Bel Canto

 

The premise of the captivating Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is relatively simple – during a dinner party filled with international dignitaries, a guerrilla gang invades and takes the party-goers hostage. Several dozen guests and captors, speaking a dozen different languages, live together in the house as the crisis stalemates.  But they are united by the spellbinding power of music, which slowly alters the dynamics between hostage and captor.

The story is alternatively narrated by several characters, but primarily by Gen Watanabe, a professional translator who is the only person in the house that can speak to every other person.  As a result, Gen is involved in almost every major conversation between the hostages and between hostages and captors.  Gen’s slow but steady alteration from indifferent professional translator to emotionally invested interlocutor is part of what made the story fascinating.  But there is also Roxanne Coss, an American soprano.  Throughout the novel, her singing voice seems to bestow upon her magical powers – she is immune from violence or threat of violence, and she has the power to elicit love and devotion from everyone in the house.

Bel Canto snuck up on me.  Perhaps because of the subtle magical realism elements, before I realized what was happening, I was as oblivious to the improbability of the story as the characters seemed to be.  As the hostages interacted with their captors, I too began to feel empathy, compassion, and even admiration for them.  As the hostages fell in love, both erotic and brotherly, I understood and applauded them.  Patchett demonstrated to me just how compelling and even easy what we call “Stockholm Syndrome” can be.

But the story had to end.  I was amazed at myself for daydreaming a happy ending to the hostage crisis along with the hostages and captors, even as the number of pages remaining dwindled.  Of course this story does not have a happy ending –rather a jarring one that snapped me back into the world.  But it was in Patchett’s ability to persuade me that there could be a fairy tale ending that her mastery was most apparent.