Summary: Beautifully written utopian tragedy.
I am not sure if I am feeling nostalgic or tired of non-fiction or if something else is going on, but I have very much been drawn to fiction this year. Generally I am a non-fiction reader. But year to date, about half of the reading I have done has been fiction, and two of the non-fiction books have been biographies of authors.
Bel Canto is the third book this year that I have re-read. It read it about 10 years ago. That time it was all on audiobook. And this time, it was about half audio and half in print. The audiobook narrated by Anna Fields was well done. (She also narrated Children of God.)
Bel Canto is a tragedy and you anticipate it as a tragedy almost from the very start. There is a dinner in honor of a Japanese businessman, who the country was wanting to encourage to build factories in the (fictional and unnamed) South American country. The dinner was hosted at the Vice Presidential home and attended by many ambassadors and business people from around the world. The highlight of the event and the reason that the businessman agreed to the dinner is that a world famous soprano opera singer would perform. And that businessman’s only real love in the world was opera, that singer in particular. But the dinner was interrupted by guerrilla terrorists who mistakenly believed that the President of the country would be there. I believe that this was inspired by a real hostage crisis in Peru in 1996.
As I said in my last post about the book, a type of uneasy utopia eventually develops. But a utopia could never last. And tragedy is the end result. That really is the whole story and it feels like I have described too much of the story even while I haven’t even named a character.
The book is beautifully written. And while it may be a bit too perfect, the role of art and beauty to draw people together I think is real. The terrorists are far from perfect, their demands can’t be met. They have used violence and terror to attempt to achieve their ends, but from the start they knew it would not work, because their original target was not there. But there are real problems they are protesting. And as is repeated throughout the book, most of the terrorist group are young teens, who look even younger because they are malnourished.
There are times when I think that the Patchett is a bit heavy handed in reminding the reader of the important things she is drawing attention to, but generally this is a beautifully written book that I really enjoyed reading, even if I don’t think there was a lot of subtext to be picked up on a second read.
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook