dresses it, giving Hottentot more stuff, who drags it home all through town.

Fidelis goes to the doctors and while there, Doctor Heech starts to sing while he's mending the knee and sewing, and through his pain, Fidelis starts to sings with him..

Koska's wife Fritzie is screaming about all the bones laying on their property, so Koska gathers them all and takes them over to Fidelis' house, finds a door open and puts them all in Eva and Fidelis bed...

Eva is furious about her smelly fancy bed stuff, her dowry in marriage, and blames the dog to everyone for Fidelis' injury. The men no longer speak.

Fidelis misses singing with the butchers as he did in his village in Germany and calls a few friends to sing at the back of his shop, giving them food and beer. It catches on and becomes poplular. Koska also loves to sing and yearns to sing with them, so he comes to Fidelis' shop and joins them, and they learn to get along eventually. Besides the doctor, the banker and a few others, another singer was Roy, the town drunk, who happened to be Delphine's father.

In my mind, Fidelis doesn't care about others,' even tho Koska gave him his first job, he kept on feeding the dog, even though Kaska tied, chained and built a pen for the dog, it would somehow get away.

Now I know understand why Fidelis never thought about the war or why it was fought or the conditions in Germany. He just didn't give a damn about anything but his knives and his sausages, which had to be made of the best ingredients available, not for his customers' sake, but for the sake of his own ego. And he cared for his wife. Nobody else really mattered, it seems.

At this point, I do not like Fidelis, he's a real jerk, and my sympathy lies with Koska..

[Curmudgeoness]

2. It is interesting that after reading the chapter,

you don't like Fidelis but have sympathy for Koska, while I don't like Koska at all and think Fidelis is an even-tempered man. I will have to think a while on your opinion on Fidelis, but I have no sympathy for Koska. I think he is a little weasel of a man. As we learned earlier, he was stingy and paid his employees very poorly, he did not take care that he sold good quality meats. And by him putting the rotten meat and bones in the bed, I see him as a vengeful evil man.

I do agree that Fidelis is full of pride, but I am not seeing that as a bad thing. He has pride in his work. He has pride in his wife. He believes in his abilities. I am not sure that makes him a jerk---but we will see.

[fadedrose]

3. The bones in the bed was done without malice or forethought..

He meant to just dump the bones & crap in the yard, and, like so many of us, did something stupid without thinking. Temporary madness....

This had to be during the depression - people were lucky to get paid anything anywhere for anything. Koska at least paid.

Fidelis had no love for the dog. He singled it out for special feeding of the worst stuff he had just to aggravate Koska, not out of meanness, more of the nature of a prank. He thought it was funny. Until Fidelis moved there, Hottentot ran free and didn't bother

A good way to get out of cleaning up after yourself, I think that Fidelis figured, was to just pitch the stuff out and let nature take its course. Why should I do it, he figured....and what fun to have Koska's dog coming over...he enjoyed it...

I doubt there was trash pickup then - things had to be disposed of properly which was a lot of trouble.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. Do you think that he meant to just put the crap in the yard?

If so, why even open the door to the house? Maybe temporary madness, but I think it was more. And really, can you imagine all that shit getting drug home by your dog and left in your doorway, and you let it stay there and build up until it is so rancid that it is oozing? What kind of people do that?

I don't think that it was during the depression when Fidelis came to America. WWI was over in 1918, and it sounded like he came right after the war---so he would have been working for Koska before the depression. When they talked about Fidelis opening his business, they said that Koska could not keep employees because of poor pay...so it would not have been a time when people were desparate for work.

You are right, Fidelis didn't care one way or the other about the dog, but he did like that the dog was proving his point about how dogs are motivated, whether that point was right or wrong. I don't think that disposal of the things given to Hottentot was a problem...I think it was just because of the prank that the dog got those scraps. I wouldn't be surprised that trash disposal was pretty much digging a hole and buring the scrap. But I don't know that.

[fadedrose]

6. Conservation laws and game laws in many states...

require that hunters gut their kill and bury the entrails and waste least 2-1/2 ft. to 3 ft. deep to keep dogs from getting them. If ground is frozen, they tie this stuff high up in trees..

Dogs could get sick or worms from meat laying around in the heat. That why a lot of farms have signs posted, PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO HUNTING," because some hunters don't give a damn about dogs or smell or anything like that and farmers don't want them on their land. And even without pigs around, dogs will fight over stuff that's laying around.

Fidelis knew the problems his waste could cause, and Eva should have blamed him for the bones deposited in their bed..

We had a slaughterhouse at the end of the street where I lived when I was a kid. The owners were Polish people, and they killed a lot of beef there. The place smelled, but they NEVER threw waste and entrails anywhere outside their building and store (where we bought all our meat)... Koska was also Polish, so maybe it's an ethnic thing.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. There are a lot of laws now, but back in the 20's,

do you think it was the same? When I lived in Texas in the 80's, I worked for a man who owned a cattle ranch, and all trash was buried, including cows that died. They had an earthmover that made huge trenches to use as disposal---so that was legal at that time in Texas. I was rather shocked by it. That is why I was thinking it was possible that the waste could be buried.

[fadedrose]

5. I have reread Chapter 3 and see nothing about Koska's not selling high quality meats.

People liked Koska and Fritzi...that's why nobody poisoned Hottentot, who was a bit snarky, snapped, and whatever. Not a likeable dog. Chows are known for their bad tempers...

I got bit by a chow when I was a very little girl, about 7, because Princess was eating a a soup bone in her basement, I went down to hug her and she bit my ear. I stopped them from punishing her because I still liked her. I remember screaming "leave her alone"...

Stingy is not the same as selling bad meat. He maybe didn't give them coffee with their lunch, provide aprons, cutting tools, pay for overtime, etc., and was "cheap."

I know a lot of people who are nice, but very cheap...

Many places do not pay their people decent wages or provide health care...and you're right, some might call them weasels too.

[Curmudgeoness]

8. You are right.

I made an assumption based on some comments about Koska, but it does not indicate that the quality was lacking. My bad.

My opinions came from comments like "Koska was...always in need of help since his ways were cheap and men quit". I guess that it isn't a given that cheap ways would translate to poor quality products.