re:mote voices

Title: Bel Canto
Author: Ann Patchett
Publisher: Harper Perennial

There are clear parallels between Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto and Ian Banks’s Canal Dreams. Canal Dreams follows a Japanese woman who is a world famous cellist, who because she doesn’t like to fly only travels by sea, resulting in her being caught in a hostage situation while waiting to get through the Panama Canal. With Bel Canto we have a Japanese man who is a big fan of a world famous opera singer, who is lured to a Latin American country to see her perform, only to get caught in a hostage situation.

Mr. Hosikawa is the head of a big Japanese corporation. The unnamed Latin American country is keen to have him invest in their poor nation. However previous attempts to get him to come visit have failed. The fact that he is a big opera fan, particularly he is a fan of Roxanne Coss, gives them an idea – spend lots of money on a lavish birthday party for Mr. Hosikawa where Coss will give an intimate performance. Which in turn gives terrorist forces in the country an idea, so as Coss finishes her last song the Vice President’s house is plunged into darkness and the house is suddenly filled with heavily armed terrorists. Unfortunately the flaw in the plan for both sides is that Mr. Hosikawa’s birthday is on a Tuesday, which is the night that the President’s favourite soap opera is on TV. So the Vice President has had to make his excuses for the President’s absence, excuses that the terrorists aren’t very happy about, given that the President was their target.

This set up comes together in the first chapter, after that we are presented with a hostage drama. The women and children and house staff are released, leaving a large house with 40 hostages, plus the Roxanne Coss, along with 18 terrorists. The only contact with the outside world comes through a member of the Red Cross, who was in the area on holiday. Every day he comes in and ferries demands back and forth from the terrorists to the authorities – but neither side is willing to budge, leading the situation to extend out in a seemingly endless manner.

With this Bel Canto has something of the farce to it, wittier and more easily ironic than Canal Dreams. The shifting relationships between the hostages and the terrorists, particularly as days become months. The role Hosikawa’s translator Gen takes on, in a house filled with people speaking different languages he is forced to facilitate all communications – from finding a pianist for Coss, or kitchen help for the French ambassador, to expressing a deep felt love in Russian. Of course the starting point of a president who doesn’t turn up for an important function because he is too busy watching soaps kind of sums up the approach of this novel. But it is also about the kind of self-assessment that comes from isolation and stressful events, following what the characters miss about life, and what little happiness they can get from each day that they are still alive.