Best Love Story: Shakespeare vs. Austen...GO

When our club began, around a bonfire on an expectant May evening last spring, the idea was that we would challenge ourselves and one another, accompanied by like-minded folk and good things to eat and drink. For instance, none of us had read Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice which, to the three of us, seemed rather appalling. For my part, it had been assigned to the Advanced Placement English class when I was in high school and not being party to that particular curriculum, I figured I wasn’t really smart enough to handle it. As I approached the graduation date for my master’s work, I thought it might be that I am finally smart enough to read Austen and a dear friend convinced me that I might even enjoy it (thanks Liz!).

Needless to say, our first club read was Pride & Prejudice and I loved it. I think I’d like to give it another go, see what else I catch, but my earlier suspicions came to fruition: I was both capable and smitten. I am Elizabeth Bennett. Dear Mr. Darcy: Whatever you want. You got it. I’m yours.

Now, months later, I read Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet in preparation to see the show at the Guthrie Theater with my Love. As we read it together, me for the third time, I realized that I don’t actually like the story at all. Two teenagers give liberty to their hormones during a life stage when there is no room for compromise or accommodation, seek council from a priest with his own agenda, and, despite the autonomy they think they have from their social groups, feel they have no option but to kill themselves. This is awfully desperate if you ask me; and not the kind of sexy desperate in Sarah McLachlan’s “Possession,” but an unreasonable kind of desperate, like an overly tired, feverish four-year-old throwing a temper tantrum over a well-established bedtime routine. Dear Romeo and Juliet: You’re fourteen. Get over yourselves.

What Romeo & Juliet does have going for it is the amiable Benvolio, the ruthless Tybalt, the raucous Mercutio, and such brilliant writing as “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man” and the whole “but soft!...” nonsense. Also Shakespeare. Who’s to argue with Bill anyway? No self-respecting indigenous English speaker would argue that he was brilliant with a pen, even if you don’t get it or enjoy it. Bravo sir.

After reading the books, one can move on to picking movies apart. Both stories have a modern version and a slightly less modern version. Let’s begin…

In seventh grade, in a private, Catholic school, it was thrilling even for me (a girl) to see Juliet’s boob. One boob. Wow, we’re adults now, the school says so. As if that wasn’t enough to handle as an adolescent, Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes had to go and make brilliant work out of the script with Baz Luhrman. As I watched the film again last week I thought: Boy were they devastatingly beautifully and stunningly talented. Yikes. Also Baz Luhrman is kind of awesome.

On to "Pride & Prejudice:” there is a five-hour, critically accurate BBC version and a more modern film starring Kiera Knightly. The BBC film boasts an exact portrayal of the text and made up for its length by employing Colin Firth to play Mr. Darcy. That was a wise choice. (Did you see him in “Love Actually?” “Bonita Aurelia…” sigh.) The second film, being not quite as true a reproduction, was visually more stunning, a bit darker with stronger sexual tension (see Sarah McLachlan’s “Possession” once again), and an almost-as-sultry-as-Colin-Firth-Mr.-Darcy in Matthew MacFayden. Also a wise choice.

Needless to say, Pride & Prejudice was my favorite all around: book, movie, story. The two stories really can’t be compared, they’re just so different. But as two of the greatest love stories ever told, comparisons are bound to be made. What are some of the other great love stories? Please share, especially if they are lovely like Pride & Prejudice and not ridiculous like Romeo & Juliet.

The Master Butchers Singing Club

Previous to reading The Master Butchers Singing Club by Minnesota author Louise Erdrich, I had read Love Medicine, Tracks, and The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse.However, it wasn’t until reading The Master Butcher that I understood Erdrich’s style in a way that allowed me to appreciate the weight of her story, as well as the telling. Truth be told, I think Love Medicine and Tracks went way over my head and will have to give them another go around.

The Master Butchers Singing Club is the gripping story of Delphine Watzka, a rural North Dakota townie and Fidelis Waldvogel, a German immigrant. Following World War I, Fidelis immigrates to the US in the hopes of getting to Seattle, though he only gets as far as Argus, North Dakota. He settles there, opening a butcher shop and raising his four sons with his wife, Eva, who is absolutely a brilliant force in the book. Weaving stories of murder, a threatening sheriff, the delightful Waldvogel family, and Delphine’s relationships with the endearing Cyprian and lovely Roy, Erdrich brings us a truly bittersweet story of human relationships.

So much happens in the book that each chapter is thrilling to read even on its own. The challenge to the reader may be keeping a pulse on Delphine and Fidelis’ relationship throughout the story. We travel with Delphine through her desire for the very sexy Cyprian, the resulting disillusionment and nontraditional relationship, her affection for Eva and loyalty to Eva’s sons, and the polar strength that both she and Fidelis summon to stay apart. We endure the insufferable Tante, the delightful Clarisse, the brooding Sheriff Hoch, and Delphine’s very drunk, very loveable and pitiable father, Roy. Each character and story line is drawn with such depth and cautious detail that the tale could go in any direction and I admire Erdrich for being able to stick with the story she’s chosen. It is clear that the story of the master butcher of Argus is just one of many that could come out of this fictional town.

Erdrich has previously written about the Anishinabeg communities in North Dakota and Minnesota and one theme of The Master Butchers Singing Club is the interaction of the native peoples of the plains with the white settlers. Specifically, Erdrich weaves in the Battle at Wounded Knee in an out-of-the-blue though not irrelevant way. The character of Step-and-a-Half absolutely fascinates and, though a very peripheral character, she had almost exactly the role I was expecting. "Almost" is the key word here; I would have been disappointed if I had been able to guess it.

Above all, Erdrich’s writing style makes this book so wonderful to read. Whether she is telling a tragedy or describing something amusing, she makes it count. She writes sentences like: “The light pouring through the curtains made a liquid sound, he thought, an emotional and female sound as it moved across the ivory wall.” I had to read that a couple times to really understand the air and sound behind an observation like that, but once I was there in the room I thought yes, I know that kind of light. The thought from the book that stuck with me most when I had finished was observed by Step-and-a-Half as she closed the story: “Our songs travel the earth…Not a single note is ever lost and no song is original. They all come from the same place and go back to a time when only the stones howled.” What imagery! What grace! What connection to the ancestors!

**If you decide this isn’t enough to make you want to read the book, go see the show at the Guthrie Theatre. It is showing until November 6th and is absolutely outstanding.