Life in a bubble....teeming with disparate souls...a microcosm of our world and what drives us, all circling around the magic of music, the art of the voice. I've heard it said that when you want to understand someone who seems foreign to you and all you know, move in--move closer. In that closeness you find the commonalities and humanity that unites us. This novel demonstrates that when guerillas with a purpose take over a party with a purpose, giving us a front row seat to the softening of boundaries, the growth of understanding, the possibility of love.

I was not immediately enchanted, but the story grew on me, and the underlying themes were well drawn and articulated. I'm not a fan of opera (quite the opposite, as it sets my teeth on edge), but I can appreciate the magic of music, which fires off a primal instinct that draws us all in, reaching our inner cores. The characters got under my skin. The ending...well, it's a sad commentary on life. But the living that takes place in trying circumstances was mesmerizing.

The supposedly-literary novel, "Bel Canto," by Ann Patchett, first published in 2001, won the Orange Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The book was adapted into an opera in 2015, and then adapted into a Hollywood film in 2018.

"Bel Canto" brought Ms. Patchett financial success and literary fame. The work of writing the book also introduced her to opera, a journey she describes in the essay, "How to Fall in Love with Opera," which was included in my paperback copy. The essay's title was the working title of the novel, before "Bel Canto" was chosen.

While the fans of this novel are legion, and "Bel Canto" came highly recommended to me by the literary author Colum McCann, when I finally picked up this book in February 2020, I was revolted by the text. Of the 318 pages in "Bel Canto," I managed to read 42 of them before I put the book down in disgust.

The story is boring. It's completely unrealistic. It's also entirely racist.

I would not call this book literary fiction. While the story employs a somewhat elliptical timeline, hinting at the ending throughout the text, and the paragraphs are packed full of flowery tangents that signal "literary prose" and "Iowa Writers Workshop," the text is dull and not realistic at all. "Bel Canto" runs on stereotypes and melodrama: racist stereotypes and racist melodrama, to be exact.

"Bel Canto" is set in a mansion in an unnamed country in South America, a country that is only described as possessing "dismal jungle," "guerillas," illiterate peasants, and emasculated, wealthy brown men who are obsessed with watching soap operas, cleaning house, and fawning over white people.

Plenty of countries are named in this book, and understood through the novel's omniscient narrative voice to exist with a specific history, and respected as such: Japan, Greece, Australia, Russia, the United States, Britain/England, etc. etc.

But no Latin American countries are named. In this book, the "host country," which is often referred to as the "godforsaken country" in the text, is not named because the reader is meant to understand the setting of "Bel Canto" is "an interchangeable Third World sh*thole" that needs no description and no history, and therefore, does not even get a name.

Nowhere in the book, or in the supplementary materials published with the book, is it mentioned that Patchett used a real event, the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis, also called the Lima Crisis of 1996-1997 in Lima, Peru, as the basis for writing her book. Patchett thoroughly researched opera to write this novel, but Peru itself received zero study, zero consideration at all, and that fact is glaringly obvious on every page of "Bel Canto."

If you enjoy ignorant, racist stereotypes about Latin America and Latin Americans, this book is here for you. Patchett employs every single stereotype I'm aware of, and a few more for good measure. In addition to racist stereotypes, there are some ableist tropes. The primary antagonist, a vaguely-revolutionary general who leads a takeover of the Vice President's house, is afflicted with shingles, which are described in great detail on his face, an ableist trope that marks the man as morally inferior and destined to die.

In describing the themes of "Bel Canto" in interviews, Patchett has stated that it was her intention to portray these illiterate, uneducated guerillas as people who never understood the value of education, or the value of sitting down to enjoy a meal and relax, which is why (as Patchett explains) they turn to "violence," which is "ignorant" and "never the answer." Patchett's comments display not only a glaring ignorance about the real lives of Latin Americans (people who do, in fact, enjoy meals and know how to relax, as well as understand the value of education), but a glaring ignorance about how the United States military-industrial complex works, wherein educated men who are able to "enjoy meals" and "relax" develop imperialist schemes to invade and dominate other countries.

Violence is "ignorant" when illiterate peasants use it. But when "educated U.S. citizens" use violence, I suppose Patchett would say it's a mark of enlightenment, because white people.

In "Bel Canto," the illiterate guerillas take over the Vice President's house while he is hosting a birthday party for a wealthy Japanese businessman who loves opera. A beautiful, white American soprano has been hired to perform for the night's entertainment, and she remains the only female hostage in a group of 49 or so male hostages. The novel describes a fantasy version of the 126 days of the hostage crisis from real life, with the addition of a sole female foreign hostage. In real life, the foreign female hostages were all released after the initial shoot-out.

All of the men in the story (hostages and terrorists alike) spend the book fawning all over the beautiful white American woman. If you are a white American woman who wants to experience the thrills and ego-boost of being the Center of the Universe, if you long to be worshipped as a goddess in the Most Unrealistic Hostage Crisis Ever, this book is here for you. Illiterate brown peasants, emasculated rich brown men, and intelligent wealthy businessmen are eager to shower you with love and praise, and obey your every whim. You will never have to worry about rape, sexual abuse, taking a bath in privacy, or using the toilet, because this book is Fantasy Crisis, and you are the star. You are the diva of this book, in every sense of the word.

Everything about this story is artificial, cloying, and banal. On one level, "Bel Canto" is art at its finest: an artificial version of real life. Fake Life sells well as art, as do racist stereotypes, ableist stereotypes, and depicting all of Latin America as "an interchangeable sh*thole."

But this is simply not the kind of "art" I crave in my stories, especially stories that strive to be literary. I expect realism and authentic humanity in my literary fiction, not wish-fulfillment melodrama and U.S. nationalism.

I'm honestly disgusted that this book won so many prestigious awards. It just sickens me. But then I look at what happened with "American Dirt" in January 2020 (the backlash that book received after it was published), and I realize how far we have come, as a literary community. People are raising their voices more and more against the brutal stereotypes used in award-winning, bestselling literature, in supposedly-literary works like "Bel Canto" and "American Dirt." If Patchett had published "Bel Canto" in 2020, rather than in 2001, the ecstatic reception this book received would have included a backlash similar to the one "American Dirt" just received. In the case of "Bel Canto," Patchett took a political story set in Lima, Peru, and made it all about a white American woman who is worshipped as a goddess. "Bel Canto" is an ignorant, romanticized version of real life that employs racist stereotypes about Latin America and Latin Americans to run the whole plot. The same argument has been made by critics of "American Dirt."

Negative stars. Definitely not recommended.

This was one of the best books I have read so far this year. It made me want to press the book to my chest and sigh. Can I have her talent for descriptions? I want it. I'm jealous.

This one just sticks with you. All told from inside a banquet room which terrorists have held hostages. The relationships that develop will not be forgotten.

A pleasantly soft-spoken, refined hostage thriller; curiously captivating with its controlled, gentle progression.

The distinct, impressive authenticity of an international cast with constant sensible regard to complexities and limitations in multi-/interlinguistic discourses was a rare treat. Very nice.

______
Reading updates.

2.5 stars, this one just wasn’t as good as The Patron Saint of Liars.

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

Bel Canto is the fourth novel by American author Ann Patchett, published in 2001 by Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. It was also adapted into an opera in 2015.

Based on the Japanese embassy hostage crisis (also called the Lima Crisis) of 1996–1997 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.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوم ماه ژانویه سال 2017میلادی

عنوان: بل کانتو؛ نویسنده: آن پچت؛ مترجم: محمد عباس آبادی؛ تهران، افراز، 1395؛ در 373ص؛ شابک 9786003261853؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 21م

جشن تولدی در خانه‌ ی معاون رئیس‌ جمهور یکی از کشورهای «آمریکای لاتین» برپاست؛ مهمان‌ها از سراسر دنیا آمده‌ اند، و در میان آن‌ها یک خواننده‌ ی سوپرانو؛ و میلیاردری «ژاپنی» حضور دارند؛ همه‌ چیز خوب پیش می‌رود، تا اینکه گروهی تروریست وارد خانه می‌شوند؛ هدف آن‌ها رئیس‌ جمهور است، امّا او در این جشن حضور ندارد؛ اکنون دیگر راه بازگشتی؛ نه برای مهمانان، و نه برای تروریست‌ها نیست؛ آنچه باقی می‌ماند کلنجار با موقعیتی مهیب، احساسات عاشقانه، و روابطی انسانی است، که سیاست و اپرا و عشق را به هم گره می‌زند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 07/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 22/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

I have no idea why readers like this book. Set in an unnamed South American country, it was a pretentious bore, filled with stuffy characters who are suffering some form of Stockholm Syndrome as they are being held captive by guerillas.

So the famed opera singer bonds with a Japanese bigwig, and other characters fall for each other when it’s supposed to be a night of real panic and horror- and there’s beauty in this?

Ms. Patchett writes beautifully, with humorous sentences that sometimes leap from the page, satirical and sentimental at the same time- but this one did not do it for me. It is the epitome of Bougie fiction that I’ve come to despise.

All in all a little too sugar-coated for my taste – the discovered friendships, unlikely loves, the pervading beauty of every damn thing . . . And the purported passion surrounding one of the most important elements, opera, was unconvincing. It felt largely like a vacuous prop to be honest, like rattling off a list of arias to prove yourself a connoisseur of the beautiful.

But the writing was decent and I decided about a quarter of the way through I shouldn’t be too hard-hearted (and the book aimed to soften the petrified heart). I should just try to enjoy it, which, following my snobotomy, I guess I did. But I don’t think it was a marvel of modern literature, or that it deserved the PEN/Faulkner award. I took a look at the list of PEN/Faulkner award winners and have to say those I’ve read were in another league.

Finally, the end asked too much of me in terms of plausibility. Not to be mysterious. If you read it, you know what I mean.

Or maybe you loved it. My mother did, which is why I read it at all. My mother begged me to read it, as she sometimes does with books she's enjoyed. It is hard not to try to comply once in a while. Still, she just read another Ann Patchett book about a magician and I’m going to have to tell her I’m passing on that one. . . She also loved “The Kite Runner” and whatever that writer’s new book is. I got a very long begging on that, but my snobotomy only goes so far...

Some of you loved it, some of you hated it. I'm leaning towards the latter. I thought it was a good idea poorly executed.
A small South American country throws a lavish birthday party for an important Japanese business executive with high hopes that his electronics company will build a factory to help prop up their ailing economy. The executive, Katsumi Hosokawa only agrees to come because opera diva Roxanne Coss will be performing. A terrorist group invades the party at the vice president's home taking the partygoers hostage. The hostage crisis continues for months. Stockholm Syndrome takes root, hostages develop feelings for the young gun-wielding terrorists, bonds form, relationships bloom. And the language barrier is not an obstacle thanks to the incredible translation skills of Gen Watanabe. And of course the music, ah yes the incredible singing voice of Roxanne Coss becomes a polarizing, transcendent force that beguiles absolutely everyone. No one escapes its wondrous effect. Just once i wanted someone to stand up and shout 'ENOUGH! SHUT THE F*** UP ALREADY!!!
The first 3/4 of the story was boring. Characters in general, were poorly developed (except Katsumi Hosokawa- love that guy) there is little to move the plot forward or hold your interest (the vice president likes to clean. Alot.) and the writing is fodder for mass consumption. She's one of those writers that make you think 'hey I can be a writer!!' (I cant)
And the ending, albeit emotional, i thought was predictable. I was hoping for a more
imaginative outcome. The ingredients are all here for a good story, I just think Patchett was hoping it would write itself. It didn't.
And that epilogue, as my 14 year old son would say, was dogwater.

yes, i have just discovered betterbooktitles.com

This ended up being a wonderful story about the relationships of people. I started out reading this book and was feeling down because It took me about 50 pages to get into the story, but once I did I could not stop reading. All the characters are wonderful and real. You sympathize with all of them because you see that the "bad guys" are just as real and have feelings like everyone else. I can't wait to see the movie and I hope they do the book it's justice. Definitely recommend.