Men of great importance were held hostage with a soprano. Until they realized how trivial their existences have been to the world and the world's to them. Men of different countries, men of different taste and language shut their eyes to the same beauty. Terrorists with gun earned sympathy worshipping that beauty only. A priest found his God next to him.

Bel Canto embodies art itself. The book celebrates the love for what is beyond and what is incomparably greater. Our deaths don't define us, neither our birth places. It is always the things we seek. And Ben Canto beautifully explores that.

I wanted to write a book that would be like an opera in its structure, its grandeur, its musicality, its melodrama.

Anne Patchette's carefully woven tale moves from one being to another within a room. And for a confined story such as this, she gives life to a soaring voice. Drawing no line for herself, the abundance of well crafted words and flow of noble emotions in this savage plot, can get overwhelmingly on one's nerves which may as well explain the mixed reaction.

In Bel Canto best human qualities blossom and present the philosophical problem that comes with the idea of every ideal society. With all the contradictions coming from a single room, there's no doubt the room wouldn't stand when the time comes.

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.

The premise of this book was very intriguing to me. A group of people, all from different countries, are at a presidential dinner party in an unnamed country, when revolutionaries storm the house and take everyone hostage. What ensues is a nearly 6-month long captivity for 39 men and 1 woman plus 15 "terrorists". I thought this would be a fantastic tale, full of rich characters...since they're all stuck in a house for 6 months there's bound to be some great stories (or backstories or something), right? I must say I was pretty unhappy with the character development. I felt like I didn't really get to know anybody very well, the love stories were very contrived and forced, the ending was incredibly anti-climatic and then really bizarre. I wasn't even sure about the motives of the revolutionaries, the author spoke in vague generalities about "freedom for the people" and I found myself asking, 'freedom from what'? And the ending...after nearly 6 months of captivity, the resolution (I use that term very loosely here) is written in less than two pages!! I kept reading because I was hoping for more details and a deeper feeling, but unfortunately neither one came to me.

What an absolute marvelous novel! The story, the people, the exceptional setting just blew me away. I could go into detail, but everyone should just read this book! Ann Patchett’s sentences flow with beauty and wit.

This is one of my top five favorite books. Bel Canto made me a devoted Patchett fan, although her other work hasn't quite stood up to the high expectations this one set for her. Just to set the scene, I read this book while on a three week trip through Europe. Travelling by train, I had plenty of time to read, but missed a lot of the beautiful countryside (especially of France and Switzerland) because I simply couldn't tear myself away from this book, it was that good. My husband woke up on the train at one point (the ending of the book) to my sobs. I was so overcome I couldn't even tell him what was the matter (he was really worried for a minute there...then he thought I was crazy). I should clarify that I'm not an especially emotional person. I had just formed such a strong attachment to the characters in this book that the ending hit me almost as hard as losing a friend. Plus, it was just so beautifully done that the loss was almost bittersweet.
This book gave me so much to think about that I wanted to grab someone--anyone!--who had read this book and talk it all out with them. Well, that was almost two years ago, so my furor has died down. I need to read it again to write a fair review.
For the time being, though, first I loved the writing. I admire any author who can tell a great story with the words ushering me along rather than tripping me up. Another reviewer referred to the book as "lyrical" and I heartily agree. It was just beautifully done.
Second, such richly imagined characters were a delight to spend time with. I thought each character was fully developed and interesting. Even the minor characters, about whom I received limited information, still felt real. And I got the sense that there was so much more to know about them lurking just below the surface.
Finally, the story was heartbreakingly beautiful. As my waterworks attest, it was very moving, without feeling like my emotions were being made sport of. In the ending, it all just came together for me. "Bel Canto" referring to the beautiful song that was the idyllic life of the hostages and captives. But just like the opera singer's song had to end eventually, their peaceful suspension from reality could not endure. To me, what made the story and the illusion so poignant was the knowledge they had all along that it WOULD end. An audience can't fool itself into thinking a performance will last indefinitely, but perhaps the awareness of the end in sight makes the beauty of the moment all the more valuable. That reference made this story even more meaningful to me. I just loved it.
I gave this book five stars, but it wasn't absolutely perfect. I actually strongly disliked the epilogue. I found it disheartening, somewhat contrived, and generally unecessary. The story would have been better off without it.
In spite of that, this book is everything a great book should be.
UPDATE: Reread in August 2009. I still loved it, and enjoyed the writing, but it wasn't the same experience it was the first time. I wasn't as impressed, as moved, or as eager to share this book with others as I was the first time around. It must have just been the way it hit me at that time in my life. Even without it being the earth-shatteringly awesome book I felt it was before, I still highly recommend it.

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.

-- I liked the flow of the story --like the flow of running water --I was part of the undercurrent engulfed in submersion.


Enough said! Many other mixed and worth-reading reviews!

How could a wanna-read-bad TBR turn into a sorry-ass DNF?

WTF? DNF! OMG!

WTF?
Who AM I? I finish every book I start, yet I did not finish this one! And I LOVE Ann Patchett! Her State of Wonder is one of my all-time favorite books! What the fuck is going on?

DNF!
I’m having a serious crisis here. Have I thought this out carefully? Can I really pull off abandoning this book? I must do it. Calm down. It’s okay. Listen to your friends who whisper, “It’s fine….let go…” A zillion other books are beckoning. Yes, life is too short to keep reading something you hate. If I repeat that last sentence enough times, I’ll start believing it, right?

OMG!
Oh my god, I did it! I DNF’d it, and I didn’t die! (A weird feeling still remains, however.)

I’m so speechless about throwing this book out the window that I’ve resorted to acronyms to express myself, blurting out clumps of capital letters and exclamation points. Usually I rely on strong verbs and a chain of touchy adjectives, but here, no. I just have unpronounceable cap combos. Now that’s bad.

Let’s start with the fact that yes, I’ve been dying to read this. The title, however, shooed me away for a long while; I hate opera and all its bel-canto-ness. Then a friend assured me that it wasn’t about opera, that it was about a terrorist attack with a bunch of hostages. So I ignored my title hatred and rubbed my hands in glee. Who doesn’t like a good hostage story, as long as it’s in the hands of a pro? And I knew Patchett’s a pro.

I don’t know how she did it, but Patchett managed to make a terrorist attack boring. I didn’t get a sense of mad confusion or terror; it all seemed muted and sort of civilized. And eventually, many of the terrorists become nice guys. I know she wanted to show their humanity but she went overboard.

And my biggest complaint is that she told us immediately who wins in the end. Completely ruined it for me! The fun is in wondering how it turns out. I don’t know what she was thinking, seriously.

I don’t like opera, as I’ve said. Surely there would have been at least a few hostages and terrorists who didn’t like it either. But no, every single person seemed to be transported to la-la land when the little songbird opened her mouth. If it were me lying on the floor, surrounded by armed terrorists, I would be bemoaning not only my questionable fate, but also the fact that I was stuck in a room listening to non-stop eardrum-shattering high-pitched screeching. Just my luck, I’d be thinking. It would disrupt any calming thoughts I was working on, it would take away any chance I had of internal peace. I’d be begging the terrorists for ear plugs.

The characters were lifeless and boring and I didn’t care an iota about any of them, much in the same way I don’t give a shit about cardboard.

The only thing I liked was imagining a whole group of people lying face up and motionless on the floor, having conversations while looking at the ceiling. This unique scenario seemed trippy, and I loved thinking about horizontal chit-chat.

Somehow Patchett managed to take the tense out of terrorism, no easy feat! It was pure torture to pick this book up, and I only made it halfway through.

I wanted so much to love this book, and god knows I didn’t want to abandon it. I wanted the reality to be different. I didn’t want my love of Ann Patchett tainted. Because now whenever I think of the sweet State of Wonder, I’ll also think of the sour Bel Canto. Very sad.

Of course Patchett is a skilled writer. The language is eloquent and there is some insight. But seriously, I just didn’t give a damn.

It seems some people were disappointed in this book because they thought it would be based on an actual event that took place in South America in which a house full of V.I.P.'s were taken hostage for 126 days by terrorists. It is not based on that event, but rather inspired by it.

Others think this book is about Stockholm syndrome. I disagree.

Patchett obviously was sitting at her desk one day and wondered what could happen when a large group of strangers were forced to live together for that amount of time. That, and the fact that many of the terrorists were only young teenagers, gave Patchett's imagination much to draw from.

The result is brilliant. I must say I enjoyed every minute. I definitely plan to read more books by this wonderful author.

I have never read a book like this before.

The story opens at a party in an unspecified South American country. The guests include Japanese businessmen, French diplomats, the vice-president of the host country (the president didn't attend the party because he had to watch his soap opera), and the opera singer Roxane Coss. During the party, terrorists invade the house and take all two hundred guests hostage.
The terrorists came for the president, and since he's not there, decided to keep the guests hostage in the vice-president's mansion until their demands are met.
The guests are held hostage in the house for four months. During that time, escape is difficult, but definitely not impossible, but no one tries to leave. And really, why would they? They're trapped in a mansion, with food delivered daily by the police outside the walls, watched over by surprisingly civilized terrorists (most of whom are about fifteen years old), with a Swiss negotiatior to bring them soap and newspapers. One of the hostages is a translator who's fluent in every language spoken by the assorted international hostages, and they have a woman who sings opera for them every day.
The desriptions in the book were beautiful, especially when the author describes Roxane Coss singing. It made me want to go to an opera, something that doesn't happen often. The story is unique and surprisingly touching, and I really enjoyed it. The ending was the only part of the book I didn't absolutely love, and that's the only reason this doesn't get five stars. Everything else about the story is beautiful in the most unexpected way.

This book came highly recommended, and once I started reading, I kept thinking I had already but couldn't, for the life of me, remember how it ended. Turns out, it only seemed familiar to me because it is based on a real life experience. In 1995, the president of Peru and many of his guests were taken hostage and held for months. Bel Canto is a fictitious story based loosely on those events.

I only liked Bel Canto. I understand its appeal - the coming together of hostages and terrorists alike, but the writing was a bit too ethereal and romantic for me. SO much emphasis placed on opera, as if it's the universal band-aid. I know a lot of people that don't enjoy opera at all. In fact, a music lover myself, I'd have to admit that most of opera is an acquired taste. The hugeness of the voice, the strong vibrato and foreign languages take some getting used to. However, according to the author, there is no politician, businessman, servant or gunman that doesn't fall into a deep state of hypnosis when a soprano begins her song. I tend to think that perhaps the terrorist from a South American country, where musical tastes are a bit different, might not have been so cast under her spell, but I could be wrong. I've never thought of it as the only offered solace to a terrifying situation.

Which leads me to the other thing that I find a hard time believing. Terrorists...with guns....coming through air vents into a vice presidential palace and no one seems particularly petrified throughout it all. Again, I think this was the author's way of romanticizing the event by leaving out the crapping of pants and desperate pleas for loved ones, but everyone was annoyingly contrite and calm, even the terrorists themselves, who seemed awfully nice and understanding.

The end was appropriately tragic. I read a few reviews that described this as an example of magical realism, a genre I try and avoid so this labeling surprised me. Maybe all the lack of fear, suspended time and happy hostage household was part of it. The ending, while sad and tragic, satisfied my need for logic and realism. This event seemed to have a larger psychological effect on the survivors then the original hostage takeover. Whether or not that is realistic or not, I have no idea.

I wish she hadn't written her epilogue. It was unnecessary and unbelievable. Sort of like how all doctors on a hospital television show end up as couples, as if there were no one else in the world to date or socialize with. I did not believe or think that Gen and Roxane belonged together...even with their personal losses.

The book as a whole, however, is not void of greatness. The Russian cabinet member and his story of the box was poetic. Cesar's natural talent and love of performing made me cheer. And the inward look at most regarding their professions and priorities was very appropriate.

All combined, it makes for an enjoyable, flawed book.

This was my first Ann Patchett novel, not sure if I will trouble to read another, ever!