Bel Canto audiobook

Holy crap! This "1-Dayer" deserves applause & praise indeed as it will surely stay with you like some truly terrific (& best yet, catchy) song for days, for weeks to come.What happens when terrorists take over a party held in honor of a Japanese businessman at the house of the Vice President of some unknown South American city? A translator is thankfully employed, a Diva is made to sing like a modern Scheherazade. Renaissance flourishes as these individuals in the most insane of circumstances come together to realize the true WORTH of people and the VALUE of themselves. This is what all those characters in Boccaccio did... ! (& anyone reaching the very heights reached by Boccaccio must MUST be extolled!)This Stockholm Syndrome is comical, sad, romantic. It's written with a less amount of elegance than the cover promises--but that is hardly ever a fault in this book, ripe & so ready to be inscribed into the canon.

Bel Canto, Ann PatchettBel Canto is the fourth novel by American author Ann Patchett, published in 2001 by Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. It was also adapted into an opera in 2015. Based on the Japanese embassy hostage crisis (also called the Lima Crisis) of 1996–1997 in Lima, Peru, the novel follows the relationships among a group of young terrorists and their hostages, who are mostly high-profile executives and politicians, over several months. Many of the characters form unbreakable bonds of friendship, while some fall in love. Set in an unspecified South American country, the story begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice presidential home in honor of Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large Japanese company and opera enthusiast. تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوم ماه ژانویه سال 2017میلادیعنوان: بل کانتو؛ نویسنده: آن پچت؛ مترجم: محمد عباس آبادی؛ تهران، افراز، 1395؛ در 373ص؛ شابک 9786003261853؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 21مجشن تولدی در خانه‌ ی معاون رئیس‌ جمهور یکی از کشورهای «آمریکای لاتین» برپاست؛ مهمان‌ها از سراسر دنیا آمده‌ اند، و در میان آن‌ها یک خواننده‌ ی سوپرانو؛ و میلیاردری «ژاپنی» حضور دارند؛ همه‌ چیز خوب پیش می‌رود، تا اینکه گروهی تروریست وارد خانه می‌شوند؛ هدف آن‌ها رئیس‌ جمهور است، امّا او در این جشن حضور ندارد؛ اکنون دیگر راه بازگشتی؛ نه برای مهمانان، و نه برای تروریست‌ها نیست؛ آنچه باقی می‌ماند کلنجار با موقعیتی مهیب، احساسات عاشقانه، و روابطی انسانی است، که سیاست و اپرا و عشق را به هم گره می‌زندتاریخ بهنگام رسانی 07/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 22/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

How did Patchett do this? A seemingly horrifying event turned into a mystical one. Where lines of good vs evil are blurred. Where time is suspended.It's a birthday party gala in South America. The guest of honour, a powerful Japanese figurehead, almost didn't make it himself except for the soprano whose voice he adores. As the final note is sung, the lights go out and the guerrillas enter. The party is hijacked for political reasons but what transpires during the next few months are the unusual relationships that are forged by the beauty of a voice which unites both terrorists and hostages. Where for long moments during this siege, captivity is interrupted and they are a group of people witnessing a main attraction, living it day to day.Patchett is an artist. She details a portrait in which I bear witness. I searched arias and operas to get a sense of the beauty and passion this music can evoke. I'm in awe and for that I'm rating it a 4⭐️. I am smitten now with you, Patchett, but, I reserve the final star for the ending I wasn't as smitten with.

This is one of my top five favorite books. Bel Canto made me a devoted Patchett fan, although her other work hasn't quite stood up to the high expectations this one set for her. Just to set the scene, I read this book while on a three week trip through Europe. Travelling by train, I had plenty of time to read, but missed a lot of the beautiful countryside (especially of France and Switzerland) because I simply couldn't tear myself away from this book, it was that good. My husband woke up on the train at one point (the ending of the book) to my sobs. I was so overcome I couldn't even tell him what was the matter (he was really worried for a minute there...then he thought I was crazy). I should clarify that I'm not an especially emotional person. I had just formed such a strong attachment to the characters in this book that the ending hit me almost as hard as losing a friend. Plus, it was just so beautifully done that the loss was almost bittersweet. This book gave me so much to think about that I wanted to grab someone--anyone!--who had read this book and talk it all out with them. Well, that was almost two years ago, so my furor has died down. I need to read it again to write a fair review.For the time being, though, first I loved the writing. I admire any author who can tell a great story with the words ushering me along rather than tripping me up. Another reviewer referred to the book as "lyrical" and I heartily agree. It was just beautifully done. Second, such richly imagined characters were a delight to spend time with. I thought each character was fully developed and interesting. Even the minor characters, about whom I received limited information, still felt real. And I got the sense that there was so much more to know about them lurking just below the surface. Finally, the story was heartbreakingly beautiful. As my waterworks attest, it was very moving, without feeling like my emotions were being made sport of. In the ending, it all just came together for me. "Bel Canto" referring to the beautiful song that was the idyllic life of the hostages and captives. But just like the opera singer's song had to end eventually, their peaceful suspension from reality could not endure. To me, what made the story and the illusion so poignant was the knowledge they had all along that it WOULD end. An audience can't fool itself into thinking a performance will last indefinitely, but perhaps the awareness of the end in sight makes the beauty of the moment all the more valuable. That reference made this story even more meaningful to me. I just loved it.I gave this book five stars, but it wasn't absolutely perfect. I actually strongly disliked the epilogue. I found it disheartening, somewhat contrived, and generally unecessary. The story would have been better off without it. In spite of that, this book is everything a great book should be.UPDATE: Reread in August 2009. I still loved it, and enjoyed the writing, but it wasn't the same experience it was the first time. I wasn't as impressed, as moved, or as eager to share this book with others as I was the first time around. It must have just been the way it hit me at that time in my life. Even without it being the earth-shatteringly awesome book I felt it was before, I still highly recommend it.

“To think that God heard his name from so many voices.” (4.5 stars)The ending of “Bel Canto” left me in a bit of a daze for a few minutes. The novel cast a spell so strong, that when the jarring reality of life springs up at the conclusion you can’t help but be a little disoriented. This is a novel that has been on my radar for years, but I am just now picking it up. This story, told by an omniscient narrator, follows a hostage situation in the vice presidential palace of an unnamed South American country. The hostages include a world famous opera soprano, and many business and political leaders from various countries. The point of view also considers the guerrillas who take the hostages. I have never read an Ann Patchett novel before. I will pick her up again! She has a simplicity and lovely finesse with language. I was caught up in the story, but also in the words she used to weave it. With a precise prose that brimmed with clarity Patchett created characters that, even if only a few lines of the text were devoted to them, came across as real people. I feel like opera gets a lot of negative attention from readers of this text. And opera is important to many of the characters in the book. However, I feel the bigger point is what opera represents to many of the characters in the text. It is a source of life and inspiration. Something that gives joy and generates much power and strong feelings. That is something different for every person alive, and when you realize that you put opera in its proper context in this book, and you can place the love that characters feel for that art in its proper context, and thus appreciate it, and its potency as used in “Bel Canto”.So many enchanting moments in this book. So many small pleasures. I loved the world it created. I loved the people in that world. So many characters whose small joys I felt as my own. I loved their truth, their pain, and humanity.“Bel Canto” is something else!

Stay With This One. It's Worth It. Bel Canto is one of those novels that is good on so many levels, it's taken me days after finishing it to put my thoughts about the story and the characters into words. This work is as lyrical and dramatic as any opera, and the word "brilliant" isn't excessive to describe the talent of author, Ann Patchett. I wondered how she came up with such a remarkable and unique story, but then learned she'd been influenced by actual events involving a hostage situation in Peru. Patchett goes far beyond the headlines and enters the minds of the players on both sides. It's a fascinating story and a rewarding and entertaining character study.The first 100+ pages were slow going as the stage is set; however, the ennui I experienced while reading helped me relate to the monotony of daily life experienced by the guests of a party, who'd been taken hostage in a failed attempt to kidnap the President of a South American country. The country, unnamed in the story, is a developing, Spanish-speaking nation. The party, hosted by the Vice President, is a birthday party for a Japanese businessman. It is filled with an International guest list, including the famous and enormously talented opera soprano, Roxanne Coss. Virtually everyone in the room, both hostage and captor, falls in love with her during the four-month siege. The story picks up speed when two distinct love stories begin, one between Roxanne and one of her admirers, and another, which focuses on the second-most sought-after talent possessed by a multi-lingual interpreter, a Japanese named Gen. Each, along with several intriguing subplots, led to the building of a unique story and ultimately satisfying climax.The ending comes quickly and shook me to my core. It was not unexpected and yet it still made me cry. And then there's a surprise, which after a lot of thought, made perfect sense. Brava Ms. Patchett. My highest recommendation.

High 4*I'm patting myself on the back for trying this audiobook again. The first time around, I just couldn't get into it - I put it down to not being in the right mood, although it was puzzling as I adore Opera and I'm keen on Latin anything and I had enjoyed Patchett's writing before.For what it's worth, I wasn't as enchanted with Anna Fields' delivery. I hope this audiobook is reissued, with a better production - I mean you have opera, you have all kind of languages, bullets - it could be an enhanced experience. Whenever a certain aria was mentioned, I found myself singing it, although it hurt my own ears, it's torture for those who hear me. I did get used to the narrator, as one does. As the novel progressed and we got to know some of the characters, I was completely taken with the story. I could easily picture the location, the characters, their interactions. I know this has been made into a movie and I'm kind of desperate to get my hands on it, see what they've done with it.So what is this about?In an unidentified Latin American country, a group of insurgents assail the vice-president's house where a big party was taking place. They were hoping to kidnap the president, who was absent, therefore they find themselves in a situation they didn't prepare for. After releasing the women, the kids and the workers, the insurgents and the fifty-nine others are locked up inside a beautiful mansion while the police were waiting outside. The inhabitants are people from many parts of the world: Japanese, Italians, Germans, Russians, locals, and the renowned American soprano, Roxanne Coss.My favourite characters were the Japanese men: a rich businessman, who's obsessed with opera, Katsumi Hosokawa, and his interpreter, Gen Watanabe. They were classy, dignified and very intelligent. I appreciated that Patchett chose to portray most of the terrorists as more than just jungle rats. To have even the most uneducated brought to their knees by the power of opera was music to my ears and heart. As it's been established, Patchett writes characters incredibly well. She's at her best in this novel. Bel Canto is probably my favourite of hers, so far anyway.

This is a weird and beautiful book about machine guns, chopping onions, and opera singers. Check your disbelief at the door and enjoy the language. I don't care for the ending -- but it was worth it anyway. Lovely writing. ***wondering why all my reviews are five stars? Because I'm only reviewing my favorite books -- not every book I read. Consider a novel's presence on my Goodreads bookshelf as a hearty endorsement. I can't believe I just said "hearty." It sounds like a stew.****

There is nothing I can say. I don't even know how.Instead, I will veil my head, lament the deaths of each person loved since the beginning of time, and cry tears of unsurpassed desolation in the hopes that tomorrow, the sun will shine on my face and god will see me standing there.

There are certain books which start with a bang and drag you in. And before you know, you are in the midst of the story. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is one such book.It is a birthday party in honour of Mr. Hosokawa, a Japanese tycoon, in the Vice Presidential mansion in an unnamed Latin American country, whose government hopes he will invest there. Mr. Hosokawa, however, has come only to hear the famous lyric soprano Roxane Coss perform live - he has been an opera lover all his life, and a fan of this famous singer from Chicago ever since he first heard her. At the conclusion of the performance, the lights go off and when they come back on, the party find themselves hostages of La Familia de Martin Suarez, a revolutionary organisation which are dime a dozen in most of these banana republics. They have come for the president, who was to have attended the function - but who cancelled at the last minute and decided to stay at home to watch his favourite soap opera. So the terrorists are in a quandary. Ultimately they decide to keep the more famous and influential of the hostages and let the others go. These number forty - thirty-nine men and one woman, Roxanne Coss.What follows is the surreal existence of fifty-eight people - forty hostages and eighteen terrorists - in the palatial villa of the Vice President, Ruben Iglesias. Apart from him, there is Hosokawa and Roxane; Hosokawa's interpreter Gen Watanabe; the French Ambassador Simon Thibault; A trio of hot-blooded Russian dignitaries; the priest Arguedas, who even after being released refuses to go as he feels his duty is with the prisoners; Kato, an employee in Hosokawa's organisation who finds hidden talents within himself as an accompanist to Roxane. Among the revolutionaries, there are the generals led by the shingle-infected Benjamin; the brainy Ishmael, who learns chess by watching; the talented Cesar, who is accepted as a pupil by Roxane; and Carmen, the girl soldier, who wants to be taught to read and write by Gen Watanabe. As the days go by and weeks stretch into months, the boundaries between captive and captor become blurred and it just becomes a seething mass of humanity trying to make sense of life at close quarters, in a suspended-animation-like existence where Roxane's singing is the only constant, the fulcrum around which their lives revolve.Everyone is in love with Roxane. Not as a person, or even as a woman; but as a symbol of the divine art which flows through her. Everyone want to possess her, be her - whether it is the millionaire Hosokawa, the government functionary Fyodorov, padre Arguedas, the girl revolutionary Carmen or even the kid Cesar who gets an erection when she sings. It is not coincidental that the novel opens with the sentence "When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her." This accompanist, who has been besotted with her and has been forcing his unwanted attentions on her from the moment they got on the plane, is a diabetic dies due to lack of insulin on the second day of captivity - as if prompting others to step into the vacuum. When she says she cannot live without singing, Father Arguedas arranges to get sheet music for her, and Kato jumps in as accompanist. From then on, life in the hostage camp is a musical journey.Apart from Roxane, the one character who holds the novel together is Gen Watanabe. In his capacity of translator, he becomes the tongue and ears of the imprisoned tower of Babel. As the days go by, the languages mix and meld and Gen becomes not only a translator - but a teacher too: most importantly, a teacher to young Carmen in the china cupboard at two o'clock in the morning - of Spanish, English and the pleasures of love.Language and music form the twin threads around which the narrative is woven. In Sanskrit, there is a couplet which says: "Music and literature are two breasts of the Goddess Saraswati: one, all sweetness from top to bottom; the other, nectar to thought." I was reminded of this throughout my reading experience.There is a type of movie in which the protagonists meet, interact, form and break relationships in the space of a limited amount of hours, in a gathering where they are forced into close quarters - Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game being the classic example. Here, the Vice President learns the pleasures of housework; the French Ambassador relearns his culinary skills; Cesar and Kato unleash their inner musicians; and Hosokawa and Roxane, and Gen and Carmen, fall in love. However, the narrative here is anything but realistic: it seems poised on the threshold of magical realism, a nod to which is slyly given in the form of one of the revolutionaries reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, and complaining it would take him "a hundred years to complete it."Being an ignoramus about Western classical music, I was totally lost about what the title meant and had to Google. This is what I got.Bel canto, (Italian: “beautiful singing”) style of operatic singing that originated in Italian singing of polyphonic (multipart) music and Italian courtly solo singing during the late 16th century and that was developed in Italian opera in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Using a relatively small dynamic range, bel canto singing was based on an exact control of the intensity of vocal tone, a recognition of the distinction between the “diapason tone” (produced when the larynx is in a relatively low position) and the “flute tone” (when the larynx is in a higher position), and a demand for vocal agility and clear articulation of notes and enunciation of words.- Encyclopaedia Britannica Though I got only a vague idea from the above, I feel it fits the "vocal tone" of the novel perfectly; with its surreal setting, its cacophony of voices, and its accompaniment of music. The prose is like Ernest Hemingway and P. G. Wodehouse collaborating.A wonderful read!

I am so upset. But not for the reasons one might expect. The fact that it was not a happy ending was expected. On the contrary, most authors would have made a happy ending out of this story, and I applaud Ann Patchett for not taking the easy way out- however much I wanted it for all the characters I became attached to. Which she did was not necessarily worse, but definitely as bad. It was not only sudden, but seemingly random. Almost as if she was rushed to meet a deadline. Almost exactly in the middle of page 310/318, Roxane Coss screams. Because the hostage situation is finally over. In an unknown country, in the home of the Vice President, a birthday party is held for Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large Japanese company and opera enthusiast. To get Hosokawa to invest in the country, famous soprano Roxane Coss is scheduled to perform as the highlight of the party. Near the end, a ",very reasonable" band of terrorists emerge, turning into a hostage situation when they realize the President is not present, as expected. (He elected, instead, to watch his soap opera, changing his mind at the last minute. After some negotiations, bring reasonable terrorists, there are thirty nine hostages kept, the rest released. Among the remaining hostages are not only Hosokawa and Roxane Coss, but an assortment of Russian, Italian, and French diplomatic types. Swiss Red Cross negotiator Messner is roped into service while vacationing. He comes and goes, wrangling over terms and demands, and the days stretch into weeks, the weeks into months.Yes, I said months. Over four months total. And everyone is friendly and no one is shot and there are a few love affairs. Believable? Not really.I actually was not glad to find out this was based on a true story. Somehow, it seemed, disrespectful, for lack of a better word. It was based on the 1996-1997 Lima Crisis in Peru. Yes, the unnamed country was Peru. Which was ridiculous, how far Patchett went to avoid naming the country, using all sorts of pronouns. She should have simply made one up if she was not at liberty to use "Peru", instead of making it a distracting "secret". Alas, how true to life was it? Definitely based on a true story, not a true story. Stretching the definition on that, even. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes...) Alas, this is my third Ann Patchett novel, and, as always, her stories are character based. This is what she does best, and does her best yet (as far as the ones I have read) in "Bel Canto". I did fall in love with many if not all of the characters. (There were a few more characters than I would have liked to keep track of throughout). The omniscient third person point of view really catered to this book well, floating from room to room, character to character. That being said, supposedly this categorized "Bel Canto" as magical realism? I suppose that is one way to define the genre, but not mine. Magical Realism is incorporating fantastical or magical elements into an otherwise rational world, and this was more making a true life event unbelievable with overt scenarios. Not even merely sugarcoating, but making things up. The terrorists playing soccer with the hostages? Falling in love with each other, rendezvous at two in the morning in the kitchen cabinet? Alas, here are my reasons, why Patchett's beautiful use of language, coupled with her insightfulness and my consequential love for the characters she creates ultimately outweighed the idealizing and romanticizing. "Their eyes clouded over with tears for so many reasons it would be impossible to list them all. They cried they cried for the beauty of the music, but also for the failure of their plans. They were thinking of the last time they had her sing and longed for the women who had been beside them then. All of the love and the longing a body can contain was spun into not more than two and a half minutes, and when she came to the highest note it seems that all they had been given in their life and all they have them came together and made a weight that was almost impossible to bear." "All of the orchestra supports her now, it reaches with the voices, lifts the voices up, the beautiful voice of Roxane Cossis singing her Gilda to the young Katsumi Hosokawa. Her voice vibrating the tiny bones deep inside his ear. Her voice stays inside him, becomes him. She is singing her part to him, and to a thousand other people. He is anonymous, equal, loved.” Lyrically said; this is what amazing art can do to us. "It was odd the way they never spoke but always seemed to be in communication." Reference to the love between Hokosawa and Roxanne. Yes, love can transcend language. "We make exceptions in extraordinary times." At its heart, this is what "Bel Canto" is about. How we all might find out audacious, glorious, magnificent, impossible things about ourselves and each other if only given the opportunity. If only given the chance, we might do things we never thought possible. Of course, in this rendition, they are all for the positive. My thoughts on the characters. **** Spoilers **** Terrorists: Generals Alfredo, Ben, Hector. Ben is the main guy, he has a family, is very "reasonable, is proud of his terrorists, expresses regret for recruiting some of the girls. Plays chess with Hosokawa. Recruits Beatriz, Carmen, Cesar, Ishmael. Beatriz is addicted to the Maria Soap Opera, Hosokawa gives her a watch even so she knows when it starts (one in the afternoon). Yes, the same soap opera the President neglected attendance for. She also tires confession for the first time there, a sort of coming of age. Carmen, I adored her. Vivacious young girl, torn between her duties and what she sees as noble efforts and her love for Gen. Was very good at being invisible, guided Hosokawa in his rendezvous, to get him upstairs to get room. Cesar is an unborn until now amazing Soprano, becomes a prodigy to Roxanne when he sings out loud for the first time the night after Roxane and Hosokawa's first time together, she being asleep when she typically does her daily practicing. Ishmael impressed everyone by learning chess by watching. He is small for his age, thus impressing even more in his hard work, always more than the others. If offered to live with Vice President Ruben and work for Oscar Mendoza after this is "all over". He dares to believe. Oscar Mendoza is great friends with Ruven, often worries about his family, fearing his wife unknowingly allowing young boys to take advantage of his daughters (the way he did her when they were younger), to the point of dreaming murdering them. He is an example of an interesting character. Simon Thibault is the French who cried himself to sleep, caressing his wife Edith's scarf, having reestablished his love for her during the hostage situation, realizing how much he loves her, before she is released. Victor Fyordorv proclaims his love to Roxane Costs with a cute, sentimental story about how his grandmother, above all, treasured a book of impressionist paintings, used gloves to turn the pages, only took it out sometimes, teaching him to appreciate art (thus Roxane and thus gives him some "permission" to love her). Vice President Ruben Iglesias. Thus is his place. Throughout the four plus months, he continues to serve as host, realizing how pampered he is, learns to truly appreciate Esmeralda, his maid who actually is the one to stitch a wounds inflicted during the situation, before she is released. He misses his children, his wife, wants to adopt Ishmael. Messner seems to want to be on both sides, obviously unsuccessful in negotiating anything. Father Arguedas holding confession with two chairs pulled aside, an arrangement everyone, terrorists and hostage alike, respect. He is the one hostage that volunteers to stay, not once, but twice. Tetsuya Kato is the pianist, replacing Christoph, when he dies of a diabetic insulin insufficiency. He used to be a secret pianist, but was the only one there when Roxane needed a pianist. Turns out he is a maestro, had him wondering what he will do when real life returns. First love affair. Roxane Coss, the great. Did not really like her, although Hosokawa send to make her a better person and more humbled. Christoph had shared his love for her on the plane, she had shunned him, she feels regret. Hosokawa discovers happiness for the first run. Probably the most changed character. His love for Roxane change him, shows him works and things he never imagined possible. Family and his wife were arranged, he used to see it as an obligation, time was everything. Now, in this works where tune had been suspended, he never wants to leave this was woman that does not even share his language. Second love, which I savored so much more. Carmen the beautiful young terrorist and Gen the translator. How they shyly like at each other and how that became her asking him to teach her Spanish to studying in the kitchen cabinet to get taking him outside onto the grass under the moonlight to make love to the promise of studying English and Spanish for two hours before making love but being unable to keep that promise. Young love (in their twenties). Not only young love, but audacious, unimaginable, compelling disremembering love. Now, the ending? Everyone dies except for Father Arguedas, Simon Thibaut, Vice President Ruben Iglesias, Gen, and Roxane? So why not wed Gen and Roxane? So it occurred in real life. Well, it did not fit this story, in which Carmen and Gen made such a lovely story. The same goes for Hosokawa and Roxane. Totally made their stories, the entire novel, disingenuousness. A generous four stars, although this is only by practicing my own disremembering in regards to the ending.

Bel canto means "beautiful song," and Anne Patchett wanted to write a melodrama. Big emotions, big events, like an opera. The plot of her book seems allegorical; it's certainly not realistic, which makes it a surprise that it's based on real events. She was inspired by the Japanese embassy hostage crisis of 1996, during which a number of diplomats were taken hostage for a remarkable 126 days. She thought - I'm taking much of my information from a terrific interview at the end of the book - she thought, "You know what this story needs is an opera singer," and here we are.What she's carved out of this lengthy hostage crisis is a utopian society: the have-nots forced to coexist with the haves in a world where art is the only diversion and the unifying force. As in the real-world crisis, people of many nationalities are gathered together. There's a translator who serves as witness. Love is found. They make beautiful songs. It's like a more hopeful take on John Fowles's The Collector.Looming over it all is the suspicion that this probably won't end well, and it's to her credit that (view spoiler)[toward the end she actually had me half-convinced she was going to write a way out of it. (This is before I realized that it was based on a true story.) Even more surprising, I wouldn't have minded: I liked her characters so much that I would have taken any cheap excuse to see them live. They don't. The eventual "rescue" is sudden and agonizing. (hide spoiler)]It's a beautiful song, and this is the best book I've read in a while.

This is a very unusual, dreamlike, strangely romantic book, which proceeds in a slow-paced, unpredictable fashion. I admire Patchett’s ability to flit seamlessly from one character’s POV to another, and I found her insightful, compassionate approach to be involving and sometimes mesmerizing. There were some issues with pacing, but overall I feel confident that this creative and imaginative take on a hostage crisis will only grow more enjoyable as I continue to think about it.

-- I liked the flow of the story --like the flow of running water --I was part of the undercurrent engulfed in submersion.Enough said! Many other mixed and worth-reading reviews!

What a journey! It took me a long time to read this book, and there were great gaps in my efforts. Reading was an effort, for a long time a slog, because it is a slow story. I read another book in between the first and second halves. This is not fair, but it’s what I did. And the story and characters are so vivid they maintained a reality inside me even during the gaps.By the end, I was floored. This is a great book! And reading it was as slow as real life, but, like real life, I’m glad I lived it.