Bel Canto

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening--until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds, and people from different continents become compatriots. 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.


Interesting little history tidbit: Back in the day, when I worked at McNally, and the first summer that I was there and "won" the staff picks sales for the summer, Bel Canto was the book that I think came in 3rd to my Innocent Traitor. I remember Barb picked it and said that she loved it, but as much as I respect Barb's choice in literature I couldn't bring myself to read it due to the subject matter. I just didn't think it sounded interesting. But because of a recent book club choice completely out of my control, and remembering this book was Barb's staff pick, I figured I should give it a try since it crossed my path again.

For the most part I feel that my predetermined opinion was pretty accurate. I am not very interested in Opera, I can appreciate the talent and work that it takes these singers to belt it out the way they do, but it is just not in my tastes for music. So in this novel, the fact that in many cases the singing of Opera changes the mood or alters a characters's course of action was almost eye-roll worthy. I am sure that Patchett is a an Opera fan, and may feel that Opera can solve all problems in a hostage situation, however I cannot say that agree.

One thing I am not sure of is if many people realize is that this novel is loosely based on an incident called the Lima Crisis (or Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis), which I only found out after reading a review or two of the book. After doing some research on the actual event, I came to realize that there was a lot of artistic licence taken with the series of actual events (probably why it isn't blatantly evident or drawn attention to). This research made it clear that Opera was of no part of the true story and neither was the astounding amout of Stockholm Syndrome in the book. I would say that most of the progression in the plot is related to Stockholm Syndrome, and, for the record, the worst case of it I have ever heard of it at that. Almost to the point of absurdity. But it did effectivly move the story along and it was a great way to develop characters and flush out the situation the hostages and terrorists were in. The issue I had with it was more of the "don't forget that even the bad guys are people too!" moral that got a bit preachy for me. This was a fictional group of people, fighting for a fictional cause, in a fictional book, but there are many real terrorist groups that will take people hostage and then film their beheadings and put them up on the internet. But by all means, romanticize hostage situations in order to "educate" and preach to the public, and really, if people read into this too much they may put themselves in danger because their captors may be "good people that made bad choices" and not evil people that only want to hurt others to further their own lives. I'm not saying that this is always the case, but I am a firm believer that people should hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Romanticizing dangerous situations only puts future potential victims in more danger.

One of the other problems I ran into with this one, and I think it may be stemming from the use of the Lima Crisis as a basis to start from, was the multitude of characters. In the Lima crisis there were a lot of terrorists and hostages and while Patchett tried to keep to the number of the actual incident it was tough to keep characters straight. Many we only hear from once or twice, but when first trying to learn who everyone is and whether they are important gets confusing. I think this may have been a device to create a sheer magnatude of numbers that resulted in an enormous language barrier between people, thus another plot angle to work with, but I think the story really does suffer from it.

For the most part this book was really well written, but had a few moments where Patchett takes you out of the story in order to remind you that you are reading a book. I have ALWAYS been irritated with this method of writing. When I read a novel, I want to be a part of the story, not reminded I am actually sitting in my bedroom reading. The early in the fourth chapter was a statement that read "so to rejoin the story a week after Mr Hosokawa's birthday ended seems as good a place as any". I'm sorry, but an author does not need to outwardly justify why he or she "rejoined the story" at a specific place. Give me a time marker, like a date or a reference from one of the characters, but do not openly tell me that you chose this spot for a reason. I am sure your reason is fine, just get on with the story. Another series that did this to me was The Series of Unfortunate Events. It would constantly stop the story to give you a definition of a word or something, which might be great for young readers' vocabulary, but was really jarring to the story. [The line I remember from that one is "Violet slept fitfully (Fitfully in this case means with much tossing and turning)..." or something to that effect. Terrible]

For the most part it was a good story, Opera fans may like it better than I do. I think it was relatively well researched and although it does have a few things that weren't perfect many others may see things differently. I know on GoodReads, any friends that have read this one have rated it higher than I did, so maybe I'm missing something [E.C.- I expect to be filled in on the opinions of the Book Club ;)]