February 2006: Bel Canto (Patchett)

Post date: Jan 07, 2010 8:34:53 PM

Thanks to Nancy Spaeth for hosting the February 28, 2006 discussion of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. To those who wondered if the hostage incident in the book was based on a true story, Mary found this reference on a State Department web site:

In December 1996, 14 MRTA members occupied the Japanese Ambassador's residence in Lima and held 72 hostages for more than four months. Peruvian forces stormed the residence in April 1997, rescuing all but one of the remaining hostages and killing all 14 group members, including the remaining leaders. The group has not conducted a significant terrorist operation since and appears more focused on obtaining the release of imprisoned MRTA members.http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/tupac.htm

So, it would appear her book was based on this incident, as other Amazon readers claim.

Overall, people loved the book and its themes of love and music. It read like an adult fairy tale, despite what we agreed was an overly abrupt outcome. Those who hadn't reached the end were not too dismayed that we had to reveal the outcome to discuss the story!

Somehow talking about the roles of the few females in the book, we gravitated to themes of gender, work, and family life. Nancy pointed out that both Betty Friedan and Wendy Wasserstein died in recent weeks, and perhaps that is why we discussed those themes. (We considered reading some of seminal feminist books and texts and wanted to schedule reading Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc in the future.)