Rating: 
Summary: A Bit off Key
Review: Bel Canto was a novel I couldn't wait to read. As I plowed through the first 150 pages, I was bitterly disappointed and could easily have put this novel down without ever picking it up again. The book begins at a party with the world famous soprano Roxanne Coss performing for a crowd of important coporate big shots from around the world with one thing in common, they all love opera and they are all enamored by the soprano before them. A terrorist takeover is attempted during the performance and becomes botched once the terrorists realize their target, the president, of the fictional South American country is not in attendance. What happens from that point is the crux of the plot. This novel attempts to explore the relationships that develop in this unique hostage situation. The realationship between the captors and the hostages begins to blur and soon the group has developed a psuedo community that is held together by their love of music. Although they cannot communicate with language because they are all from different countries, music is the common ground they all share. To really enjoy this novel, the reader has to buy into the illusion that the soprano Roxanne Coss is irresistable. That was a hard one. Somehow Patchett manages to create different relationships between the hostages and terrorists; romantic, teacher/student, father/son and mother/daughter. Slowly I found myself buying into Patchett's illusions and near the end I was rooting for these new found relationships to survive. This book explored alot of really interesting concepts; music as the universal language, hostage mentality, love and loss. I only wish that Patchett had not trivalized the events with her over the top characterizations and sappy love stories between the characters.
Rating: 
Summary: If the humanities are a dead-end, then why read this novel?
Review: The message of this novel seems to emerge from the juxtaposition of man's highest instincts for opera (art) and his basest instincts (violence). Throughout the novel the author weaves an apparently insincere tale about the miracle of art in transfiguring human relations -- even victims and hostages seem transformed by the bel cantos of the diva and her protege. However, in the end, when push comes to shove, art is futile in enabling mankind to overcome its differences and the base instinct for senseless violence will predominate. How can one ultimately embrace such a dead-ended premise? I kept anticipating that art would somehow triumph as the true heroine in this novel -- such a story line would have been worth reading. Instead, the author leads us down this deliberate ineluctable path in a futile tale in which the humanities are worthless, leaving one utterly defeated and disillusioned in the wake of such brutality. Question: is this novel held out to be art? If so, and art is futile as evidence of hope for mankind, then what is the point of reading this novel? To learn what we already know from virtually every popular Hollywood movie -- that man is inclined to act as a savage beast? We haven't heard this trite message a gazillion times? A more inspired work would have given mankind a reason for believing that great art and music and literature represent real opportunities for humanity to unify and to overcome our many fundamental human differences. As a writer who seems to care for and know a fair amount about art, I can't imagine why Patchett wants readers to come to the inevitable conclusions to which she prods them in the back with a rifle butt. Bel Canto is insipid mainstream pap, which is clearly enriching its author. Do yourself a favor: try Jose Saramago, Oscar Hijuelos or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, instead of this uninspired, banal, vapid, intellectual dead-end. Sorry, but this is one of the worst novels I've ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor timing, well written
Review: My wife and I read "Bel Canto" in the middle of 2001. It's a beautiful story, with sharply-drawn characters and surprising complexity. I found the book easy to read, my wife did not. The difference: 9/11. I read the book before, she read it after. It's ironic, because while Patchett's book is based on true events, it seems untrue, a fairy-tale perhaps, now that we have all been made aware of the true horrors of terrorism. One recoils now from a lyrical love story set among hostages... That being said, a good read. The parallel love stories are captivating, and one cannot help but think of magic realism while reading this book. The ending is a bit harsh but has a ring of truth to it -- I won't spoil anything -- but Patchett's last chapter interestingly undermines the conventions of the love story.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful parable for our New Century
Review: No, its not "real" nor is it intended to be. Rather, BEL CANTO serves as both a magical journey into a "possible world" and a cautionary tale of what happens when we encounter too much reality. Patchett uses the framework of a terrorist take-over of the Vice-Presidential Palace of an un-named-country-that-is clearly-Peru as a way of exploring the result of people faced with the completely unexpected (the guests thought they were getting six arias and dinner, the terrorists thought they were getting the President, the Vice President thought he was getting a Factory...) and being given the opportunity to act in a world that is completely cut off from their every day lives. Patchett mixes comic relief (The President misses the party because he wants to watch his favorite soap opera) with stark brutality (The Vice President gets pistol-whipped) while introducing us to an amazing array of highly sophisticated & interesting characters. You don't have to love opera (I for one can't stand it) to understand why things fall out as they do & by the end you will be rooting for the whole cast, while knowing that -no, I won't spoil the ending, You'll have too much fun getting there, but after it is all over don't be surprised if you find yourself re-assessing much of what you thought you "knew" about everything from music to politics.
Rating:
Summary: I cried when there were no more pages to read.
Review: If you value your time and love to only read stories that add to your day, week or life. Read this book. If you love the depth, detail and emotion of Faulkner or Garcia-Marquez - you will love Patchett. She is an amazing story teller - I rationed out the pages I read every night so that it would not end - despite my crazy curiousity to learn what happens. I stumbled on this book and I feel very lucky that I did.
Rating:
Summary: Look up the music
Review: My book group reviewed this book with the usual questions and discussions. Then, we moved to another level. Ann Patchett put in untold hours of research into music in general and opera specifically when "composing" this book. Patchett was very specific in her musical references, so we found recordings of the works featured. We read opera guides and opera plots. We looked up unusual names of characters. Everywhere we looked there were connections to the book. Some of the books plots and sub-plots are echoes of opera plots. Bel Canto is not just the name of the book, but a style of opera with certain components - the dramatic components were all present in Patchett's writing. It is a style of writing and performing music; both vocal and instrumental. Anyway, you get the idea. Any reading group with an interest in learning about music would enjoy researching this book. Then, head to the opera!
Rating:
Summary: My perception
Review: I have read some of the other reviews calling the novel (to paraphrase) unlikely, of narrow characterization, romance stories...but to me it appeared as a wonderful, fantastic often dreamy prose poem. Maybe I should say-facetiously-a prose epic. Anyway, it is a novel I will likely read twice--and that perhaps says it all.
Rating:
Summary: A great read & a glimpse into the transforming power of art
Review: This is a beautifully written, very accessible novel peopled with interesting, well-crafted characters from many cultures brought together unexpectedly. On one level, the novel is a page turner -- much like the old English murder mysteries where someone is found dead in the drawing room and no one can leave. In this case, it's not a whodunit, but who will survive -- a more fitting question for our world today. On another level, it's a fabel about the transforming power of art and the inherent goodness of people under the right circumstances. Some may find the story's love interests a little too "potential screenplay", but there is much to enjoy about this book regardless. More than any other novel, Bel Canto created for me an experience of opera, languages and cultures that has helped me better appreciate art and music in my own life. You don't have to be a music lover or love story devotee to be moved by this book. And, if you have the good fortune to be a classical music or opera buff, you'll probably like this novel even more than I did.
Rating:
Summary: A very good read
Review: Interesting story line. You get drawn right into the action. I felt like I had made friends with the characters so I didn't want the book to end. Not deep. But good!
Rating:
Summary: A badly sung Bel Canto
Review: As a book seriously trying to sell itself as a piece of literature rather than a potboiler you can munch through on holiday while most of your mental energy is being taken up listening to the sound of waves, this is a first-grade attempt. Why, why, why base a book on a piece of history which, in itself was fascinating and gripping, and then strip it of factual integrity and relevance and make a romantic slush of it all? From the very beginning the nasty term "the host country" tried to put us off the scent that Patchett was basing her story in Peru 1996-97. Fine if she was going to create her own set where these relationships blossom against all odds. But then she seemed determined to conjure tropical appeal into the text (I won't call it prose) with stereotypical descriptions of Peruvian jungle life, and the garua fogs that are inextricably linked to Lima and no other city. The obvious reason for the desire to distance herself from the nail-biting siege at the Japanese embassy is to clear the way to delve into siege mentality. But linking the surroundings so obviously to Peru distracts from that. Sprinkle in the factually wrong details that jolt you out of what little suspension of disbelief you'd managed to achieve and the whole structure of this book is self-defeating. Which brings us to the characters. The fact that Gen is supposed to be able to speak quite so many languages is remarkable but once the tally nudges over five distinct language groups, it frankly erodes the verisimilitude one can only presume patchett was aiming for. He is the lynchpin of this book without which there would be no communication but he was stretched too far. That said, he comes across as a sympathetic character in the widest sense of the word and has a certain emotional appeal until the last few pages. If this sharp mind is so blunted because of the siege's end then that is potentially fascinating psychology and needs to be examined. Not to do so just jars. There were some nice touches in this book and the middle section ran with some ease but those positives were outweighed by irritations and silly stereotypes. This was a book idea that had potential but having read to the end on a long train journey, I was left wondering if patchett had ever been to Peru. Had she read a wide range of accounts of the embassy siege? Had she talked to any survivors of a hostage crisis? Had she spoken to any psychologists? Or was this just a romantic dream she found a home for? (Post Scriptum -- fellow critics of this book, Bel Canto does NOT fit into magical realism. Magical realism is a serious literary genre where your suspension of disbelief is wooed into a higher realm of irreality where people can float into the sky at a moment's notice without it seeming strange, where libraries can stretch to eternity, where modern lives can be subsumed into myth. Bel Canto is not magical realism. It is mundane fiction.)
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