Bel Canto: A Novel Hardcover – May 22, 2001

Ann Patchett has created a literary masterpiece. This important novel will forever be on best fiction lists. Patchett has invented a fascinating scenario in which to explore the workings of the human heart. The power of healing inherent in fine music and, above all, in kindness. Read this book! You won’t regret it.

This is a wonderful story, written by the incomparable Ann Patchett. Two worlds collide harshly and alliances, friendship, even love is found in secret moments, unexpectedly, by some of the participants.I’ve read this book 4 or 5 times, and it’s different and better each time (I could say the same about several of Ann Patchett’s books).

This is the second time I have read this book, I know there will be more. It’s a beautiful story, the characters complex . I have loved nearly everything I have read of Ms Patchetts. But this, this is something very special.

book is a bit worn, but that was stated by the seller. It is still very readable and was a good price. Came on time.

2009 Review:This book was like a soaring aria that left me in its wake with ears ringing and heart aching to be a part of something true or beautiful. It made me ache to be known, to be loved, and to love.A+2020 Commentary:I love books. This is my favorite book.When I tried reviewing this book back in 2009, I could only write two sentences before I realized I could never capture what this book means to me. I ended up leaving a huge blank space in my book journal which I never went back to fill. And still, as I type right now, I feel trepidation that I might mischaracterize the book because I don’t have the capacity to describe the impact that the most beautiful works of art can have.I don’t remember when I first read this book, though it certainly wasn’t 2009. I don’t remember how many times I’ve read the book. What I remember is feeling like every beat of this story is perfectly orchestrated and flawlessly executed. Patchett’s prose makes me feel like my heart is too big for my chest. It just keeps swelling and pounding pushing my stomach and lungs out of the way until it finally leaves me breathless, in tears, aching.The book is ostensibly about a long-term hostage crisis and the relationships that develop among the hostages and terrorists. But the book is just so much more. Please go read it.The pace is slow, delicate, lilting. Then a stunning build to a crashing crescendo leaves the reader sitting in silence trying to process the fading ephemeral beauty. I remember feeling like Patchett brought my heart into perfect tune and conducted it like an orchestra. There is a rise and fall to the story that’s akin to the sweeping baton and relaxed outstretched hand of a maestro keeping time and guiding his orchestra with confidence.Describing this book--as Patchett elsewhere characterizes the process of writing--is like trying to capture the world’s most beautiful butterfly. Once you have the butterfly preserved and displayed, it’s no longer the most beautiful because you’ve robbed it of its life. Bel Canto is that living, breathing marvel that is only truly appreciated when experienced, not analyzed. Please go read it.

In an unnamed South American country, a birthday party is being held for Japanese businessman, Mr. Hosokawa, in the hopes that he will bring business to this poor country. The only way he could be lured to this country was to see Roxane Coss, a famous opera singer revered by Hosokawa. The international party party is taking place at the home of the country's Vice-President, Ruben Iglesias. But after Roxane has finished singing, the party is interrupted by a terrorist group who plan to take the President hostage so they can get others in their group released from prison. The only problem...the President decided not to attend the party so he could watch his favorite soap opera. The terrorists now don't have the leverage they need but they can't just free the hostages, so the women are let go except for the famous opera star and the remaining hostages and terrorists spend months waiting for demands to be met. But relationships develop between captors and their prisoners, despite circumstances and the language barriers of the guests from around the world. The one thing that seems to bring them together is their love of Roxane and the beautiful music she provides until their time together must inevitably end.I have had this book on my shelf for years. I don't know what took me so long to read it. I loved Run and The Magician's Assistant, titles also by Patchett. A discussion on twitter revealed many others loved Patchett but had not read this book. It also received mixed reviews, those that loved it and those that could not finish it.I am definitely in the loved it group. Patchett is am amazing writer, very lyrical and beautiful. Opera and terrorism seem to be odd in the same book plot but Patchett made it work. This is not a fast read and is a novel to be savored. It isn't political but about relationships that develop in unusual circumstances. All become used to their situation. Roxane discovers one of the young captors has an amazing voice and wants to help him become an opera star. Gen, Mr. Hosokawa's interpreter becomes the interpreter for the group and learns many secrets and falls for a young woman in the terrorist group. Ruben wants to adopt another of the young captors, a boy who has become like a son to him. They stop thinking about what is happening in the outside world as I did. But a hostage situation can not go on forever. The ending comes suddenly and the very ending surprised me and I'm not sure whether it was believable or inevitable.Regardless, this was a beautiful story and if it is sitting on your shelf, pick it up and read it already!my rating 5/5

Bel Canto: Italian for Beautiful Singing or Beautiful SongIf Puccini was alive today, he may well have written this story. This is a book that centers around an opera singer and is written in the style of an opera. It has all the hallmarks: a heroine who all men fall in love with, love affairs between unlikely protagonists, West Side Story style bad gang find common ground (and love) with good gang, poor meet rich, national stereotyping, tragic death (won't tell you who) and a twist in the tale.It took me a while to enjoy the book. It wasn’t until I switched my mindset to one of sitting high up in a theatre, absorbing an unrealistic story on the stage, suspending reality, and just enjoying the melodrama that the page turns became enjoyable. There are references to the modern TV soap opera, people who discover the world-beating talent that they never knew they had, fathers adopting lost boys, boys who go unnoticed until they reveal themselves to be girls, bad guys with bad skin and a love of chess and even a character called Carmen. All that was needed was for the author to rename the chapters to Acts. The whole opera is played out on a single set of the home of a South American country’s Vice President.Much of the prose is beautifully written and the characters are memorable and full of personality, so sit back, put on your favorite Verdi or Rossini playlist and wallow in the romanticism and tragedy.

Ann Patchett is an author that I have heard of but had never read any of her books. This book was recommended by a friend (whose taste I admire) and coincided with the author's latest book receiving some very positive marketing. So it's fair to say that I had high expectations.Whilst I was reading the book I was talking to others about it and many people I know have read it.To my delight I found this book to give me real joy as it is an amazing study of human nature. The action is set in an unspecified South American country where a party is drawn to an abrupt ending by a group of terrorists who then take everyone as hostages.We then follow the progress of the situation and observe how the relationships develop.In some ways the writing is immensely claustrophobic with frequent mention of the day to day detail necessary to maintain life and sanity. Surrounding this there is much beauty and love which seems both unlikely and absolutely natural at the same time.Inside the house the terrorists and the hostages seem content for time to drift as their lives slow down and it's very much the same for the reader. It is odd how such a gripping book took me a long time to read - that's usually a bad sign but with this book I was just savouring it.As the end approaches the tension for the reader mounts - we know the book is running out of pages but the hostages still have no idea what is going to happen (and I loved the end of the book, it was surprising but completely plausible).I was particularly curious about how the passing of time was illustrated. It would have been easy for the author to date time chapters (or something similar) but it is handled in a much more subtle way with the reader having to search for clues (clothes needing to be washed and beards having been grown as just two examples). We really only have a vague idea about how long the siege has been underway which is much the same for all those involved.

Like Hilary Mantel, Ann Patchett can switch genres, topics and tones with each book she produces. I knew nothing about this book, but I enjoy her writing - particularly loved The Dutch House. Bel Canto is a world away, though there is the same attention to detail in setting the scene, and the same ability to make you warm to a character in spite of yourself. In this book she manages to make a harrowing event, hostage taking, into a mildly amusing diary of developments. The hostages are a group of wealthy business men and their wives who have met together for a birthday celebration in the residence of a minor diplomat in a Spanish town. The assassins are looking for the president, but he fails to attend the party, so they take the entire gathering hostage instead, including the famous soprano who had been booked to sing at the party. Subsequently, women and children are released, but the diva misses the moment, and the captors decide that she is worth keeping in order to strengthen their demands.Music, and opera singing, infuse this novel, and becomes the motivation of many of the events and decisions within the group of hostages, and indeed some of the captors.The seriousness of the situation, and the humour used to describe the everyday life inside the house, (they all settle down to a comfortable routine) make a curious combination, which wouldn't be to everyone's taste. I enjoyed the book, but was not carried away by it, hence the four stars.

The first half of the book is so good that it would deserve a five star rating. Alas, the second half has neither the wit nor quite the interest of the first half; and the Epilogue is grotesquely unsatisfying.The story is likely to have been inspired by events in Peru in 1996, when that country had a Japanese-descended president and experienced a siege, lasting 126 days, of the Japanese embassy in which guerrillas had taken a large number of distinguished people hostage – though nothing else in the novel is in any other way related to that episode.So: In 1996, a Latin-American country threw a party with 191 guests, from several different nations, on to celebrate the 53rd birthday of Katsumi Hosokawa, founder of a Japanese electronics corporation, in the hope of securing investments from him. He was induced to attend the party because the great Italian operatic soprano, Roxane Coss, was going to sing at it. Hosokawa was not only a huge opera fan, but a particular admirer of Roxane, and in the last five years had travelled around the world to attend no fewer than eighteen of her performances. This occasion was hosted by Vice-President Ruben Iglesias in his home, because the Japanese-descended President Eduardo Masuda had called off at the last moment.Roxane had just sung, at Hosokawa’s request, an aria from Dvorak’s opera Rusalka when eighteen mostly young, scruffy and armed guerrillas (two of them later turned out to be girls; three of the eighteen were Generals) burst in. They meant to seize President Masuda. When they realized he was not there, they took all the people in the building hostage.Somehow what had happened had reached the outside world, and the Vice-President’s house was soon besieged by state forces. A Red Cross official, Joachim Messner, was admitted into the house to negotiate: let them release the women first as a sign of good will. The captors did release all the women except Roxane, the priests (one of them, Father Arguedas, elected to stay to minister to the remaining hostages), the invalids and the domestic staff. In return, the authorities sent in food and drinks. The guerrillas had kept Roxane as one of the most valuable of the hostages; but they released several more low-worth male hostages for whom they could expect no ransom money or who were in no position to secure the release of their imprisoned comrades - until in the end they were left with just forty hostages.Through Messmer, they made ever more extreme demands of the authorities in exchange for setting their hostages free. The authorities, for their part, were adamant in making no concessions whatever. But they made no efforts to storm the building or even to withhold food and other things being taken into the besieged house.The weeks passed. The captors and the captives became more relaxed. Hosokawa wordlessly played chess with one of the Generals. Roxane’s singing bewitched captors and captives alike. The book is a great hymn to the power of music. Many of the captives were in love with Roxane, especially Hosokawa. He and Roxane became lovers, although they had no language in common. Hosokawa had brought with him a polyglot interpreter, Gen Watanabe, who often translated for them, as indeed he did for so many other of the captives who did not have languages in common.The illiterate Carmen, one of the girl soldiers, aged seventeen, got Gen to teach her to read and write, and they, too, became lovers. The book is also a hymn to love.Most of the captives and their captors were so content with what was now their way of life that they had given up all thoughts of what the future might hold. What it did hold is shockingly revealed three pages before the book’s short Epilogue; and that Epilogue is completely out of tune with what had gone before.

This was my first Ann Patchett novel and I am properly hooked! What a brilliantly unique premise for a story. Once you immerse yourself, it's so effortless to imagine it on the big screen. The plot is complex and beautiful and life-affirming and clever and emotional and revelatory. The intricacies of the situation these unwitting guests and audience members find themselves in is clearly so well researched. I dreaded the book's ending, and, whilst the final act surprised me and may not have been the happy ever after I yearned for, of course, deep down, I knew that said HEA could never be. And after a couple of hours of contemplation, I accepted its imperfect perfection. Oh, when a book touches you so profoundly!