Rating: 
Summary: Patchett has no knowledge of ANY of her subject matter
Review: As much as Patchett has clearly researched opera, she has not researched some basic medical facts that would have made the book more believable to me. I was prepared to read a beautifully written, acclaimed book, but the oversights were too hard to read past. I had to quit reading after the account of a diabetic dying of LACK of INSULIN, rather than what his symptoms revealed--that LOW BLOOD SUGAR killed him. I later resumed reading it in an attempt to forgive the error, only to read a lengthy internal dialogue of a pharmacist lamenting the diabetic's death, which he thinks could have been avoided if the pharmacist could had given him some of the insulin from a refrigerator back at his office. A pharmacist also would have known the diabetic didn't die from LACK of INSULIN. The death of the diabetic character is too important not to get the details correct. Because the misinformation is smack in the middle of a key plot turning point, I didn't find the rest of the book believable and had to put it down before I finished it.
Rating:
Summary: Stockholm Syndrome and boring
Review: If anyone wants to read a book about the Stockholm Syndrome in a fictional situation...this book is for you. There is nothing new in this work that any person couldn't find out over the internet about this subject and with a whole lot less analogies than this novel presents. I'm sorry to say, this is a very boring read.
Rating: 
Summary: My Dinner with Andre meets Carmen
Review: What I loved about this book was the depth of characterization. When I first read the back of the book I was expecting more of a page-turner in the traditional sense. A little slow to start but I became closely drawn to each of the characters, wanting to find out how their little sub-plots would develop. I think one of the beauties of this book is that the reader, not unlike the hostages, wants the story to continue, wishes the characters were in a different story so they could go on. The reader and the characters are brought back to reality with a sharply abrupt ending which is only inevitable. Music is strong theme, clearly from the title, and the writing itself is almost lyrical, very polished in a subtle way.
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Summary: PLOT MOVES LIKE A GLACIER...ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Review: you'd think with a premise like this book has,it would be a page turner. oh my. couldn't be farther from the case. i started this book at thanksgiving, shelved it and returned to it only after my book club insisted on reading it for march. i'm STILL slogging through it. while there is technically nothing wrong with patchett's writing, it is just tedious, dull and uninteresting. the plot moves along at the speed of a glacier. save yourself a few bucks and take a pass on this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: great discussion book
Review: Bel Canto is a great book for book clubs, with plenty to discuss. Patchett manages to grab our emotions, and we end up sympathizing with the terrorists -- kind of hostage-syndrome by proxy! The advantage of reading this book for a group is that the reader will persevere through the first 100 pages, which can seem a bit slow, then the characters begin to come alive. I didn't like the ending first time I read the book, but on a second reading I could see the point of it -- anyone who hated the ending might want to try reading it again. One of the best books I read in 2002.
Rating:
Summary: One word comes to mind
Review: That word would be ... bloviate.Unbelieveable, sophomorically written, and dull. Why this novel received the press it did (aside from the fact the author slyly leaked it to the press prior to its release date), I don't know. Don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: A poor excuse for a book
Review: If I could, I would give it a minus 5.
How can such inacurate drivel receive the reviews that it did.
I want my money back !!!!
Rating:
Summary: A peaceful captivity
Review: What would it be like to be held prisoner with a group of people we don't know, but who just happen to be in the same place as us at the time of capture? What if our captors included children still in adolescence? What develops as time goes on and captivity becomes a way of life? Do hostage and captor inevitably hate one another? These are some of the questions pondered in Bel Canto. The people gathered at the home of an unnamed South American country's vice president for the occasion of a Japanese businessman's birthday party could not be more diverse. They are captured by terrorists of the country, who demand changes for the betterment of the people's lives. In essence, Patchett creates a separate world where people learn to co-exist and value each other's talents and knowledge. Roxane Coss, the celebrated opera singer who is much admired by Mr. Hosokawa and was to provide the night's entertainment, evolves as a unifying force among the group. Her beautiful voice is a gift that transcends the language barrier in a way that not even Mr. Hosokawa's translator, Gen, can. The novel develops into an exercise in magical realism, as hostage falls in love with captor, and relationships develop that never would have been considered possible in the outside world. It becomes quite beautiful, in fact, a lesson in world peace and acceptance. After 4 1/2 months of living together, no one - captive, captor, or reader - wants the new life to end, but of course it must. A truly beautiful book!
Rating:
Summary: an excellent demonstration of finding beauty in all things
Review: On December 17, 1996 the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) invaded the Japanese Ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru. For more than four months they held 72 people hostage, until April 22, 1997 when the Peruvian government entered, overtaking the MRTA soldiers. In Bel Canto, Anne Patchett bases a fictive novel on these actual occurrences, transmogrifying the characters involved to new levels of cultivation despite their dire circumstances. Similar to a university semester, Patchett structures the characters' days in captivity according to a curriculum of study, in which the hostages become teachers and the captors become pupils. Through art, drama and education Patchett teaches both her characters and the reader about the enduring qualities of love and beauty. Patchett employs descriptions of song and language as one of many successful techniques that teach about beauty. This particular technique demonstrates Patchett's masterful ability to weave a somber transpiration into a novel about beauty, romance, and finding one's true self. Patchett's Bel Canto is an example of magical realism that lifts itself from the page and envelops the reader in song, language, drama, art and love. This book demonstrates the need for cultivation within an insular society, not unlike Lord of the Flies.
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Summary: Great audiobook!
Review: This is an example of a book that is better heard than read. There is not too much going on between the first few pages and the last few pages, so the joy of this book comes from the journey - not the destination. If I read this book in print, I suspect I would have turned the pages too quickly to appreciate the imagery, lyricism, insights and quiet moments. Listening to the audiobook as I drove, I could not race through 'Bel Canto' and I was able to enjoy the slow journey (referring to the book, not my driving!)
I beg to differ with a previous reviewer. I think Anna Fields did an outstanding job of reading this book. Her voice magically captured the personalities of all the characters, male and female, with a trace of their varied accents so that the characters were more vivid in my imagination than they would have been if I'd been wading through printed text.
One minor quibble: I believe I heard a description of a chess game in which a character moved his rook back and forth, taking care not to remove his fingers from the "horse's head". What an unusual chess set!
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