Bel Canto / Ann Patchett

This is a book I had been intending to read for about ten years—and I only now got to checking it off my list. My wife had borrowed the paperback from the library and I read it after she was done. It was nice to have the shared experience of a book read in common. Hadn’t done that for a long time. One of the pleasures of more unscheduled time in the summer.

Bel Canto is a wonderfully crafted story about people and relationships. It starts out like an episode from the television series 24 when terrorists storm a posh birthday party at a government mansion somewhere in an unnamed South American country. The hostages are a disparate group of international businessmen and diplomats, many of whom do not share a common language. The sole female hostage is Roxane Coss, an internationally acclaimed soprano opera singer who was the evening’s entertainment. In lieu of a common language, it is music that serves as the lingua franca (and soothes the savage beast). As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months, Stockholm syndrome transforms the initial adversarial relationship between hostage and hostage-taker into an almost friendly (at least comradely) environment, a sort of summer camp for adults—there’s chess playing and outdoor soccer games and secret language lessons in the china closet, and a little sneaking around at night.

Without giving anything away to those who haven’t read the book--I had this great visualization for the cinematic realization of the penultimate chapter—the soundtrack features a beautiful soprano operatic aria in the background as figures and objects move slow-mo through the final moments in the vice presidential mansion.

I shouldn’t have waited ten years for this book. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Put it on your reading list today.

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