Bel Canto – Just a Moment?

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett was Book Club’s choice this month. It’s the story of people gathered to celebrate the birthday of a foreign business man who the President of this unnamed country thinks he can buy by bringing in the man’s favorite opera star to sing “Happy Birthday” and arias of the man’s choosing. The president himself doesn’t come to the party, but terrorists do, and we end up spending four months with the hostages and their captors.
It’s the third time I’ve read Bel Canto as its popular with discussion groups, but the first when opera was playing in the background, and the music caused the conversation within me to take an unexpected turn. No longer did Bel Canto, the beautiful song of the title refer just to the main character whose voice and presence commands the attention of all. I thought for a while that Bel Canto meant the long moment of captivity wherein days drifts into months, boundaries become fluid and the house becomes a haven for the people it contains. Then, one woman said “Not one of them will be the same,” and I was brought back to the grief of my brother’s sudden death twenty years ago. In that months’ long moment, every sound I heard was felt in my core, colors were so vivid they breathed and all that I did was backdrop to my loss - until one day it reversed and my grief became the background song for my life. Bel Canto, the beautiful song reminds us that given nothing but time, we will hear the song deep within that is the core of our humanness, our souls, and we need not wait until we are hostage to a moment to listen. Do read it...with accompaniment.