The unexpected bonds that can grow between people is at the heart of Ann Patchett's Bel Canto. Katsumi Hokosawa, a Japanese industrialist, is having his 53rd birthday party in an unnamed South American country. The country has invited him to this party, to be held at the Vice President's mansion, in the hopes that he will invest there. He has no intention of doing so and declines...until he finds out that they have secured the performance of Roxane Coss for the party. Hokosawa is an opera devotee, and Coss is the world's foremost soprano. So he and his translator, Gen Watanabe, make the trip. No sooner, though, has Coss finished her performance than all the lights go out. Suddenly, the partygoers find themselves surrounded by young men bearing arms. They've come to abduct the president, and when they find out he's not there, they're not quite sure what to do but take the 200 guests hostage.

The hostages are winnowed down over time to the 39 most important men, including the vice president, ambassadors, businessmen, and of course Hokosawa himself (along with his translator) and Roxane Coss. Days go by, then weeks. Gen the translator finds himself very busy indeed as the guests and the soldiers get to know each other inside the mansion. Relationships of all kinds form: one of ringleaders and Hokosawa become chess partners and teach one of the young soldiers, another soldier with a beautiful voice becomes Roxane's student, romantic entanglements form (it turns out not all those soldiers are boys, after all). Always the question looms: how will this all end?

This is the first time I've read Patchett, and she's a gifted writer: her prose is sensitive, deeply felt, lyrical. She has a strong sense of character, and besides the ending, no action the people she creates on the page (and she creates people, complete with their own emotional truth, rather than just "characters") feels false. Even the people she spends less time with feel complete and real. The novel is well-paced and plotted...after the initial high drama of the home invasion, little else happens in terms of events and the action unfolds naturally from the unveiling of personalities and the growing bonds between the people at hand.

What keeps this as a very good book rather than great one, for me, is the very end. The action that two people take is...jarring. Trying to contextualize it in terms of what those two have gone through, you can understand that a rash decision might be made, but it still feels off. And it bugged me a lot, because I'd so loved everything that came before and to close on that sour note didn't feel right. It's 98% of a great book, but it could have been 100% of one and that is frustrating. ( )

I got this book many years ago when it seemed that everyone I knew was reading and loving it. Then (as usual for me) I hesitated to read it because everyone I knew was loving it. It has sat untouched in my ereader library ever since. Now it seems everyone I know is reading and loving Patchett’s latest book. So I decided it was time for this one.

A birthday party is taking place at the Vice-President’s home in an unnamed South American country. It’s for a wealthy businessman and planned as a way to woo him to doing business in the country. A performance by his favorite opera singer is what got him there. The party is interrupted when a group of terrorists takes everyone hostage. The ensuing standoff lasts for months.

It seems odd to describe a book about terrorists and their hostages as lovely but that’s the most accurate description of this story. Over the course of the standoff the relationships that develop among the characters are wonderfully depicted. These characters will stay with me for a long time

On the off chance that I’m not the last person on the planet to read this and you also haven’t read it, you should. ( )

I usually just use goodreads to track what I've read/don't write reviews, but I hated this so much so just want to say, this book is a very badly written apology for imperialism and I wish I hadn't read it.

1 to Lenore's review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2289935728?book_show_action=false&from...

Fine, a little boring, then very sad ( )

Bel Canto is a quiet story told with a sense of inevitability. The characters are detailed and poignant; the end, when it comes, is sad but not shocking. The author makes it clear that the hostages and terrorists are suspended in a soap bubble of time together; the question is not whether it will end, but how and when. ( )