All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.
Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and a PEN/Faulkner Award, is a beautifully written, intelligent novel with one of the best-developed character ensembles I have ever found in a work of literature.
Bel Canto is based on the 1997 hostage crisis in Lima, where fourteen members of a fringe guerrilla group invaded the Japanese embassy and held 72 people hostage for four months, at the end of which the Peruvian army stormed the embassy and killed all of the terrorists, with one hostage dying of a heart problem in the assault. Patchett’s version is in an unnamed, poor, Spanish-speaking country, in the Vice-President’s residence, where a party is being held in honor of a Japanese executive, Mr. Hosokawa, who may be about to bring a large capital investment to the country. However, he only agreed to attend the party when the organizers agreed to fly in Roxane Coss, a world-famous opera singer and Hosokawa’s favorite artist.
Patchett tips us off up front that the eventual murder victims will be the terrorists, not the hostages, although of course the characters don’t know that as we follow them through the ordeal. Patchett has created an amazing number of fleshed-out characters, showing skill both at delving into human emotions and at painting characters with the flourishes that give them definition. Once the initial period after the raid has ended, each character, terrorist and hostage alike, finds his or her niche within the makeshift commune, like the Vice President who becomes the housekeeper, or the poor priest with a secret love of opera. (In a flashback scene, Father Arguedas confesses his love of opera to his priest, who responds, “Art is not sin. It’s not always good. But it’s not a sin.” The priest asks Arguedas if he prefers Verdi or Wagner, and when Arguedas responds, “Verdi,” the priest answers, “You are young. Come back and tell me again in twenty years.”) But more impressive is the way Patchett takes the relationships between some of the hostages and some of the terrorists beyond simple Stockholm Syndrome territory, showing how factors such as age, size, gender, and skill define interpersonal relationships and building a web of interactions on that basis.
If there’s a flaw at all in Bel Canto, it’s that Patchett made her terrorists too sympathetic. Most of the rank and file members are just teenagers without ideology, and each of the leaders has some distinct humanizing trait. It’s good writing, but also the book’s biggest departure from reality.
Bel Canto lacks a linear plot, instead telling the stories around the shift from the captor/hostage dynamic to a commune that is so tranquil that some of the hostages find they lose their desire to leave. Whether this is because they’re truly happy or because they’re happy to be escaping from the tedium or stresses of their daily lives is left to the reader to decide.
Next up: I owe you reviews of Embers
Bel Canto was fine. Thackeray is better. A lot better.
But both are worth reading/
I don’t know, I haven’t read the book, but is it really that big of a stretch to think that terrorists (or guerrillas) have humanizing traits? Surely they are wrong and their actions reprehensible, but I think it takes a pretty bleak and Manichean worldview to really think that they have absolutely no sympathetic characteristics.
Keith: Unrelated to this post, but I was wondering if you saw the article in the New York Times a couple days ago about how much Whole Foods is struggling in this economy given its generally high prices. My family shops for at least 75% of its groceries at Whole Foods, and I know you to be a patron there, so I would be very interested in your opinion on the economic situation, if you have one.
A link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/business/02food.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Upon your recommendation, I have requested a copy from my local library.
I tried Vanity Fair once and didn’t get very far. Seemed pretty daunting at the time and I don’t know if I have the time to devote to it at the moment.
Matt J..
Just to add commentary, I feel like if you are someone who values food, enjoys cooking, and is looking for quality, you will shop there regardless. I never viewed whole foods as a place where “normal” people really shopped. When you can’t buy coke or shake n bake, that becomes very limiting to some people.
Quality is not the exclusive province of Whole Foods. Nor is the average supermarket exclusively home to hordes of Coke swilling shake and bakers. We use the local supermarket, along with many smaller specialty markets in the Boston area, and we cook and eat a wide variety of fresh, healthy meals.
My one trip to Whole Foods, in forty years of grocery shopping, turned up some nice items but the store overall didn’t offer good value for the money so I never went back.