Bel Canto (novel)

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**Title** **Bel Canto**
Author	Ann Patchett
Cover artist	Elizabeth Ackerman, Echos/Nonstock
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Perennial, HarperCollins
Released	2001
Media type	Print (paperback and hardback), cassette tape
ISBN	ISBN 0-06-093441-7

Bel Canto is a 2001 novel by American author Ann Patchett, published by Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. It was awarded both the Orange Prize for Fiction and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2002.

Set in a fictional South American country, it begins at a birthday party being thrown at the home of the country's vice president for Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large Japanese electronics company. Performing is a famous American soprano, Roxane Coss. The party is invaded by the members of a terrorist organization, who proceed to take the entire party hostage. The rest of the novel centers on the strange, unexpected and in some cases, romantic relationships that begin to develop between the hostages and terrorists over the period of the standoff.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel centers on two major romantic relationships, which develop as the standoff drags on and serve as the backbone to the rest of the story. The first is between the soprano, Roxane Coss, and Katsumi Hosokawa, the chairman of the company, Nansei. They eventually develop a deep bond, though they have no knowledge of each other's language and thus cannot communicate verbally. The second is between Gen Watanabe, Mr. Hosokawa's young translator, a gifted linguist, and the young terrorist, Carmen.

The novel is loosely based on the December 17, 1996 Japanese embassy hostage crisis that took place in Lima, Peru.

[edit] Characters in "Bel Canto"

Katsumi Hosokawa. The founder and chairman of Nansei, the largest electronics corporation in Japan. It is in his honor that the initial birthday party is held that the hostages attend and that the terrorists invade. He is married with two daughters. A workaholic, his greatest love has been opera music since attending a performance with his father as a child. He fell in love with Roxane's voice before he fell in love with her person, and the host country's government bribes him into visiting by booking her to sing at the party. He has a strong bond with his young translator Gen, who always anticipates his needs. He speaks little Spanish and must use Gen for all communication in the host country, though during the hostage period he resolve to learn ten new words every day. He falls in love with Roxane, but knows their relationship can only last for the duration of the standoff. He is gunned down in the final scenes by the soldiers of the host county, in his attempt to save Carmen.

Roxane Coss. An internationally-renowned American soprano, she is invited to perform at the party by special request of Mr. Hosokawa, her biggest fan. In her late thirties, she is a petite woman with dyed blonde hair. While not conventionally gorgeous, she possesses a rare charisma; every man in attendance is in love with her to some extent because of her ethereal singing voice. She is detained when all the other women are freed during the first few days. At first a prima donna who sets herself apart from the rest of the guests, she eventually begins to bond with the others when she receives a box of musical scores and begins singing to them every morning. She is especially touched by her relationships with Mr. Hosokawa, with whom she falls in love, Gen, whom she forms a strong bond eventually marries, Carmen, who sleeps in her bed, braids her hair, and comforts her, and Cesar, another young terrorist with a gifted singing voice whom she begins tutoring.

Gen Watanabe. Mr. Hosokawa's translator and assistant, a quiet, sensitive and gifted young man who speaks all the major languages and many minor ones; he divides the languages he speaks into "extremely fluent, very fluent, fluent, passable and could read" (p. 17). He is usually at the center of the action of the novel, since most of the multinational characters communicate through him. He cares deeply for Mr. Hosokawa, and though the other characters rely on him, he feels different from the rest of the hostages because among them he is the only one, besides perhaps Father Arguedas, the priest, who is not fabulously wealthy and powerful. He has only slept with three women in his life. He begins tutoring the young terrorist, seventeen-year-old Carmen, when she asks him to teach her how to read and write in Spanish and English, and they begin meeting each night in the china closet, reading and eventually making love. She leads him outside to the garden one night, and in the future he regrets not walking right out into the street and taking her back to Japan with him. When the authorities come, he plans to tell them she is his wife in order to save her, but she is killed anyway, despite being shielded by Mr. Hosokawa. Gen eventually marries Roxane and moves to Italy with her.

Carmen. The terrorist Gen loves. Carmen remains anonymous in the guise of a male terrorist for the first part of the novel. The leader of the organization, General Benjamin, notices at one point what a beautiful young woman she has become and notes that, "had she been this pretty before, he never would have let her sign up" (274). A Quechua-speaking Indian girl from the jungle, she often prays to Saint Rose of Lima. Gen realizes as he teaches her that she is as smart as any of the women he knew from university, and she loves him deeply. She knows that after the standoff ends, she might never see him again, and together they build something unique and rare. In the ultimate shootout, she is gunned down before Gen can get to her. In the newspaper articles after the fact, there is no record of her ever existing.