It took me some time to get around to reading Bel Canto. I had read Ann Patchett’s non-fiction book Truth & Beauty some years ago and I always remembered it. One part in particular where Patchett describes finishing her novel, and then standing on top of the manuscript because she was now that much taller having finished. I did the same thing after printing out my thesis for the first time. But back to Bel Canto, numerous people have expounded on how great the novel was, and while I believed them, and bought the book, it was stuck on a shelf for some time. But realizing I had not read a book this year, I choose to remedy that.

Bel Canto is told through a third person omniscient narrator. And it is told in way which is moves fluidly from one character to the next. Patchett sets the narrative structure up early, but focuses in on what will become the main character; Roxanne Cross, the opera singer, Mr. Hosowakana, a Japanese business man, and his interpreter Gen. The narration is so fluid that I wonder how much thought and choice and planning went in to deciding when to switch pov and when to switch it. At times the narration is so effortless that I see Patchett writing the novel right through without stopping, although I know that couldn’t be the case.

I think that the third person narration works so well in this novel because of the setting. Essentially, the novel takes place in one room, the vice-president’s living room with occasional trips to a bedroom, the kitchen, or the backyard. If the novel was a told in first person or even in a limited third person, I wonder if the novel would feel too closed off. One character can only have so many insights into his surroundings or self. The third person omniscient narration in a way opens up the novel and allows it to transcend the limited setting by having different characters of worlds inside of them.

The one time I feel that the third person omniscient didn’t work to its full potential is in the final climatic moments of the novel. For a novel that moves slowly and only cover four months, I felt that the ending moved too fast. Although Patchett captures a chaotic feel as the government burst in, I would have liked to spend more time in the characters’ heads as they navigate that chaos. As it is, we get a great moment with Beatriz as she thinks about her sins being released before being shot, but none of the other characters really get a moment like that. On one hand, I understand that Patchett wanted to show the suddenness and brutality of the attack, but having spent this time with these characters, I wanted more from them before the end.

One of the things I also thought were well done was the moments of foreshadowing in regards to Gen, who is allowed moments where we know his thoughts in the future. His first night with Carmen is given the added layer of Gen in the future stopping himself from remembering this moment and regretting that he and Carmen didn’t just walk out of the gate. It also adds a layer of sadness to a beautiful moment between Gen and Carmen. But these moments hint, too, that things will not end well. Patchett in a sense lulls the reader into a false sense of calm. Nothing ever happens in the mansion, no one is killed, and the relationship between captors and terrorists is blurred as their relationships grow. At the end, they are all playing outside with each other and they never see it coming. And even though, the reader on some level knows that it will end badly, Patchett almost convinces us (as the captors and terrorist start to believe) that they will be able to live together like this forever.

The Epilogue is something I’m still puzzling over. In some ways it makes sense that Gen and Roxanne would find each other after losing the people they fell in love with (Mr. Hosowakana and Carmen). But I still question if it was the best way to end the novel. Perhaps choosing a different moment other than their wedding would have allowed for more insights as to how they got where they were.