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Bel Canto
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Bel Canto
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Bel Canto
Ebook399 pages7 hours

Bel Canto

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this ebook

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award • Winner of the Orange Prize • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

"Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book." —Washington Post Book World

New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett’s spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn to communicate across cultural barriers in times of crisis

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. Roxanne 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, intimate friends, and lovers.

Patchett's lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.

Editor's Note

Lyrical & layered…

When a gala for the international elite devolves into a long-term hostage situation, unexpected intimacies flourish. This lyrical and layered novel is an astonishing study of human compassion. The film adaptation stars Julianne Moore and Christopher Lambert.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMar 17, 2009
ISBN9780061738883
Author

Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is the author of novels, most recently the #1 New York Times bestselling Tom Lake, works of nonfiction, and children's books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women's Prize in the UK, and the Book Sense Book of the Year. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. President Biden awarded her the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to American culture. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the owner of Parnassus Books. Visit her at annpatchett.com.

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Reviews for Bel Canto

Rating: 3.9600041435153583 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An intriguing pairing - the world-class soprano, and the world-class industrialist. These two unique individuals are held hostage along with dozens of others, in Peru. I'm not sure what to make of the death of the brilliant Japanese executive, Mr. Hasokawa and the shifting of Roxane's attentions to Gen, Hasokawa's employee. Other characterizations are true-to-life, but I don't quite join other readers who praised "Bel Canto" to the skies. I can praise it, but not that highly.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loosely based on the 1996 attacks on the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru by the MRTA, Bel Canto bewitched me. Essentially set in 1 room - like an opera set - this "hostage taking gone wrong" effortlessly manages to keep your interest piqued through all if its 300-some pages.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I did not love this book. I kept wanting to read it, but it left me disappointed in what I think could have been a great story.A load of distinguished party guests are taken hostage after the man they wanted to kidnap was found absent from the party he was supposed to be attending. We meet a handful of the guests, hear about their circumstances, their relationships and histories. We meet some of the hostage takers (terrorists), who get the same lightweight treatment as far as personal histories go. The large group are holed up in the vice-presidents mansion for months on end.The main, and only female, hostage is a famous opera singer who somehow manages to get her own bedroom and personal attendant for the duration of the "situation". She also has an array of drooling fans who have managed to fall in love with her. I didn't buy her allure.There seemed too many characters and not enough depth to any of them. The Generals seemed to have no power over anybody and were as confused as I became about why they were even there, and what they hoped to achieve
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    So this was really, really good. Highly recommended and makes me want to read more Ann Patchett. Also, wherever I went, people seemed to comment on the book, mostly to tell me how much they loved it, but sometimes just to ask what I was reading (which I think means it must have an intriguing cover).

    I loved the characters and the uniqueness of the plot -- a long-term hostage situation with undercurrents of Stockholm Syndrome. I really felt like the world she created was easy for me to immerse myself in, and it was a very pleasant world; I enjoyed the time I spent there.

    The ending was abrupt, and while I fully understand the reasons for it being that way, it was a little unpleasant to be so suddenly and forcefully jolted out of the pleasant little world I'd been enjoying.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A group of dignitaries are brought together in an unnamed South American country for a special occasion: a party at the Vice-President's mansion. Just at the end of the performance by world-renowned opera singer Roxane Coss, the lights go out, and a group of terrorists swarm through the building. They came to capture the President, but he is not at the party -- he stayed home to watch a special episode of his favorite soap opera. Instead, they take hostages -- first, all of the building's occupants, but eventually they let the workers and some of the guests go. The group of hostages that remains consists of 39 men and one woman: Roxane Coss. As negotiations drag on, the hostages and terrorists form an unexpected community. There are games of chess, fine French cooking, and opera -- sublime, intimate performances by the world's foremost lyric soprano. Despite the fear and discomfort, for some in the building, this is the best time of their lives. But it can't last forever...I loved everything about this book, right up until the epilogue, which I hated. I think that, if there had been a second book in between the last chapter and the epilogue, if I had been able to see how things developed, I could have appreciated it, but as it was, it just felt jarring and abrupt. However, the rest of the book is so good that I highly recommend it. I listened to the audiobook, and I highly recommend that format, as well: there are many hard-to-pronounce names, a sprinkling of Spanish words, and the narrator does an excellent job with all of the different voices and accents. I could hardly put it down, and found myself listening whenever I had a snippet of time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    this is a great social experiment, though i wasn't wild about all the side romances that took place. the ending made me cry, and thats pretty hard to do (just in case you cared).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    You have to just go along with it quite a bit as the outside world reaction or lack thereof seems unrealistic, but if you can let it go a beautiful story will unfold. And it's funny too, tragicomic but beautiful. I'd love to see it made into a movie.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. Four and a half months in a politician's mansion and the roles of the hostage and the terrorist began to disappear, relationships and friendships developed and their lives would never be the same.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wonderful writing, so many beautiful descriptions and ways of looking at things.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a slow read....it is beautifully written and the author's use of words and descriptions is clever but....there are a lot pages between any action. However if I had known this going in (and not expected the usual hostage kind of drama) I probably would have enjoyed it more. Essentially it is a love story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A hostage situation in an unnamed South American country becomes the special world where the children/guerrillas are seen as valued individuals for the first time. Patchett uses the omniscient point of view in this novel, foreshadowing the end at times, and evoking the feel of magical realism.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh my! What a wonderful story -- I wish I wouldn't have put off reading it for so long!It is the story of terrorists taking over at a state dinner in an unnamed South American country, the taking of hostages in hopes of getting their demands met, and how the terrorists and hostages come to know each other and get along after living for several months together -- oh, and there's lots of opera music involved! Doesn't that sound like the strangest concept? Well, it isn't. It is a beautiful story, beautifully written, and very believable. I highly recommend this book, and I'm going out to find more Ann Patchett books right away!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is one that I would like to give 2 1/2 to, one day I'll have to figure out how to do this. :) The writing was beautiful and initially the subject matter; opera, political unrest, psychology of/reaction to being taken hostage, and the relationship of terrorist and hostage was very interesting. Unfortunately, after about halfway through, I found that the story skipped long periods of time, without accounting for them, while simultaneously dragging on. The ending was abrupt and surreal while the epilogue, the true end to the story, didn't feel right to me. I definitely feel like it was worth the read, though and I look forward to reading another of Ann Patchett's books.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Creative, luminous, and peppered with moments of transcendence, Bel Canto still fails to utterly convince.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    People either love this book or hate it. I loved it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Bel Canto brings us to a country in South America, although I think it is a fictional one, where they are throwing a party for a japanese businessman. All the partygoers are then taken as hostages, by a political group wanting to free a man who is in prison. From the minute they get there, their plans were foiled. Patchett delves into human emotions and relationships throughout the pages of this story. Several of the characters that I loved were. There is Roxanne, the opera singer, who was just there to sing and now finds herself contemplating love and finding new hope in those walls. Mr. Hokasawa, who is a wealthy businessman who feels responsible for all of the hostages being there, but with the music and chess he finds himself in a relative heaven. Roxanne, who he has loved from a far, is not close enough to hold and finds himself a relative happiness, that he is unsure he has felt before. Gen, a translator, who is busy with translating love proclamations between the hostages, and helping with the mediations between the captors and the outside, while finding time for his own love affair to blossom. Carmen who finds this situation to be ideal and never wants for their time in the house to end. She does a great job with all the characters, so that by the end of the book the reader knows most of them and their hopes and dreams and all of the characters stand out in there own way. For me, this was a quiet book. Although it is about a hostage situation, there is not much real action. The purpose was more as a quiet study on human behaviors and relationships. ***SPOILER*** My big disappointment was then ending. Patchett does a wonderful job, with setting up the situation, building the relationships between characters, and laying down the course of events, but then the last chapter comes and it feels thrown on. It is disjointed and I found that it was not believable. She spent the whole book developing the loves for these characters with other people, then since they are dead they end up with each other. Okay, I may be able to buy that, but then give us some clues on how their love emerged. How much time had past? She was so careful with catching the small moments that lead to personal relationships throughout the book, the last chapter was a bit of a let down and felt underdeveloped.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow. This book gripped me from the beginning and never disappointed. An American Diva has been brought to a small South American country to sing for the birthday celebration of a Japanese industrialist, in the hopes that he will gratefully situate a factory there. The event is invaded by terrorists and the guests held hostage for months. There was such a sympathy for her characters and and optimism about human nature here, as well as a deep belief in the power of music. The best book I've read in quite some time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    If this book hadn't come strongly recommended by a friend, I would have never picked it up. For some reason, I was thoroughly turned off by the description on the back cover, maybe because it sounded too much like a thriller. I pretty much had to force myself to start reading. But once I was in, I loved it. Lovely writing, fascinating characters, an unusual situation.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Patchett gives us a timely, imaginative plot that keeps us riveted to the end.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Ug, I wanted them to shoot the hostages just so something happened.

    It was beautifully written, but beautifully written does not make an interesting book. Everything really happened in the last 50 pages of the book, but still at a really slow pace. Plus the epilogue totally threw me. I am so glad I am done with this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was wavering between 4 and 5 stars for this book, but went with 4 because I think I was just going for 5 because I was so pleasantly surprised. I'm not an opera fan. I'm terribly gauche, I know (I don't like sushi, either). My sister bought me the book for Christmas because it was on my to-read list, but I wasn't excited to read it because I couldn't imagine getting into an opera/hostage book. But when I found myself with nothing else to read one day, I started it and was surprised to find that it grabbed me from the beginning.

    I enjoyed the descriptions of how music affected the characters in the story, even without an appreciation of opera in particular. Pachett's description of the setting drew me in, as did her presentation of the various cultural and language differences. The only thing I was uncomfortable with was the ending, and this was just because I knew the whole time it had to end as it did, and I still let myself get attached to the characters and feel disappointed. I don't fault Pachett for this. Had she given me the ending I wished for, I would have criticized her for it because it would have been totally unrealistic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Opera has never been very appealing to me; however, after reading {Bel Canto} I feel the urge to swallow the history of opera whole and let it rage through my bones. The novel is an homage to art and beauty and a meditation on love and freedom . Patchett creates a paradoxical situation that explores the power of art and love juxtaposed with violence and fear. While both comical and tragic at times, it ultimately speaks to the strength of love and the power of music. The conclusion of the novel and the epilogue to me seemed necessary. Regardless of how deeply the hostages and reader begin to care for the terrorists, the outcome is inevitable from the beginning. The epilogue, while rather depressing, is also a testament to the strength of art and love. Without spoiling the ending, I'll just say there were no other alternatives for these characters.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A group of people from many countries gather for an event in a Latin American country, and a small group of terrorists take them all hostage. Among the guests is a world-famous opera soprano. The hostage crisis lingers for several months, so the hostages and terrorists all get to know each other. Surprising relationships develop between the characters.It is surprising that Patchett manages to maintain the suspense, considering that this is the story of how nothing happened for several months. The characters are interesting and believable, and the book is an interesting study in how people get along under strange circumstances.The book also examines the power of music: everyone's love for the opera singer and her music has a huge effect on how the whole hostage crisis plays out.All in all, a fun summer read.I listened to the audiobook.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What I really liked about 'Bel Canto' is the development of the hostages characters as tjey lost their controls and their outside world identities, and the development of the terrorists as the world of privelege opens up their inner world. Whilst it's an overtley contrived story, Ann Patchett writes her characters beautifully and compassionately and my favourite moment was when Fyodorov explained why he was compelled to express his love for Roxanne.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a novel that expands on the real-life takeover of the embassy in Peru. Here it is the Vice President's home that is overrun, during a birthday celebration for Mr Hosokawa, starring soprano Roxanne Coss. The author takes us on a journey that explores how the hostages and terrorists forge unions/clicques/truces ... how they carve out territory and settle into routine ... how they ignore reality and live on dreams.Our book club rated this as one of the best books we have read. Patchett writes literary fiction, and there is lots to discuss in her works.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A beautiful, beautiful book
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I was stirred to read this from all the accolades, awards and positive reviews. I think the author has some talent, not brilliant, but definitely above average. She knows how to write of beauty, music and the little wonderful things in life that evade most people until they are close to losing them. This was a good "story" ... an interesting premise and a great character study of people from different walks of life. That said, I felt it got pretty contrived by the end. The novel is about a group of high end, wealthy political and business people (and one opera singer) who are taken hostage by a terrorist group of sorts (albeit, nicer terrorists than I've ever read about) in a country in South America called only the "host country." The kidnapping takes place at the Vice President's oppulent home during a party for a Japanese business man lured there because of the guest singer, Roxana Coss. The kidnapping goes awry from the inception when the targeted guest, the host country's President, decides not to attend to stay home and watch his favorite soap opera. So it becomes a story of captors and captives, the poor and the wealthy, and those in between (a Japanese translator and a Swiss Red Cross "go between"). Ultimately, the entire novel takes place in this situation and the terrorists become kind and the captives don't really want the situation to resolve because they are happy, some for the first time in their lives. A couple of love relationships are formed and some hostages find a new spark in their already existing lives. I won't give away the ending, but as the novel nears its conclusion, we are lead to believe that the terrorists are not thugs at all, but wonderful human beings who all have these really startling special talents that are being hidden, and all the self-absorbed driven political people are amazing as well (i.e., one gun-toting boy becomes a singer with unlimited potential; one other boy is brilliant at chess from only watching it being played; another captor a beautiful girl, not a boy at all, with a talent for languages; our hostages become a skilled chef, the Vice President is a happy homemaker and gardener who decides to adopt the gun-toting fellow who is brilliant at chess and finally, a Japanese businessman is a world-class pianist and he's been hiding his talent) . There wasn't an average person in the lot. It is at that point I rolled my eyes, but I suppose it's kind of a fable. You could also shoot a canon through the implausible holes in the whole terrorist/hostage situation, in addition to its ridiculously confused genesis. For pure entertainment though, it succeeds, but to convince me that "we are all the same" and such, that did not work. I also did not buy how kind the terrorists were. There are many little side stories that are good, a slice of people's lives, people from many different countries. If this were a realistic book about real people truly taking inventory of their lives in a terrorist situation, it would be a five-star book. But it's just sort of a campy fable with the tragic ending, albeit a pretty entertaining one. Overall, recommended as an easy to read story and entertaining, but I do not think this is an award-winning novel whatsoever.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Perhaps the runner-up to Blindness for best capturing the human condition. Catastrophes (or some better word to group hostage-takings and epidemics of blindness) in the hands of great writers seem to have a way of bringing out the human essence which is so easy to overlook in the quotidian. A great book, and I look forward to reading more by her.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Beautiful and tragic. I love the way time almost disappears in this novel - I couldn't believe when I was halfway through and they were still in the house, although I don't know where else I expected them to go. The book moves along nicely and flows wonderfully. I was a bit disappointed with the end - it seemed a little thrown together - but the rest of the novel makes up for that. One of the best I've read in the last year or so. It's one of those books that leaves you thinking for days about the characters, the plot, why things happened the way they did, and what might have happened if they hadn't. I really didn't want to close it when I got to the end. Beautifully written, and a great study on misunderstanding, human interaction, and love.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In an unnamed South American country, a birthday dinner party is being held in honour of a Japanese industrialist. Prominent political and industrial guers are in attendance, while Roxanne Coss, a famous opera singer, enthralls the crowd with her virtuoso performance. Little do they know until the lights go out, that a rag-tag group of terrorists plan to use the President as a hostage. Unfortunately, the President stayed at home to watch his favourite soap opera, leaving the terrorists with a major flaw in their plans.Patchett moves the focal point of the story between the hostages and the terrorists, revealing the good and bad in each. The 58 hostages have no common language, other than the glorious music provided by Roxanne and the pianist. As they spend many months together trapped in the Vice-Presidential house, the lines between hostages and terrorists becomes blurred. Patchett beautifully builds the tension and the eerie feeling of suspended reality within the palace. Bel Canto is an elegantly written book which shows the noble side of human nature. Like other books set in South America, she captures a dreamy, escapist atmosphere most excellently.