Book Club in a Box Discusses Ann Patchett's Novel Bel Canto
By: prepared and written by Marilyn Herbert.
Contributors: Ann Patchett
Edition: 2nd edition
Publisher: Bookclub-In-A-Box
Published: February 1, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 72
ISBN-13: 9781897082010
Subjects: Patchett, Ann. -- Bel canto.; Literary Criticism.
First sentence: Bel Canto, like many operas, has a large cast: the main characters come in pairs (duets) and there is a chorus (the soldiers).
Description: On December 17, 1996, fourteen MRTA revolutionaries stormed the Japanese embassy in Peru in the middle of a party celebrating the Japanese Emperor's birthday. The siege was deadlocked for 126 days. Ann Patchett has fictionalized this dramatic and true event in her novel, Bel Canto. Bookclub-in-a-Box shows how Ann Patchett sets the stage and has the players act out the drama of this hostage-taking incident. What should be narrated as a tense and terse action-filled tragedy turns out to be a human story told with warmth and sardonic humor. Patchett has taken a cacophony of different characters -- an opera singer, a Japanese businessman, a translator, a vice-president of a small South American country, other important dignitaries and a couple of dozen terrorists -- and has created a lyrical story which resonates with the similarities among people, rather than their differences. The Bookclub-in-a-Box guide to Bel Canto will interpret Patchett's novel, voice by voice.