19. BEL CANTO

Ann Patchett 2005

A love story, against an unlikely back drop of terrorism and opera. One of my most favorite story, somehow, incredibly, I heard the music through the pages.

'When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her. Maybe he had been turning towards her just before it was completely dark, maybe he was lifting his hands.' (1)

'Roxanne Cross, lyric soprano, was the only reason Mr. Hosokawa had come to this country.'(2)

'he believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.'(5)

'One hundred and ninety-one guests lay down, twenty waiters lay down, seven prep cooks and chefs lay down.'(20)

'The young terrorists waiting in the air-conditioning vents were simple people and they believed simple things. When a girl in their village had a pretty voice, one of the old women would say she had swallowed a bird, and this was what they tried to say to themselves as they looked at a pile of hairpins resting on the pistachio chiffon of her gown: she has swallowed a bird.'(24)

'Art is not a sin. It's not always good. But it is not a sin...The music is the truth of opera.'(52)

'A clarification: all of the women were released except one."(69)

'The terrorists having no chance to get what they came for, decided to take something else instead, something they never in their lives knew they wanted until they crouched in the low, dark shaft of the air-conditioning vents: opera. They decided to take that very thing for which Mr. Hosakawa lived.'(71)

'Sometimes now they spoke to the hostages, especially when the Generals were busy conferring. "Where are you from?" was the favorite question, though the answers rarely registered. Finally, Ruben Iglesias went to his study and brought back a large atlas so they could show them on the maps... Paris... France... Denmark... Japan... Chicago... Russia... Italy... Argentina...This is Greece.' (111)

'But it never seemed to touch Mr. Hosokawa, or he managed not to show it. And when she stood near him she somehow did not feel the panic herself, though she couldn't explain it. Near him, it felt like she was stepping out on a harsh light and into someplace quiet and dark, like she was wrapping herself up in the heavy velvet of the stage where no one could see her.'(123)

'The felt-covered hammers tapped the strings gently at first, and the music, even for those who had never heard the piece before, was like a memory. From all over the house, terrorist and hostage alike turned and listened and felt a great easing in their chests. There was a delicacy about Tetsuya Kato's hands, as if they were simply resting in one place on the keyboard and then in another.'(127)

'Hopeless. Surrender. Will not negotiate.'(150)

'Has she really not been singing all along? The sound was no more beautiful when her voice was limber and warm. Their eyes clouded over with tears for so many reasons it would be impossible to list them all. They cried for the beauty of the music, certainly, but also for the failure of their plans... All of the love and the longing a body can contain was spun into not more than two and a half minutes of song, and when she came to the highest notes it seemed that all they had been given in their lives and all they had lost came together and made a weight that was almost impossible to bear. When she was finished, the people around her stood in stunned and shivering silence.'(152)

'There was one other person there who understood the music, but she was not a guest. Standing in the hallway, looking around the corner to the living room, was Carmen, and Carmen, though she did not have the words for it, understood everything perfectly. This was the happiest time of her life and it was because of the music.'(156)

'Shy Carmen, always hanging back from the others, who knew she could smile? But at the sight of that smile he would have promised her anything...Had he wanted her and not know it? Had he wanted her so much that he dreamed she was lying beside him now. The things our mind keep from us, Gen thought. The secrets we keep even from ourselves.'(159)

Roxanne Cross sang rigorously for three hours in the morning and sometimes sang again in the late afternoon before dinner if her voice felt strong, and for hours no one gave a single thought to their death...Soon enough the days were divided into three stages: the anticipation of her singing, the pleasure of her singing, and the reflection on her singing.'(164)

'Gen was in love with Carmen. and though he met her every night in the china closet and helped her with her reading and writing, he never revealed as much. They spoke of vowels and consonants. They spoke of diphthongs and possessives.'(202)

'Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. Don't you think? It's a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are a spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be an artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.'(218)

'People love each other for all sorts of different reasons...Most of the time we're loved for what we can do rather than for who we are.'(224)

'There was such an incredible logic to kissing, such a metal-to-magnet pull between two people that it was a wonder that they found the strength to prevent themselves from succumbing every second. Rightfully, the world should be a whirlpool of kissing into which we sank and never found the strength to rise up again.'(250)

'Someone else began to sing, an a cappella voice from the far side of the room, a lovely familiar voice...Cesar kept singing,"Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore, non feci mai," from Tosca. And it was funny, because he so completely mimicked Roxane. It was as if while the rest of them slept he had become her, the way she held out her hand when she sang.'(265)

As much as Mr. Hosakawa was overwhelmed with love, he could never completely shake what he knew to be the truth: that every night they were together could be seen as a miracle for a hundred different reasons, not the least of which was that at some point these days would end, would be ended for them.'(289)

'How had he come to want to save all of them" The people who followed him around with loaded guns. How had he fallen in love with so many people?'(301)
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First Perennial edition published 2002
318 pages
Book owned
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Personal Note: Quotes updated May 30,2010