"Bel Canto" may be one of the top ten books I've read this year. It is absolutely beautifully written and very gripping. I really felt like I was there and that I was getting to know the characters as they got to know each other. I felt like one of them. Without giving anything away, I was totally surprised and shocked by the ending. However, in retrospect, I realized that it really couldn't have ended any other way. I recommend "Bel Canto" for everyone.

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Added August 28, 2009:

I was listening to the radio today. The local talk show hosts were interviewing a man who deprograms cult members. (This was in regards to the Jaycee Dugard case.) He was talking a bit about the Stockholm Syndrome. It suddenly struck me that Ann Patchett managed something quite extraordinary with this book. She made the reader experience the Stockhold Syndrome. We go right along with the hostages in identifying with the terrorists that are holding them hostage. How very sneaky of her.

This is a beloved book by Ann Patchett, judging by the 2,258 people here on Goodreads who have tagged it as a personal favorite. Since I have enjoyed other books by the author, I wanted to read this one also.

The story is about a birthday party given for Mr. Hosokawa, a businessman from Japan who owns a fabulously successful electronics company. He is invited by the government of a South American country, whose motivation is for him to build a factory in their impoverished country. Mr. Hosokawa has no intention of doing so. His motivation for attending the party is to hear the famous opera star, Roxanne Coss, sing in his honor. He is her adoring fan. The birthday party is then interrupted by armed terrorists whose own motivation is to kidnap the absent President. (He had skipped the party due to his own wish to watch his favorite televised soap opera.) What follows is an almost whimsical look at the hostage situation that resulted.

I found it fascinating to watch how the situation unfolded. The reader becomes involved with the daily dramas of both the people held hostage and their captors. Gradually, they get to know each other. Complicating matters is trying to understand each other when so many different languages are spoken: Spanish, English, French, Russian and Japanese. Luckily, Mr. Hosokawa has an interpreter (Gen) who accompanied him to the party. Gen becomes a central character in the novel.

The story is imaginative and interesting. I like Patchett's style of writing and how she employed humor. Unfortunately, I found the epilogue to be disappointing, but can overlook it.

4.5 stars

Wow. I don't know where to start. This novel blew me away. The plot is basically a hostage situation taking place in a Vice-President's palatial home. 39 men and 1 woman from different countries comprise the hostages. The woman is an American opera diva. Pretty soon relationships sprout up between the captors and captives, including romance. Negotiations grind to a standstill, and time drags on for 15 weeks inside the palatial home. Characterization is one of novel's the strengths and drives the narrative interest at least for me. I guessed the ending early on, but the journey is more important than the destination. What a joy to read. Recommended.

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 1996, the home of the Japanese ambassador to Peru was taken hostage by guerillas during a party and held for 126 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 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 200 pages to get into this 300-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.

1.5 stars, somewhere between a book prevented from being a great story and a book that upset me according to my own star ratings. 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.

A novel about a hostage crisis that goes wrong -- with very sexy results, Bel Canto might have been a better read if at some point Patchett did anything to acknowledge the plot's ridiculousness. Instead, she treats the readers to vague social commentary about South America, multiple nobel savage tropes, and a crisis situation where people do have sex, but only after first taking the time to fall in love. It's also somewhat about opera, so allow me the metaphor that Bel Canto hits all the obvious notes with competence but without ever risking enough to engage the audience.

Not to be a pure hater, I did love the hell out of the cover art.

There is nothing I can say. I don't even know how.

Instead, I will veil my head, lament the deaths of each person loved since the beginning of time, and cry tears of unsurpassed desolation in the hopes that tomorrow, the sun will shine on my face and god will see me standing there.

Books are so subjective. No matter how much we know this, it’s still shocking to love a book and see that others hated it, or to hate a book that others loved. It’s the same for everything else in life: people, films, TV shows, vacation spots, singers, etc. etc. We are all so very different.

Sometimes, when I finish a book, if I didn’t like it, I will usually have very concrete reasons why I did not. And sometimes I will have very concrete reasons why I did like a book. But often, as is the case with BEL CANTO, it’s simply because the book touched me in a way that I personally can appreciate.

Ann Patchett writes a beautiful story of a lavish birthday party in a small South American country gone wrong. A group of gun-wielding terrorists interrupt a party for a Japanese businessman (at the residence of the Vice President), hoping to take the president hostage and be on their way. But the President is home watching his favorite soap opera, and is nowhere to be found. The terrorists make a quick decision to take the multi-national group of party guests hostage, most notably opera star, Roxane Coss, the party honoree, Mr. Hosokawa, his translator, Gen, the country’s Vice President, a local priest, and many others.

I like character-based stories, especially when they are exceptionally well written. I enjoyed seeing how the hostages and the terrorists interacted over a period of months, especially with music as the central theme. I found it quite interesting to watch how relationships developed and blossomed between members of the eclectic group of people who found themselves living together in the vice presidential residence.

This is my kind of book as I’m a true people watcher. I can appreciate why it might not be for everyone, especially those preferring more action than interaction, but for me it was a beautiful story with some very tense, poignant and engaging moments.

This was my third Patchett novel - I have also read the more recent Commonwealth and The Dutch House, and although I have great respect for her craft as a writer and her books are easy to read, I don't think she'll ever be a personal favourite writer. Like those books, this one has many endearing elements and is very well written, but for me the whole framing scenario was a little too implausible and romantic, and the ending a little too contrived.

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.

I didn't have lots of expectations when I started this book and it might have been more enjoyable if it wasn't maybe for the narration style. I didn't connect to the characters and the story overall isn't bad but the execution didn't work for me. I listened to the audiobook and I found myself often distracted when the audio was on. It's not the narrator's fault but rather the way the story was told didn't help me connect to the story.

Good, but liked Sense of Wonder better.

I just couldn't do it! The premise was great, the writing was swallowable, but the story! The painful, painful story. There was no character that I truly cared about, and when the "hostages" became "free" or whatever I threw the book across the room and there it has remained ever since. A hefty dust bunny now resides atop. I'd rather read Better Homes and Gardens than finish this one.