Disappointing. Maybe it was the narration, but I didn't connect much with the story or the characters. So far, this is my least favorite Ann Patchett novel. (My favorite is The Dutch House.)

Stay With This One. It's Worth It.
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Bel Canto is one of those novels that is good on so many levels, it's taken me days after finishing it to put my thoughts about the story and the characters into words. This work is as lyrical and dramatic as any opera, and the word "brilliant" isn't excessive to describe the talent of author, Ann Patchett. I wondered how she came up with such a remarkable and unique story, but then learned she'd been influenced by actual events involving a hostage situation in Peru. Patchett goes far beyond the headlines and enters the minds of the players on both sides. It's a fascinating story and a rewarding and entertaining character study.

The first 100+ pages were slow going as the stage is set; however, the ennui I experienced while reading helped me relate to the monotony of daily life experienced by the guests of a party, who'd been taken hostage in a failed attempt to kidnap the President of a South American country. The country, unnamed in the story, is a developing, Spanish-speaking nation. The party, hosted by the Vice President, is a birthday party for a Japanese businessman. It is filled with an International guest list, including the famous and enormously talented opera soprano, Roxanne Coss. Virtually everyone in the room, both hostage and captor, falls in love with her during the four-month siege. The story picks up speed when two distinct love stories begin, one between Roxanne and one of her admirers, and another, which focuses on the second-most sought-after talent possessed by a multi-lingual interpreter, a Japanese named Gen. Each, along with several intriguing subplots, led to the building of a unique story and ultimately satisfying climax.

The ending comes quickly and shook me to my core. It was not unexpected and yet it still made me cry. And then there's a surprise, which after a lot of thought, made perfect sense. Brava Ms. Patchett. My highest recommendation.

2023 re read: I found this immediately captivating, this time around, and I think appreciate the bubble crafted, far more. I think it very neatly shows off social constructs, humanities ability to adapt, and what parts of our world we internalize and perpetuate, even in absurd circumstances. All while being very empathetic toward a cast of people moving toward a rude intrusion of outside forces.

It took a while for this book to click with me. I had it in mind that it would be a weird thriller, or something. But I’m not sure what I’d describe it as. Thematically it is perfect. The character work is top notch. It’s poignant and sad and a reflection of societal problems that brilliantly reflect the reason for the event to even happen in the first place. You see it coming and you’re still shot right through at the end. Brilliant stuff.

First read 2008
Rereading (audiobook) 2024

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.

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Reading updates.

Ann Patchett is such a skillful writer. This is, to date, the oldest book of hers that I've read and I can see how she's grown since this was released in 2001 and become more skilled at creating well-rounded, nuanced characters. This story which centers around an opera singer at times feels like a stage production itself, moving scene to scene between characters in an omniscient 3rd person POV.

And at times it does feel a bit gimmicky and flat, the Peruvian setting never being named specifically for some reason and a bit of tone-deafness regarding Western 'exceptionalism' when it comes to art and culture. I think Patchett of 2025 would likely write things differently here (in fact, last year she published an annotated version of this with margin notes I'd love to take a look at some day to see if she agrees with my assessment).

All in all, her sentence level writing is so strong; her ability to tie themes and characters into the plot which is perfectly paced, for me at least and didn't drag like it did for some. While it has its flaws and might be my least favorite of her novels I've read so far, despite being her most acclaimed, I still admire Patchett's vision even when her reach exceeds her grasp.

I mostly choose to try reading this book because someone I like told me it'd be good, and definitely made it sound interesting. When I looked at it individually, I wasn't that interested, and I stopped reading about after 100 pages.

The characters seem uniform (except for the Mr. Hosokowa). Somehow, they became flat. It feels like there's no distinction between gender eventually, and the small quirks that separate each person start to fade out under all the jabbering about the opera singer. Exhausted, worried, bored, depressed hostages would probably not be considering a woman's beauty that much. I can imagine something else happening in a room full of men, isolated for weeks (months, or whatever it might be by the end), with a single, well-dressed woman they keep thinking about. I don't know if that happens, and I'm not really inspired to know. Just too much repetition.. There is not much happening, literally, or psychologically.

I also doubt everyone would be so heavily interested in opera, and be so unconcerned about their lives. I can see people being passive a lot of the time, and that they would only get truly scared when they're life is actually threatened, but I don't see them being so casual like this. Everyone has their common knowledge of what a tired, deprived body feels like. I know I wouldn't think about men, art, or a few other things if I were in this state, no matter how much I love them. It just loses a sense of reality.. Makes me roll my eyes..

I did enjoy Bel Canto. I found it to be a very pretty book in writing and plot. The characters each had something about them that appealed to me as a reader and made me associate with them. I enjoyed the idea that music (more specifcally opera) was the one thing that they all understood no matter what country they were from nor which side they were on. Though I do not know opera, it was easy to associate the devotion these people had to music to other things in my life which made relating to the expressive style of writing a tad easier.

Understandably everyone knew how the story would end (minus one or two minor suprises) and I'm not sure if that made it better or worse. I like to think that a happy ending for everyone would have been possible, but then, like so many other stories that end with tragedy, I am not certain the book would have had the same force had things ended in a fairy tale type sense.

The most interesting thing perhaps about Bel Canto, for me, is the fact that although I don't really have anything negative to say about it, I don't have anything overly positive either. I like it, but I certianly didn't love it. I am happy I read it (as I don't feel that it was a waste of my time) but I would not have ever felt that this was a book I just had* to read. The one thing that I truly remember from it was Gen and I found him to be a very interesting character and one of the better flushed out one. Perhaps, in the end, that is the problem: though each character is given their moment and has their uniqueness about them, none of them ever truly came alive to me. More than anything the idea of opera and music did. Maybe that is what was sought after, or maybe not.

All in all, in my order of books, this would be a middle of the road one I feel.

I have no words to express my thoughts on BEL CANTO, but Pat Conroy on pages 173 and 174 of the large print edition of A LOWCOUNTRY HEART:REFLECTIONS ON A WRITING LIFE beautifully reflects my feelings with the following words.

"But for me, Ann Patchett went to the top of the class when she published Bel Canto, a book that knocked my socks off...Ann Patchett did that wondrous, walking-on-water kind of thing- she created a whole world that contained grand opera, the revolutionary spirit always alive and close to the surface in Latin America, a siege, a story of Shakespearean grandeur, unbearable tension that built up with the turning of every page, a savage denouement, love stories haunted by the approach of death...I had literature all over my hands and face when I finished that book. I thought then and I think now it's one of the best novels I ever read or ever hope to read in my life. High praise? Yes, but joyfully given."
- Pat Conroy

Holy crap! This "1-Dayer" deserves applause & praise indeed as it will surely stay with you like some truly terrific (& best yet, catchy) song for days, for weeks to come.

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 come together to realize the true WORTH of people and the VALUE of themselves. This is what all those characters in Boccaccio did... ! (& anyone reaching the very heights reached by Boccaccio must MUST be extolled!)

This Stockholm Syndrome is comical, sad, romantic. It's written with a less amount of elegance than the cover promises--but that is hardly ever a fault in this book, ripe & so ready to be inscribed into the canon.

This novel is a master class in how to write a really beautiful book that confuses the hell out of people and that they won't be able to explain to anyone.

This book is an insult to Peru and its history, and to the history of Latin America in general. If I never saw another author "borrowing" elements (or entire events, in this instance) from Latin American peoples, their language, their culture, their history, and proceeding into butchering them into this sort of mindless tripe it'd be too soon.

Don't pick this book up. Instead, take a moment to read about the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, the actual events during the 1996 Japanese Embassy hostage crisis in Lima, Peru, and the trials that followed the cold-blooded execution of several people during the military hostage rescue operation that took place months later.

EDITED to add a link to Annalisa's review