To ask other readers questions about Bel Canto , please sign up. This question contains spoilers Judy Lindow This answer contains spoilers… view spoiler [ Gen and Roxanne, brought together by beauty and love, marry for many reasons. They were the 2 main characters that connected all the other characters …more Gen and Roxanne, brought together by beauty and love, marry for many reasons.
They were the 2 main characters that connected all the other characters - everyone loved her and needed him - her through her music and him through his language skills. When she sang or he translated, people learned how to better communicate with each other by listening, by being quiet, and doing less. Gen and Roxanne's self actualization expressions of love and passion inspired the others around them. It was like a story of Soup using them as the original magical stones.
Through the book we see others grow into their more natural selves - the new accompanist, the runner, the cook, chest player and young opera singer. Both of them also found a completeness with their lovers - Both Gen and Roxanne find 'giving' and responding to love s by the end of the story.
She finds more than being loved and responding to her passion and he finds more than being needed and responding to his obsession with words. It was also the perfect resolution in that it allows looking into the future possible. If I had to pick one reason they ended up together, it would be "shared experiences", that they grew together, at the same time, and where witnessed each other "in love" - that they understood how the other, but themselves as well, needed to be loved.
Aneta 'We have art in order not to die from the truth' - F. Nietzsche …more 'We have art in order not to die from the truth' - F. Nietzsche less. See all 15 questions about Bel Canto…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Bel Canto. Let me preface this review by saying that I know this a disproportionately emotional review, but it's my review and my emotions and it is what it is.
In , the home of the Japanese ambassador to Peru was taken hostage by guerillas during a party and held for days until the home was raided by military force killing all the insurgents, many executed after they surrendered.
At a time when Peru suffered an undercurrent of terrorist activity, president Fujimori was praised for his handling of t Let me preface this review by saying that I know this a disproportionately emotional review, but it's my review and my emotions and it is what it is.
At a time when Peru suffered an undercurrent of terrorist activity, president Fujimori was praised for his handling of the crisis and his approval rating soared. Since then, the commanders in the Peruvian army have been on trial for homicide but granted amnesty because they were praised as national heros. President Fujimori himself is in prison for human rights violations, not from this incidence, but still an interesting side note since those loss of rights are linked to his low tolerance for terrorist activity.
A very interesting story that happened in Peru , a country with a name and a history more interesting than opera, but this I'm afraid was not that story.
It upset me to realize that Patchett was using a piece of Peruvian history with no intention of telling a story of Peru or its political unrest or even including a proper description of the country. She only refers to "the host country" or "this godforsaken country" in a vague brush of one of those South American countries that aren't very important or distinct.
Did she neglect to put Peru in the story because it defames the country or really is it that they just aren't interesting enough to her? I know I shouldn't be offended that she dedicated this whole book to an opera singer who wasn't even part of the crisis and even gave it an Italian name, but a little bit I am.
Even the "about the book" section is dedicated all to loving opera without a mention to the actual crisis that inspired the events. There is a passage in the book about Roxane, the opera singer, singing a Czech piece and Gen, the translator, notes the distinction between knowing the words and speaking the language and only someone who spoke the language would see the lack of understanding.
Maybe my reading this book was a little like that. I felt like I was reading two books simultaneously. The one about opera with vague, inaccurate concepts of an unnamed Peru where, if I had let Patchett guide my visual picture of the book I would have imagined the Von Trapp house stuck in the middle of the Amazon jungle.
And the other of what I know about Peru and the crisis situation, trying to meld that visual to this story. I realize that this is a piece of fiction and Patchett has the artistic license to write a fictional description of the crisis anyway she wishes, but I didn't like the story she chose to tell. A hostage situation is intense, but even the takeover she stretches through wanderings of the love of opera and manages to dull it so that not even the hostages seem anything other than mildly putout.
Maybe it's because I'm not a opera lover there are opera pieces I enjoy, but as a whole it's not something I seek out , but I found it unbelievable that all these people most of them men would be so mesmerized by an opera singer and all of them fall in love with her and her music. I felt as though Patchett was using this story as a vehicle to force me to love opera and me on the other side of the pages resists for nothing more than the force of her request.
It took me over pages to get into this page story and the only thing that eventually drew me in and saved it was the relationships between the hostages and their captors. In a normal setting I may not have believed it, but I did of the generally humble Peruvians, which is why the country should have been vital to the story.
It took Patchett awhile to get there, but eventually I did like the characters. Even though I knew how it would end, I was anxious for the conclusion, to avoid inevitable tragedy.
I could have done without the epilogue that was unnecessary and cheap. If Patchett wanted to include an epilogue, maybe she should have included one about the actual events. Or maybe it's all too appropriate that Peru was ignored. Okay, I'm done with my Peruvian inferiority complex over here. Feel free to talk about the actual story in your review or in the comments section. I did find some merit in the book by the end, but it wasn't enough to overcome Patchett's inability to research her setting.
View all 26 comments. Sep 11, Lucy rated it liked it. This book came highly recommended, and once I started reading, I kept thinking I had already but couldn't, for the life of me, remember how it ended. Turns out, it only seemed familiar to me because it is based on a real life experience. In , the president of Peru and many of his guests were taken hostage and held for months. Bel Canto is a fictitious story based loosely on those events. I only liked Bel Canto. I understand its appeal - the coming together of hostages and terrorists alike, bu This book came highly recommended, and once I started reading, I kept thinking I had already but couldn't, for the life of me, remember how it ended.
I understand its appeal - the coming together of hostages and terrorists alike, but the writing was a bit too ethereal and romantic for me.
SO much emphasis placed on opera, as if it's the universal band-aid. I know a lot of people that don't enjoy opera at all. In fact, a music lover myself, I'd have to admit that most of opera is an acquired taste. The hugeness of the voice, the strong vibrato and foreign languages take some getting used to. However, according to the author, there is no politician, businessman, servant or gunman that doesn't fall into a deep state of hypnosis when a soprano begins her song.
I tend to think that perhaps the terrorist from a South American country, where musical tastes are a bit different, might not have been so cast under her spell, but I could be wrong. I've never thought of it as the only offered solace to a terrifying situation. Which leads me to the other thing that I find a hard time believing. Again, I think this was the author's way of romanticizing the event by leaving out the crapping of pants and desperate pleas for loved ones, but everyone was annoyingly contrite and calm, even the terrorists themselves, who seemed awfully nice and understanding.
The end was appropriately tragic. I read a few reviews that described this as an example of magical realism, a genre I try and avoid so this labeling surprised me. Maybe all the lack of fear, suspended time and happy hostage household was part of it. The ending, while sad and tragic, satisfied my need for logic and realism. This event seemed to have a larger psychological effect on the survivors then the original hostage takeover. Whether or not that is realistic or not, I have no idea.
I wish she hadn't written her epilogue. It was unnecessary and unbelievable. Sort of like how all doctors on a hospital television show end up as couples, as if there were no one else in the world to date or socialize with. The book as a whole, however, is not void of greatness. The Russian cabinet member and his story of the box was poetic.
Cesar's natural talent and love of performing made me cheer. And the inward look at most regarding their professions and priorities was very appropriate. All combined, it makes for an enjoyable, flawed book. View all 38 comments.
Mar 05, Fabian rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites. Holy crap! What happens when terrorists take over a party held in honor of a Japanese businessman at the house of the Vice President of some unknown South American city? A translator is thankfully employed, a Diva is made to sing like a modern Scheherazade. Renaissance flourishes as these individuals in the most insane of circumstances co Holy crap!
This is what all those characters in Boccaccio did This Stockholm Syndrome is comical, sad, romantic. View all 15 comments. Jan 02, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: united-states , literature , 21th-century , fiction.
It was also adapted into an opera in Based on the Japanese embassy hostage crisis also called the Lima Crisis of — in Lima, Peru, the novel follows the relationships among a group of young terrorists and their hostages, who are mostly high-profile executives and politicians, over several months.
Many of the characters form unbreakable bonds of friendship, while some fall in love. Set in an unspecified South American country, the story begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice presidential home in honor of Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large Japanese company and opera enthusiast.
Nov 02, Jaidee impromptu road trip-only upd progress rated it did not like it Shelves: under-two-stars-books. You see after my faith and my loved ones the thing I most adore is Opera. Opera has been my passion, my solace, my escape and the most direct connection to my emotional life.
I have found Opera beautiful, profound, wise and affirming. I was introduced to Opera at the age of 10 and since then there has not been 1. I was introduced to Opera at the age of 10 and since then there has not been a day where I have not listened to it.
I remember traveling through Colombian jungle with some friends at the age of twenty four and ran out of batteries for my discman. I was working through some obscure Russian opera at the time. My mood plummeted so severely that one of my friends took out her AA batteries from her mini-flashlight. I was expecting this book to be even better as it won awards, was a later novel and for God's sake was about Opera.
From the get go I felt my heart sink and chapter after chapter I read in disbelief that this was the same book that others gave such accolades. The book rang so false to my ear. The melodrama and overly disgustingly sweet sentimentality was jarring, discomforting and infuriating.
I somehow suspected that Ann Patchett had subcontracted a junior writer from Disney Animation and another burned out writer from Harlequin Romance to come together and churn this out while she joined their ideas and linked them with a very few gorgeous passages. The characters were absolute caricatures with extreme gender and ethnic stereotypes. The emotions and story line were completely illogical and the whole experience left me both angry and depleted.
The only thing that will act as salve to cure my disappointment is to go and listen to Diana Damrau sing some heavy Richard Strauss songs with orchestra. Thank goodness for that. This is getting scary. View all comments. Apr 18, Debbie rated it did not like it Shelves: abandoned , favorite-authors , loathed , disappointments.
Who AM I? I finish every book I start, yet I did not finish this one! Her State of Wonder is one of my all-time favorite books! What the fuck is going on? Have I thought this out carefully? Can I really pull off abandoning this book? I must do it. Calm down. Yes, life is too short to keep reading something you hate. Oh my god, I did it! A weird feeling still remains, however. Usually I rely on strong verbs and a chain of touchy adjectives, but here, no.
I just have unpronounceable cap combos. The title, however, shooed me away for a long while; I hate opera and all its bel-canto-ness. So I ignored my title hatred and rubbed my hands in glee.
And eventually, many of the terrorists become nice guys. I know she wanted to show their humanity but she went overboard. And my biggest complaint is that she told us immediately who wins in the end. Completely ruined it for me! The fun is in wondering how it turns out. But no, every single person seemed to be transported to la-la land when the little songbird opened her mouth. If it were me lying on the floor, surrounded by armed terrorists, I would be bemoaning not only my questionable fate, but also the fact that I was stuck in a room listening to non-stop eardrum-shattering high-pitched screeching.
It would disrupt any calming thoughts I was working on, it would take away any chance I had of internal peace. The only thing I liked was imagining a whole group of people lying face up and motionless on the floor, having conversations while looking at the ceiling. This unique scenario seemed trippy, and I loved thinking about horizontal chit-chat. Somehow Patchett managed to take the tense out of terrorism, no easy feat!
It was pure torture to pick this book up, and I only made it halfway through. I wanted the reality to be different. Very sad.
Of course Patchett is a skilled writer. The language is eloquent and there is some insight. Mar 16, Jen rated it really liked it Shelves: own. How did Patchett do this? A seemingly horrifying event turned into a mystical one. Where lines of good vs evil are blurred. Where time is suspended. It's a birthday party gala in South America. The guest of honour, a powerful Japanese figurehead, almost didn't make it himself except for the soprano whose voice he adores.
As the final note is sung, the lights go out and the guerrillas enter. The party is hijacked for political reasons but what transpires during the next few months are the unusual How did Patchett do this? The party is hijacked for political reasons but what transpires during the next few months are the unusual relationships that are forged by the beauty of a voice which unites both terrorists and hostages.
Where for long moments during this siege, captivity is interrupted and they are a group of people witnessing a main attraction, living it day to day. Patchett is an artist. She details a portrait in which I bear witness. I searched arias and operas to get a sense of the beauty and passion this music can evoke. I am smitten now with you, Patchett, but, I reserve the final star for the ending I wasn't as smitten with.
View all 46 comments. Jan 18, Danielle rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Opera fans, linguists, and anyone who doesn't need a book to end happily to feel fulfilled. Shelves: fiction , my-favorites , danielle-recommends.
This is one of my top five favorite books. Bel Canto made me a devoted Patchett fan, although her other work hasn't quite stood up to the high expectations this one set for her. Just to set the scene, I read this book while on a three week trip through Europe.
Travelling by train, I had plenty of time to read, but missed a lot of the beautiful countryside especially of France and Switzerland because I simply couldn't tear myself away from this book, it was that good. My husband woke up on the This is one of my top five favorite books. My husband woke up on the train at one point the ending of the book to my sobs. I was so overcome I couldn't even tell him what was the matter he was really worried for a minute there I should clarify that I'm not an especially emotional person.
I had just formed such a strong attachment to the characters in this book that the ending hit me almost as hard as losing a friend. Plus, it was just so beautifully done that the loss was almost bittersweet. This book gave me so much to think about that I wanted to grab someone--anyone! Well, that was almost two years ago, so my furor has died down.
I need to read it again to write a fair review. For the time being, though, first I loved the writing. I admire any author who can tell a great story with the words ushering me along rather than tripping me up.
Another reviewer referred to the book as "lyrical" and I heartily agree. It was just beautifully done. Second, such richly imagined characters were a delight to spend time with. I thought each character was fully developed and interesting. Even the minor characters, about whom I received limited information, still felt real. And I got the sense that there was so much more to know about them lurking just below the surface.
Finally, the story was heartbreakingly beautiful. As my waterworks attest, it was very moving, without feeling like my emotions were being made sport of. In the ending, it all just came together for me. But just like the opera singer's song had to end eventually, their peaceful suspension from reality could not endure. To me, what made the story and the illusion so poignant was the knowledge they had all along that it WOULD end.
An audience can't fool itself into thinking a performance will last indefinitely, but perhaps the awareness of the end in sight makes the beauty of the moment all the more valuable. That reference made this story even more meaningful to me. I just loved it. I gave this book five stars, but it wasn't absolutely perfect. I actually strongly disliked the epilogue. I found it disheartening, somewhat contrived, and generally unecessary. The story would have been better off without it.
In spite of that, this book is everything a great book should be. I still loved it, and enjoyed the writing, but it wasn't the same experience it was the first time. I wasn't as impressed, as moved, or as eager to share this book with others as I was the first time around.
It must have just been the way it hit me at that time in my life. Even without it being the earth-shatteringly awesome book I felt it was before, I still highly recommend it.
View all 12 comments. Aug 14, Diane rated it it was amazing Shelves: modern-fiction , music , audiobooks , favorites , gorgeous-prose. To me, this book is luminous. Well, almost perfect. I'll explain in a moment. I first read "Bel Canto" in , and I was so absorbed in the story that I would sneak away from my desk at work just to have a few precious moments with it.
The story opens with a renowned opera singer, Roxanne Coss, giving a private performance at the home of a vice president of an unnamed South American country. Several people in the room are already in love with her, and others wil To me, this book is luminous.
Several people in the room are already in love with her, and others will fall in love with the sound of her voice.
The moment she's done singing, the room is stormed by guerrilla fighters, and everyone in the home is taken hostage. What follows is a fascinating look at what happens when a group of strangers are forced to live together for weeks. The fighters make demands, a poor Red Cross volunteer acts as intermediary with officers outside, and meanwhile, everyone inside the house tries to get along, despite numerous language barriers. Which brings me to one of my favorite characters, the translator Gen.
Without Gen, the entire story could not have happened, because he was the one who helped people communicate. Gen is constantly in demand, translating from English to Spanish to Russian to Japanese and back to English again. There are some surprising and emotional attachments that form -- even Gen falls in love! My only complaint is with the ending, which I won't spoil, but to say I was devastated is an understatement.
Without the demands of the world to shape their days, life on the inside becomes more beautiful than anything they had ever known before. At once riveting and impassioned, the narrative becomes a moving exploration of how people communicate when music is the only common language. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.
From the publisher. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray. Her father, Frank Patchett, who died in and had been long divorced from her mother, served as a Los Angeles police officer for 33 years, and participated in the arrests of both Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan.
The story of Patchett's own family is the basis for her novel, Commonwealth , about the individual lives of a blended family spanning five decades. Education and career Patchett attended St. Bernard Academy, a private Catholic school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy. She managed to publish her first story in The Paris Review before she graduated. After college, she went on to the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa For nine years, Patchett worked at Seventeen magazine , writing primarily non-fiction; the magazine published one of every five articles she wrote.
She said that the magazine's editors could be cruel, but she eventually stopped taking criticism personally. It was where she also met longtime friend Elizabeth McCracken—whom Patchett refers to as her editor and the only person to read her manuscripts as she is writing.
Personal Patchett was only six when she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and she lives there still. She is particularly enamored of her beautiful pink brick home on Whitland Avenue where she has lived since with her husband and dog. When asked by the New York Times where would she go if she could travel anywhere, Patchett responded I've done a lot of travel writing, and people like to ask me where I would go if I could go anyplace.
My answer is always the same: I would go home. I am away more than I would like, giving talks, selling books, and I never walk through my own front door without thinking: thank-you-thank-you-thank-you In , when she found that her hometown of Nashville no longer had a good book store, she co-founded Parnassus Books with Karen Hayes; the store opened in November In , Patchett was on Time magazine's list of the most influential people in the world.
She is a vegan for "both moral and health reasons. I think I read it in the tenth grade. My mother was reading it. It was the first truly adult literary novel I had read outside of school, and I read it probably half a dozen times.
I found Bellow's directness very moving. The book seemed so intelligent and unpretentious. I wanted to write like that book. Book Reviews This is one of my favorite contemporary novels. Bel Canto uses a fairly conventional plot device, a group of strangers trapped in an isolated environment, but does so with elegance and considerable humor. The novel is filled delicious ironies and very some funny writing. This fluid and assured narrative, inspired by a real incident, demonstrates her growing maturity and mastery of form as she artfully integrates a musical theme within a dramatic story.
Celebrated American soprano Roxane Coss has just finished a recital in the home of the vice-president of a poor South American country when terrorists burst in, intent on taking the country's president hostage. The president, however, has not attended the concert, which is a birthday tribute in honor of a Japanese business tycoon and opera aficionado. Determined to fulfill their demands, the rough, desperate guerrillas settle in for a long siege.
The hostages, winnowed of all women except Roxane, whose voice beguiles her captors, are from many countries; their only common language is a love of opera. As the days drag on, their initial anguish and fear give way to a kind of complex domesticity, as intricately involved as the melodies Roxane sings during their captivity.
While at first Patchett's tone seems oddly flippant and detached, it soon becomes apparent that this light note is an introduction to her main theme, which is each character's cathartic experience. The drawn-out hostage situation comes to seem normal, even halcyon, until the inevitable rescue attempt occurs, with astonishing consequences.
Patchett proves equal to her themes; the characters' relationships mirror the passion and pain of grand opera, and readers are swept up in a crescendo of emotional fervor. Publishers Weekly Lucky Mr. The paperback success of Ann Patchett's Bel Canto proves that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. When HarperCollins published Patchett's fourth novel, about an opera singer and party guests held hostage by terrorists, in May , booksellers were smitten. Customers, however, were harder to sway.
Based on that figure, HarperCollins printed 30, copies of the paperback in April, But word-of-mouth and bookseller accolades finally took hold, and paperback sales have soared like a soprano in full voice.
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