Bel Canto

By Ann Patchett

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In a word: ode

In a sentence: What begins as a mass hostage crisis rapidly devolves into a joyous reprieve.

Synopsis: Guerillas crash Mr. Hosokawa’s South American birthday party and capture all its guests in lieu of the president. And such beauty grew in the stalemate of negotiations.

Reactions: Bel Canto is the ultimate juxtaposition between beauty and violence, fear and love. It creates a complete utopia in the heart of terrible strife. Patchett slips her reader in with the hostages, luring them to peace with opera, allowing them a taste of Stockholm Syndrome in that idyllic presidential palace where guerillas are sweet cherubim with guns and the generals chess aficionados. There is, every once in a while, a prickle at the back of the reader’s neck, but like the captives’ fear of execution, all is soothed by the voice of angelic soprano Roxane Coss.

This book is a cry for nuance in a world thirsty for it. It accentuates the multifaceted nature of humanity by creating a paradise for captors and captives alike. Patchett expertly draws out the humanity of the guerillas to grey the lines between the heroes and villains of her tale. In doing so, the futility of violence is clarified in the face of knowledge, friendship, and beauty.

Bel Canto is also an ode to opera. Everyone gathered in that beautiful home only opera, and opera made their drawn-out stay a wonderland. Patchett is intentional in her avoidance of all the stereotypes of opera and rather uses its music as a moment of peace in the uncertain purgatory of captivity. The novel itself draws from many classic operatic motifs: forbidden love, untimely death, gender secrecy, righteous violence, and, above all, inevitable tragedy.

Read if: you too wish to linger in an operatic paradise.