Friday, April 11, 2014

Reading List: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett



Positives:
Recommended by my mother.

Negatives:
Recommended by my mother.

Suggested Reading Environment:
Sitting at a bar at a sushi restaurant listening to opera on your headphones.



But really, mom was right. This is a pretty good book. It makes you think about Stockholm syndrome, wealth and power inequalities, and the way certain things have the ability to transcend cultural barriers. 

Here is the Amazon description:
Opera and terrorism make strange bedfellows, yet in this novel they complement each other nicely. At a birthday party for Japanese industrialist Mr. Hosokawa somewhere in South America, famous American soprano Roxanne Coss is just finishing her recital in the Vice President's home when armed terrorists appear, intending to take the President hostage. However, he is not there, so instead they hold the international businesspeople and diplomats at the party, releasing all the women except Roxanne. Captors and their prisoners settle into a strange domesticity, with the opera diva captivating them all as she does her daily practicing. Soon romantic liaisons develop with the hopeless intensity found in many opera plots. Patchett balances terrorism, love, and music nicely here.
Has anyone else read this book? Can someone please call me to discuss how weird the epilogue is?

No comments:

Post a Comment