Ep 728 - Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett

Summary

Overdue Podcast — Ep 728: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Release Date: November 10, 2025
Hosts: Andrew & Craig

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Andrew and Craig dive into Ann Patchett’s acclaimed 2001 novel Bel Canto. They explore the book's inspirations, themes, cultural contexts, and character dynamics, discussing how Patchett blends the beauty of opera with the tension of a hostage crisis. Their conversation balances literary analysis, humor, and reflection on what it means to be moved by art, even within moments of crisis.

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Major Themes and Discussion Points

1. Introduction to Ann Patchett & the Book

• Bel Canto was inspired by the real-life 1996 Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Lima, Peru.
• Ann Patchett is a decorated American novelist (b. 1963) — her background and accolades are covered in detail.
• Craig shares his initial thoughts and confusions:
  "I had to disavow… my brain of the notion that [Patchett] was either Terry Pratchett or Anne McCaffrey." (06:31)

2. Author Context (07:47–12:55)

• Patchett’s upbringing, education (Sarah Lawrence, Iowa Writers' Workshop), and awards.
• Highlights from her career, including her notable works and the founding of Parnassus Books.
• Her optimistic humanism and difficulty in writing villains are noted influences on Bel Canto's tone.
• Notable quote about trauma and terrorism in the post-9/11 literary landscape:

  "One of the reasons it gained steam, especially in America..., after 9/11 a lot of folks just got academically interested in trauma and terrorism." (11:17)

3. Inspirational Event: The Hostage Crisis (13:52–23:26)

• The 1996 Lima crisis’ operatic nature caught Patchett’s imagination.
• She was interested in the “unterrifying” aspects as reported in the media:

  “I was also drawn to it because it was a singularly unterrifying terrorist event...” (17:02)

• Contrast between the book's tone and the crisis’ actual violent resolution—Patchett humanizes all sides, but the military remains faceless.
• Craig points out, "[Patchett] does not give the military even like a single faced character. I think there's an edge to that that kind of is happening off to the side of her... joie de vivre writing." (24:23)

4. Opera as Motif (25:18–30:36)

• The novel’s title comes from the “bel canto” opera tradition; chosen because singing transcends language as a form of communication.
• Andrew summarizes:

  "Bel canto, the Italian... is Italian for a beautiful song or beautiful singing, depending on how you want to translate it." (26:31)

• The hosts note how the emotional and physiological impact of singing can seem almost magical, and how Patchett uses this within the novel.

  “Characters in this book have all sorts of responses to the soloist, Roxanne Koss, and yeah, that is a well chosen art form for this story.” (29:37)

5. Plot and Structural Overview (33:59–69:39)

• The central conceit: a Japanese industrialist attends a party in an unnamed South American country, with famed opera singer Roxanne Coss performing—only for the gathering to be taken hostage by revolutionaries.
• Key characters:
  • Katsumi Hosokawa: Japanese CEO and opera fan.
  • Roxanne Coss: Renowned opera singer.
  • Gen Watanabe: Hosokawa’s translator—emerges as the true protagonist.
  • Ruben Iglesias: Vice President and party host.
  • The Militants (incl. Carmen & Beatriz): Humanized captors from impoverished backgrounds.
  • Messner: Red Cross intermediary.
• Much of the novel is about stasis and unlikely flourishing—music, love affairs, existential reflection—in the liminal space of captivity.
• “What if you were forced to take vacation and it was not a vacation that you chose and you didn't know when it was going to end. You are imprisoned, but it is giving you cause to go. Okay, but when I got back, what is there and do I like it? And that's kind of a universal... a universal feeling.” (47:37)

6. Character Connections and Vignettes (53:18–67:41)

• The book explores how characters from vastly different backgrounds connect in unexpected, intimate ways—via art, hunger, language, and affection.
• Subplots include Gen teaching Carmen to read (and their budding romance), Hosokawa and Roxanne’s love, and the kitchen hijinks as hostages become housemates.
• Patchett uses a fluid third-person perspective (the “Anna Karenina third person”) to bring out each character’s interiority.
• The emotional resonance of art is a recurring theme:

  “The thing it just presumes is possible, which is that, like, art can be very important to people. ... It is possible to be kind of just arrested by a great work of art.” (32:55)

• Moments of levity, e.g.,:

  "He goes up to Roxanne and through the translator, he's like, can you ask her if she knows how to cook? ... I'm going to assume this is a cultural thing where he assumes that because I'm a woman I know how to cook. And they're like, yeah that's exactly what is going on here." (50:02)

7. Magical Realism and the Purpose of Art (74:01–75:18)

• The “magical” response characters have to Roxanne’s singing is discussed; the power of art to provoke change is central.
• Andrew notes the importance of not over-describing the art itself:

  “If you try to write a book that revolves around a work of art that's so moving ... it's really important not to actually show it, because if you show it, everybody's gonna see how stupid it is.” (74:01)

• The novel relies on the reader’s own emotional touchstones to fill in the sublime.

8. Climax and Ending (67:41–70:42)

• After months of growing intimacy and suspended reality, events crash back to violence as a military operation slaughters the militants and ends the standoff.
• The hosts connect the abrupt violence to the real-life event, noting Patchett’s stylistic choice to obscure the “faceless” military’s interiority.
• Reflection on the bittersweet, “wry tragedy” of the ending:

  “In the words of Eminem, snap back to reality. Whoop, there goes gravity.” (70:34)

9. Language and Style (71:05–73:40)

• Closing highlights of Patchett’s prose style; example passage:

  “The woman you love puts her gun beside a blue gravy boat at night so that you can teach her to read. She came into your life through an air conditioning vent, and how she will leave is the question that keeps you awake in the few free moments you have to sleep.” (71:05)

• Discussion of how Patchett’s approach evokes art’s impact by focusing on reactions, not reproducing it directly.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the creative genesis:

  “Inspiration for novels truly can come from anywhere.” (10:00)

• On genre naming:

  “I love how easy it was to name stuff like 500 years ago. This is my art form. Pretty singing.” (26:41)

• On speculative moments in the plot:

  “What if we never left? What if we could just live here forever?... Most of us are thriving and we don't have to deal with the real world.” (66:29)

• On the emotional power of art:

  “It is possible to be kind of just arrested by a great work of art.” (32:55)

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Important Timestamps

• Patchett Bio/Background: 07:47–12:55
• Hostage Crisis/Book Origins: 13:52–23:26
• Opera & “Bel Canto” Discussion: 25:18–30:36
• Plot Overview and Character Breakdown: 33:59–47:37
• Magical Realism & Art: 74:01–75:18
• Sample Patchett Prose: 71:05–72:00

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Takeaways for First-Time Listeners

• Bel Canto is less about violence than the transformative, connective power of art—especially music—under extreme circumstances.
• Patchett’s omniscient narration allows deep empathy for both hostages and hostage-takers, but the military/enforcers remain intentionally impersonal and opaque.
• The book is notable for its warmth, wit, and capacity to draw profound connections from a claustrophobic, tense premise.
• The hosts’ personal anecdotes and literary insights offer an engaging doorway into both the novel’s themes and Patchett’s craft.

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Final Thoughts

The episode closes with the hosts’ appreciation for Patchett’s style and the novel’s emotional resonance, with Craig stating:

“No, this book is great. People should read it. I was very moved by it... it's a very kind novel, even though it's about a hostage situation.” (75:46)

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For more:
Visit overduepodcast.com for back episodes, book lists, and info on upcoming reads. Next week’s title: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[B]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[A]

My name is Andrew.

[B]

Oh, are you warming up? You warming up for the episode?

[A]

Ooh, me, my mom.

[B]

Yeah, I remember that one.

[A]

Mama moo moo moo moo me mama.

[B]

Mima moo mama me Nana.

[A]

Okay, yes, I'm getting. I'm getting warmed up. Obviously I'm beautiful. I have a beautiful singing voice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Especially because I ravaged by a cold for a week and a half. My voice is in fine. My pipes are in fine.

[B]

One of the finest instruments in the land.

[A]

Yes. And that's relevant because, Craig, for our book podcast, each week, every single week, almost every one of us, one of us, one of the two of us, reads a book for the first time that we've never read before and we tell the other person about it and we also talk about the author who wrote it and the context that they're writing in. And we have a few laughs and we learn a couple things and then we move on about our lives. So, Craig, this week one of us read a book and it was you. And what was the book that you read and who was it by?

[B]

I read Bell Can't. Wow.

[A]

Just really.

[B]

Did you write that? Did you write that all out? You sounded like you really had a handle on that. Like you really. When a.

[A]

When a train takes a corner too fast and it's like balancing on two of its wheels for a minute and then it like clunks back down on.

[B]

The track, it's gone so fast.

[A]

That was what I just did.

[B]

You really stuck that landing. I read Bell Canto by Ann Patchett.

[A]

We saying Kanto or Kanto or do we care?

[B]

Great question.

[A]

All right, we don't care.

[B]

Bel Kanto. That's probably more right. Bel Kanto is probably more right. It's probably not Kanto, but Kanto, as.

[A]

In the Kanto region of the Pokemon universe grow.

[B]

I also had like going into this book, I had to. I had not read any Ann Patchett before and I had to disavow, disavow, disabuse my brain of the notion that she was either Terry Pratchett or Anne McCaffrey.

[A]

Like, yeah, no, she's neither of those. She's her own. She's a whole third thing.

[B]

But I was just like those other people. Some fantasy author wrote like this really beloved book about an opera singer in a hostage crisis. And that's not. And then it is neither fantasy author that my brain was like melding together. So sorry and my bad.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

And no, this is an interesting book. I really had a. I had a spoiler alert and I'll be interested to talk to you about it because it is kind of informed by events that happen in our world, not in the Kanto region of the Pokemon universe.

[A]

I mean, arguably Kanto is loosely based on Japan, so.

[B]

Oh, there is. And I guess by when did Pokemon start?

[A]

1994.6Ish.

[B]

Right around when the incidents that inspired this book took place.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

Andrew, why don't you tell me a little bit about Ann Patchett?

[A]

Ann Patchett, an American editor and writer of novels and nonfiction. She's born in 1963. She's also co founded a bookstore called Parnassus Books in Nashville in 2011. She was born in LA. Her dad was a cop who helped arrest Charles Manson, which is a fun little. Well, yeah, you know everybody like a Six Degrees of Charles Manson. Thing for her and but she relocated to Nashville at age 6 after her parents divorced. Sounds like her. I don't have anything else to say about her stepdad except like, he sounds like a piece of work.

[B]

Yep. Yep.

[A]

Is all from her website. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writers Workshop. Ding ding, ding. Patchett has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a National Humanities Medal, England Women's Prize, the PEN Faulkner Award, the Herald D. Versal Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Book Sense Book of the Year, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize, the Governor Award, the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the American Booksellers Association's Most Engaging Author Award, and the Women's National Book Associations Award. Her novel the Dutch Horse, the Dutch House, not the Dutch Horse, was a finalist for the Pulit Pulitzer Prize. Her books have been both New York Times Notable Books and New York Times bestsellers. Her work has been translated into more than 30 languages.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Her first published story was in the Paris Reviews, was written and published before she graduated from Sarah Lawrence. And then she primarily wrote nonfiction for Seventeen magazine for like almost a decade before leaving because they were not publishing enough of the stuff that she was pitching to them.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

She publishes her first novel, the Patron Saint of Liars, in 1992. And then Bel Canto is her fourth of nine published novels. A tenth, called Whistler, is slated for release in 2026.

[B]

I read that she says she wrote or at least came up with the Patron the Patron Saint of Liars while she was rolling silverware at TGI Fridays at 2 in the morning, trying to stay awake. She was, you know, working at TGI Fridays in, I guess, Tennessee, getting ready to make it as a novelist.

[A]

Talk about this a little bit more. But inspiration for novels truly can come from anywhere.

[B]

Truly can. And what else from earlier in her life did I maybe have a note on? I had the 17 thing. There's a I I am not like, super equipped to talk about the Catholic characters in this novel and the role that their religion plays in it. It is not the biggest part of the book, but it is there. And she has talked on and off, on and off throughout her career about her relationship with religion and Catholicism. She did go to Catholic school and has said in some interviews that it like, shaped her, helped shape her, you know, early storytelling mind. Just like, you know, characters who would pray to statues and dream for miracles and things like that. She I think she would admit that in some ways she has it's not a. I wouldn't say Pollyanna, but she just has a general like optimist view of people and wants them to be good. And you know, in one interview said that she just is terrible at writing villains because she just can't not like a character that she's writing. Yeah.

[A]

There's a. There's a certain gap that emerges between this book and the thing that it was based on that does.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That that makes me think of. Yep.

[B]

Also there is a. There is a thing in her career which is basically her career, this book and the rest of her career, because this is the PEN Faulkner winner, the Orange Prize winner. And then in one Guardian interview she even said, I think it was like maybe 10 years after the book that one of the reasons it gained steam was especially in America. It was, you know, published in 2001 in May. And then you have later that year, folks. Yeah.

[A]

Did anything else happen in 2001?

[B]

A lot of folks just got academically interested in trauma and terrorism. Yeah.

[A]

Master of the Master of Disguise, the Dana Carvey movie.

[B]

It did come out. Yeah.

[A]

Comes out in 2001. That was a big one. I don't remember.

[B]

So she says that after 911 a lot of folks maybe were looking for ways to grapple.

[A]

I mean that came out in 2002. I was thinking of the possibly apocryphal story about how they were filming it on 911 and how Dana Carvey was like, well, we just have to keep doing this movie. Hurt the terrorists.

[B]

Oh my God. But she kind of says that there were one reason why people may have turned to her book that fall or that year was that they were A looking for something maybe uplifting. There are parts of this book that are very uplifting and B that it is a way to engage with topics and issues of terrorism that are not allow you to maybe have a book club where you might talk about some of those stuff, but you're also not reading like a grisly tale.

[A]

Yeah. Of someone getting their head shotgunned off or whatever. Extra, extra judicially she is also. This is the last bit I have about about her outside of like the book and stuff she said about it. She's also published five non fiction books, including one in 2004 called Truth and Beauty, a friendship about an 18 year friendship she had with another writer named Lucy Greeley, who she attended the Iowa Writers Workshop and Sarah Lawrence with. And she had passed in 2002 she had jaw cancer. I think that there were a lot of operations that she'd had for that. That kind of left her addicted to painkillers and she just. That was something that she struggled with.

[B]

On and off and. Yeah, a moving novel.

[A]

Sounds like a fiction work. Yeah, yeah, sounds like a. Sounds like a cathartic book to write.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[A]

Yeah, this. So this book, it's published in 2001. Like you said, she's inspired by the operatic qualities of the 1996-1997 Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Lima, Peru.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

This is from a. So this book is also like. To your point about this, this book being a big like you know, the touch point of her career. Like she's returned to the. Well a bunch of times. There were a few film adaptations, a Broadway musical version and a 2006 opera version that were all started and abandoned. And then composer Jimmy Lopez turns it into an opera that premieres in Chicago in 2015. And then an unrelated film adaptation, Julianne Moore and Ken. Ken Watanabe follows in 2018. It did not do great, but it does exist.

[B]

It is what I love.

[A]

And then Patrick releases. Oh, go ahead.

[B]

What I love about that film is that I think it was directed by. I don't know if it was also written by Paul Weitz who is part of the team with Chris Weitz behind American Pie and the Oscar nominated and winning film about a boy. Like just one of the best film careers. And I think Chris Weitz went on to direct one of the Twilight movies. Like just the Whites Brothers career. Just great career. Anyway.

[A]

And then Patchett releases an annotated version of Delonto in late late 2024. I don't know if that's a version that you.

[B]

No, no. That is like a whole special thing.

[A]

You have to. You have to go out of your way to buy that one.

[B]

Yeah, she. Cuz she was inspired to do that after I think she made a like a one off annotated edition of the Dutch horse.

[A]

Yeah, the Dutch.

[B]

The Dutch House.

[A]

I don't know that it was the.

[B]

Dutch horse for a fundraiser.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then. Oh no, it wasn't. It was. It was Tom Lake, I think. And then she. She decided to go back and do a proper one that could be published for this. And it's like her writing in the margins. It's more like a. It's a director's commentary kind of edition. And I think I found you can read a few excerpts of it on Lit Hub if you go search for it. And like it's.

[A]

I did see that.

[B]

It's neat. Like it's got stuff like how she Came up with this book where this like Japanese CEO as a huge opera buff didn't know that a Sony CEO at the time was like a reputed opera buff. Like the name of Roxanne is named after the love interest in Cyrano, which makes sense because of how everybody expresses their love for her. It just seems like a really neat thing that you could go read if you love this book.

[A]

Sure. So this is from a Chicago Tribune piece from 2015, I think, about the opera. It says Patcha had been glued to news reports of the 1996 rebel takeover of the Japanese embassy in Peru in 1996. She said, quote, this ought to be an opera. She remembered thinking at the time, once she had completed the manuscript, she even considered titling the book, quote, how to Fall in Love with Opera. But her editor told her bookstores would miss shelve it in their how to section.

[B]

Yeah, I saw that too.

[A]

I just like to think of this, this, this fictional book about a hostage crisis next to like Windows 95 for dummies in the books store.

[B]

So silly.

[A]

And then in a 2004 interview with CBC she says, quote, I was also drawn to it because it was a singularly unterrifying terrorist event. A group came in and took an entire party hostage and they let a lot of the hostages go. They were trying to bring awareness to the truly wretched prison system in Peru. Peru. They kept a large group of hostages for about four months, but it just seemed like things weren't that bad. I'm not saying that it was great or that anybody should take anybody else hostage, but the reports were hostages order out for pizza or terrorists learn how to play chess. They were watching soap operas on television. They let all the women go. And I kept thinking, what if they had kept one woman? What if the woman had been an opera singer? The story seemed somehow very operatic to me. The idea of bringing art in as a way of interpreting what was going on seemed like just the thing. Now I will, I will note this hostage situation did last for like four months. And I am sure that everything she's responding to here is the day to day experience of reading about this hostage situation as it was happening and has nothing to do with the way that it actually ended, which is that the government stopped negotiating and dug in under the building and sent commandos in, killed, killed pretty much all of the of the people who had taken the hostages, including some after they had surrendered, according to the Inter American Court of Human Rights. But any charges against the military officers involved in that were dropped after public Outcry this is. Reading about this hostage situation did remind me actually of 911 in the United States because anybody who spent any time looking at like presidential approval ratings for no reason in the last like 10 years in the United States will perhaps have had the experience of looking at George W. Bush's approval rating and noting that it has this really high spike that no other president has ever experienced. And it's. And it's because the like the approval of him and like the cultural buy in around like responding to 911 in some way, like the rally around the flag effect after 911 was so wild and is so alien to think about now.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

In the times that we're in now where if like a similar thing happened, it's way, way, way too easy to imagine like a week later it having morphed into this.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

I mean not that it wasn't a political cudgel anyway. I'm not respons. I'm not defending the American government's response to 9 11, but it really is a, you had to be there to understand it moment. It is hard to describe to somebody now who is not there what it was like to live through this moment, like culturally. And I think this hostage situation was kind of the same way. In Peru, there's this American woman named Larry Lori Berenson, who I read about a little bit who was like accused of abetting this terrorist group in like a separate, I think a separate incident. She is imprisoned for 20 years. For the last five years of that she's let out of prison but forced to stay in Peru. They won't let her go back to the United States. And the, you know, like 15 years after she's arrested, the apartment that she is sent to, she is greeted by all of these locals who are like yelling at her about how she's a terrorist. Like, like it's, it's truly a. It's a thing. It's a thing that nobody is. Has like everybody feels the same way about it in Peru pretty much. It seems like people have not really forgotten it. It's just, it was just an interesting Wikipedia hold a fall down. It's tangentially related to this book at best.

[B]

Well, I what I will go back to and say your assumption that she does not end it the same way is incorrect because she does is bad. The ending.

[A]

I just read, I just read about interviews of. Yeah, interviews about what had happened and what inspired it. And yeah, she does not. She did not find quotes of her talking about that part.

[B]

But I also What I would say though to that though is if you're doing coverage of the novel and you're like, oh, I wrote this novel in response to this horrific, you know, like this like, wow, weird long thing where it seemed like it was okay and then there's like a terrifying ending to it. The interesting hook, I think when you're marketing the novel is I put an opera singer in it. And it's about how everybody's having mostly a pretty good time in a hostage crisis. And anybody who's reading it who knows about the hostage crisis is going to know how it ended. And there is a violent end to this that is very similar with a few. With like. It does. I will say the thing it doesn't address is the. In any real way. I think though I only read it the one. So maybe if I read it again, I would catch a few things. The like and they were extrajudicial killings and like a lot of people surrendered. I think there's one scene where one of the militants is like trying to put their hands up and is shot. But it is not a point that is belabored in the novel. But.

[A]

Well, so the, and the actual like conviction for this from the Inter American Court of Human Rights that I cited, that happened in like 2015.

[B]

Yeah, it was not like it was.

[A]

Known at the time.

[B]

I think that's part of it too. Yeah, but the, the military is not negotiating, decides to just go in there and kill everyone.

[A]

They're playing like loud music and driving like tanks around to obscure the noise of them digging a tunnel underneath the building.

[B]

That part is they're digging a tunnel and nobody knows about it in the novel is a little like, well, don't worry about it. And there's also stuff that I read about the, the. I guess the operation that ended the hostage crisis where they had been like seeding things that they were sending into the, into the house, into the embassy with like.

[A]

Yeah, I read about that too. Like, like especially like sending the hostages light colored clothes. Yeah, it was easier to distinguish that from the hostage take.

[B]

That is not a part of the novel at all because I think the novel has like actually very little sympathy or interest in the military as characters. Like we could talk about how that functions in the book, but she's way more interested in all the people who are trapped in that house.

[A]

Yeah, right. The military people are not in, in there doing the Hold Stockholm. I don't think that thing.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think that there is a, A named character in the novel. Who is a member of the host country government other than the vice president who's trapped there and the president who's not there. And you never meet anybody from the military. You only see the people in the house, the hostages and the militants and the one Red Cross guy who comes by. And so she's doing something very specific there. For someone who is so like, I'm a humanist, I love everybody. Yeah, like that she does not give the military even like a single faced character. I think there's an edge to that that kind of is happening off to the side of her. Like really lovely, like kind of romance and, and joie de vivre writing that she's doing.

[A]

It's just kind of a benefit of being a novelist. Like, you don't need to, you don't need to examine the interiority of everybody because it's not what your novel's about.

[B]

Well, no, I think she is choosing not to. I think it is a choice to not investigate their interiority because there's a violence to their position in the novel.

[A]

Yeah, that's what, that's what I'm saying. But yeah, this is, this is a thing. Keep bearing in mind, I'm not trying to judge Ann Patchett for how she covers any of this because this is a thing I learned about today and read about for an hour. And it's not like my, my understanding of this is not. Is not deep. It's just. Yeah, just thoughts that I had while I was reading about.

[B]

No, I think the novel came out. I think it is an interesting way to engage with this book because it is based on something real, but it is not about that real thing. And the, it is instructive the ways in which she distances it from the actual event.

[A]

Yeah, sure.

[B]

And if you look at the ways that she's doing that in the novel, it can, you know, give you some insight into what like she is interested as an artist. So she did say that she. On the opera bit, she did say that she was a pretty much an opera neophyte coming into writing about it. Like she liked it but didn't know much about it. And what did she read? She read a book called like Opera 101 by this guy Fred Plotkin who, you know, it really informed her writing and kind of like is the linchpin for her understanding of this art form. And she didn't initially she was like, it should be an artist. That's why they would keep this one woman and went to opera singer because she was interested in a book about like Language and communication. And she needed an art form that kind of superseded that. It couldn't just be playing piano. It had to be something that was like vocal and that people would respond to it even if they couldn't understand it.

[A]

Yeah. Because bel canto, the Italian.

[B]

Okay, hit me.

[A]

Art.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is. This is Italian for a beautiful song or beautiful singing, depending on how you want to. Want to translate it. I love how easy it was to name stuff like 500 years ago.

[B]

This is my art form. Good singing.

[A]

This is my art form. Pretty singing. I really. I think you'll like it a lot. Can refer to both a style of singing and a subgenre of opera. I got this from Trevor Gillis at Opera Sense. Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini are the most famous practitioners of and popularizers of the form. This. Those three guys all operated in the early 19th century, though the history of the form goes back as early as the late 16th century. And it is one of those forms where people don't fully agree on what exactly they're referring to when they're talking about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think you can. Can kind defin music definition's going to coalesce around it being like, it's this extremely singer focused art form where the, you know, there is accompaniment, but it's. But it's from an orchestra. But it is strictly there to like embellish the voice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It incorporates these solos in a. A quote, improvised like style, which I just think is. It's not improvised, but the way that the voice like runs up and down can sound.

[B]

You can embellish it.

[A]

Yeah. Right. And it also requires, according to Britannica quote, clear articulation of notes and enunciation of words.

[B]

Great.

[A]

And. And you do need. Yeah. You need like a wicked strong tenor, soprano, especially soprano to do a good, like bel canto opera. So in a book about communication where you need an artist and it needs to be like this one specific kind of person, like, it does make sense to narrow down on this form of singing among all the forms of music or singing that you could pick.

[B]

Yeah. And she gets away with some kind of almost magical realist responses to the music. By virtue.

[A]

Magical realism alert.

[B]

By virtue of it just being flip over the sign. By virtue of it just being like a lady who sings real powerful. And I don't mean to diminish that because as a. Like, that does happen in the world. I have been in the room with people whose voices just kind of like take your breath away. And you're like, wow, okay. Like, I. I can think back to seeing a show on Broadway where I was like, in the fourth or fifth row. I'm not bragging. I was just there. And I can't remember who the vocalist was, but she was like, singing right in front of me. And you could literally, like, feel it. You could just like, yeah, the sound waves were hitting you, and it like, provokes a. An emotional response that's tied to a physiological response. Yeah. And characters in this book have all, you know, all sorts of responses to the soloist, Roxanne Koss. And yeah, that is a well chosen art form for this story.

[A]

Last word from Opera Sense to send us into extra value.

[B]

Meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just $8 only at McDonald's for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California.

[A]

And for delivery to the the book discussion quote. When you listen to different recordings of different interpreters of the great bel canto roles, you'll notice the distinctive coloring, ornamentation, and embellishment that the singers incorporate into their interpretation of the role. In bel canto, more so than in other styles, the different sounds a singer brings to the character play a greater role in the development of that character.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Yeah. Think about it.

[B]

I will.

[A]

Bel canto.

[B]

Bel canto.

[A]

Pretty singing.

[B]

I did think, as you were, like, what a great way to name a genre. I was thinking of the genre Shoe Gaze, which is. We play guitar, but we stare at.

[A]

Our feet, but we look at our. We don't move around or do anything fun. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, man, music's fun. All right, well, let's take a quick break, Andrew, and then I'll tell you about Bel canto. Andrew, as we get ready to talk about the book Bel Canto, just put in the back of your brain, or if you have an answer right now, huh? Like, art or specifically music that, like, makes. Has made you feel, has put. Has gotten you in your feels, you.

[A]

Know, in a good way or in.

[B]

A bad way doesn't mean good or bad. Just, like, has provoked a strong emotional response. Like, I think this book presumes that this is possible for everyone and that perhaps folks would be surprised by what could, you know, give them an emotional response. But, like, things in this novel happen because the soloist, Roxanne Kass, is like, I'm gonna sing right now. And everyone's like, oh, music like, that's. That's, like, straight from the gods. Like, whatever's coming out of this lady's head. Like, we need to react appropriately.

[A]

I mean, not to. Not to be too, like, early 2000s white guy or anything.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

When the movie Garden State came out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was like. I was like, this is.

[B]

This is like, you put on the headphones and your life changed.

[A]

This is what it's like for me is that. That's like, when a band you enjoy hits it big and everybody suddenly likes them.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

I'm over here. Like, I've been like, zach Braff's been helping select music for the Scrub soundtrack for years. I've already been here.

[B]

You've already been emotional.

[A]

Everybody. Everybody's catching up with me.

[B]

That's true. No, I walked around our college campus with the Garden State soundtrack in my ears. Feeling Feelings was getting very. I was very emotional to Regina Spector at that age. What was I doing?

[A]

Sure. Yeah.

[B]

But no, like, it's. It's a. I have ever left a piece of theater moved to tears. Like, it's the thing that works. One of the core thing that works for me in this novel is like, the thing it just presumes is possible, which is that, like, art can be very important to people. It doesn't have to be something that they've studied. It doesn't have to be something that they know about in advance. It is possible to be kind of just arrested by a great work of art.

[A]

Yeah, I guess.

[B]

Pun. Not pun intended, I suppose there. But just, like, it can change you, and it can change you at any point in your life, and it can reveal to you ways you feel about your life for good and for bad or for regret or for hope or whatever. So, yeah, you know, if there's anything other than, you know, someone putting headphones on you and telling you this music will change your life, that comes to mind. Let me know.

[A]

I mean, listen, the year is 1990. The song do the Bart Man. Shooting up. Shooting up the charts.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So this book is. You know, when I was like, oh, I'll do the. I think I picked this book for the show kind of arbitrarily. We'd gotten some Patchet recommendations from our Discord and other places.

[A]

People got a little salty about it.

[B]

Yeah, well, people were like, we've been.

[A]

Asking for these other books.

[B]

I know. But I'm glad I picked the book that is the one that, like, changed the course of her career. Yeah. And I was like, oh, it's kind of based on this hostage crisis, that this will be an interesting book. And it's got, like, a couple of moments and scenes where something violent happens or, you know, a character might be in great physical pain. But really it's a book about a lot of people stuck in a place learning to love and learning to grow. And some of them are sad, but most of them are not sure. And she. I think in one interview she even said, like, as I was watching this news, it felt like a novel I would write. Like, it was like, put people in a situation where they all kind of stumble into growing and some of them can find a happy ending, but maybe it's not the one they thought they wanted. The. I believe an original draft of this novel had a prologue.

[A]

I did. I read about the prologue, along with the how to fall in love with opera thing. It sounds like there was a how I met your mother introduction from one of the characters about, like, this is how I met my wife.

[B]

And it cut that out. She cut the prologue out, but she left the epilogue in. And if the epilogue makes more sense, knowing that there was a prologue, but it is from a character who I kind of like. Okay, let me tell you a little bit about the characters. But I will tell you that I kind of like that she cut the prologue because the person whose prologue it would have been and whose epilogue it is, Jen, the translator, is kind of revealed to be the main character of the novel.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But as written with the first few chapters, it takes a bit before you're like, oh, he's like actually the most important person in this story.

[A]

And there's. Is there something to be said for the way that like. Yeah, okay.

[B]

Anyway. Okay, let's set up. Here we go. It's an unnamed country in South America. It's Peru.

[A]

I think the opera is specific about the actual, like, terrorist group and country. But the.

[B]

Oh, interesting. Yeah. The book.

[A]

The book, as I understand, is not.

[B]

There's a reference to like the specific fog that happens in Peru. It's like it has a specific name that, like, lends itself to the feeling of, you know, no time that some of the characters experience. But there's no other, other than it being a Spanish speaking country where some of the militants are from, you know, incredibly poor regions where they grew up speaking a more regional dialect and then are like maybe only sort of fluent in Spanish. Maybe can't read it. That's kind of all you get. It's referred to as the host country or just the country.

[A]

Okay, what are we in a Star Trek episode?

[B]

Well, so the host country, we're on the northern continent, the host country, meaning that there has been this. The Government wants this Japanese company to invest there. And so they've. They've come up with a scheme for Mr. Katsumi Hosokawa to come to their country for a birthday party at their vice president's house that will feature a performance by renowned opera singer Roxanne Kass. Okay. And the thing about Hosokawa is he's this bigwig at this Japanese firm and one of the, like, little bits of humanity that he drops in all of his, like, public facing interviews. He's a very successful businessman, but he kind of had to put his childhood love of opera in like a little box in his life so that he could be a big successful business boy. And in those interviews, he'll like, drop how much he loves opera and he'll talk about his favorite singer, Roxanne Kass. And so it's very funny.

[A]

He feels like he needed to hide his fandom of, like, the classiest form of music.

[B]

I, I think it's, it's not even that. It's, it's. It's hidden it. He uses it for kind of like to humanize, to humanize himself. But it's not like he went into. He loved it as a boy, but he didn't commit to it as a, like a life, a thing he could do with his life or anything.

[A]

Okay, sure.

[B]

He feels very separate. He also, you know, he's a businessman. He married some money and he has kids. But, like, does he love them? He's not sure. Like, he's happy to be. He's happy to be married to them.

[A]

Huh.

[B]

But it is kind of. It was a kind of marriage of convenience. And he's fine with his life, but like, the only thing in his life that really gives him passion is this music. And so this country that's like, really, like, what if we got anyone to invest here ever, is like, well, this.

[A]

Is, this is the 90s. And so we're, you know, Japan is ascendant.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. It's like it's at its. At its economic and cultural. Not, not even cultural, like economic peak.

[B]

Yeah. And so they are going to throw this birthday bash with the opera singer there, and she's going to perform for him. There's going to be all sorts of guests. Some of them are from other European countries, some of them are from the, the unnamed country, some of them are from Japan. And he's, you know, clearly this will work. The vice president is there. The vice president is an interesting guy. I think his name is Reuben Iglesias and he was picked to be he. In his estimation, he was picked to be vice president because he comes from a lower class background and he's short. And so he will never. He will never be. He gives the president some cred as like picking someone from the lower classes.

[A]

He going for the short demographic.

[B]

Yes. Also that like he will never be taller than the president. It's that, you know, he will never be given the same esteem. So he's kind of this also ran guy who feels a bit of an imposter in this fancy house that he lives in and doesn't really know what he's been doing with his life. He feels disconnected from his roots and he is hosting and the president called out. The president had other business. Everyone in the president's cabinet knows that he really loves this one soap opera. And he will not. You. You cannot schedule him on like Tuesday evenings at 8pm because he's gotta watch Dallas or whatever stories.

[A]

Yeah, Dallas.

[B]

Okay. Try to think of a nine. That's an 80s thing.

[A]

That's an 80s thing. But no, I'll give it to you.

[B]

90210. And so he's busy and he.

[A]

Dawson's Creek on.

[B]

Oh, that's a good point. Dawson's Creek was probably on in the. In the mid-90s, right?

[A]

Yeah. 90. No, 98.

[B]

Just. Just missed it.

[A]

Led you astray.

[B]

Yeah, probably. I was thinking the Aaron's spelling verse is probably right, but he's not gonna be there. And the logline is matters pertaining to Israel. And everyone's like, whoa, oh boy.

[A]

Everybody's like, oh, here we go.

[B]

Half of the people are like, oh. And half of the people are like, oh, he's watching his tv. Okay, great. And so they have this wonderful concert. The book opens pretty like rip roaring where it's. I think the first sentence is something to the effect of like the. The accompany has kissed her like right as they finished performing. Let me pull it up so I don't. When the lights went off, the accompanist kissed her. So she just gives this like wonderful performance. And then all the lights go out and there's like candlelight around the candles all go out somehow. And in the annotated edition patch, it's even like. I don't know how it happens. They just all went out. Doesn't matter. Don't worry about it.

[A]

You got all the, all the, like the stage hands on the. In the way.

[B]

I'll blow them out. They're all militant.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so all the lights go out and then in that moment all of these militants like Come in. They've, you know, they've somehow gotten blueprints from, like, a relative of somebody who helped build the building. And they came in through the air conditioning ducts and whatever. Whatever.

[A]

Some of that stuff you can just get from, like, government records buildings. That's why government transparency is bad.

[B]

Yes, well. And so they take over and there is, like, an initial bit of violence where they, like, hit the vice president with a gun in his head. And they. A few scenes later, somebody has to sew it shut. And it, ah, it's gruesome. But that's about it for the violence in the first part of the book. And so then they're in, negotiating, and you have Mr. Hasakawa there, you have Roxanne Kass there, you have the translator, Jen Watanabe, who is there. And again, in these, it takes a few chapters before he kind of emerges as a critical figure, because first you also meet some of the generals who are part of this organization called La Familia de Martin Suarez, named after a boy who was killed handing out political pamphlets. The one General Benjamin is the good one. Like, he's the most, like, reasonable and will talk to everybody. He was a schoolteacher before his brother was imprisoned for distributing flyers of political dissidents. And he has, like. He's got shingles, and they're, like, coming for his eyes. They're, like, creeping across his face. Over the course of the four months of the book, I think there's like, a couple ways where Patchett is like, here's a ticking clock. This guy's shingles, they're coming for his face. It's terrible. He won't address them. And he's running out of time before the shingles eat his eye or something. It's, you know, she's got a couple of markers like that.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Before Watanabe takes center stage, we also meet Messner, who's the Red Cross guy who just went there on vacation. He was in this country on vacation, Andrew. And then he learns that there's a hostage crisis and he does speak two or three languages. So he's going to go there and he's obviously from Switzerland. They're neutral. He's going to help out.

[A]

Yeah. I think, I think in real life, the Red Cross was involved as an intermediary between. Yeah. The government and the hostage takers.

[B]

Yes. And he, he is the guy throughout the novel, you know, he doesn't spend a lot of time in the house, and he becomes increasingly like, we gotta end this. Like, this is not gonna go well, because he does know what the military is planning, but he won't say it out loud. And he also knows that these militants, like, don't actually have a good plan. They. They were here to kidnap the president, and the president wasn't there. And so they just decided to keep everyone. And then they release the workers because their goal is to free them eventually, like, from bondage anyway, the women and children, anybody who's sick or infirm, and then they keep the rest of them, plus the opera singer, because they think that, you know, she's important and will fetch a ransom or something. Their demands are very nebulous. They kind of, like grow incoherently over the course of the book and to the point where the book stops talking about them entirely. And you get the sense that, like, they really didn't have a plan and now they're stuck in a situation that seems to be okay. Everyone's in a situation that's quote unquote, okay, sure. And emotion.

[A]

I mean, like, ideally they wouldn't be in a hostage situation at all. But, like, you know, there's this spectrum of possible situation.

[B]

The thing that this book is really interested in, she does a. What she calls an Anna Karenina third person, where she is contrasting with the three novels that came beforehand, which were like, I think two first person novels. And something else for third person, where she's like, literally paragraph to paragraph, we'll just hop in inside one character's head, it's all third person. But she, like, is really interested in the ability to just jump between characters. And all the time she's, like, moving in people and just humanizing them left and right and telling you where they would be if they weren't in this house. And most of the people are like, it's kind of okay that I'm here because I don't really know what was going on with my life in the first place. And this has given me a chance to not care about any of that. And I don't think I'm gonna die. Like, after a week, they're all like, well, they're not gonna shoot us, because none of these people seem like they want to shoot us. So we're just here living, and there's a beautiful woman who's gonna. Two weeks in, she starts singing, and that's like a whole deal. And so then they have this, like, lovely art in the house, binding them together and, like, crossing cultures. And the novel is really interested in what if you were forced to take vacation and it was not a vacation that you chose and you didn't know when it was going to end. You are imprisoned, but it is giving you cause to go. Okay, but when I got back, what is there and do I like it? And that's kind of a universal. She believes that is like a universal feeling.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

The kind of. One of the one exceptions to that is this guy named Simon Tebow who is a French ambassador to the unnamed country. And his wife was there with him at the concert and she gets, you know, let free and he is bereft and he is like the only person who. Among the prisoners who is like, I am dying. Like, I hate. I kind of hate this.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He, he does. He's not that dramatic about it. Even though he's French.

[A]

I was, I was gonna say sounds a little dramatic.

[B]

There is, there's like a thing where they, they so, okay, they get it.

[A]

Sounds like he wants to be the only guy who's like, could you take my wife hostage again so I don't have to be so lonely.

[B]

Yeah, I. There's like a. There's a scene very late in the book where two couples have emerged and they like, they kind of consummate their couplehood in captivity.

[A]

Ooh la la.

[B]

And on the spicy. On the same night.

[A]

How's that? How is that. Is that like a fade to black situation?

[B]

It's a little fade to blackie. Not entirely, but a little. And he wakes up, Simon does kind of missing his wife and like he had a dream that he was with her and she's gone. So you get this like three couples sort of thing. And one of them is, you know, not together, but he does get conscripted into the kitchen when they stop getting prepared food sent to them. And they just start getting like crates of vegetables and raw chicken. And there's this realization throughout the house that is like, oh, we're in it now. Like, they're not. They're just gonna. We're gonna be here for a while, huh? We have to cook.

[A]

What's the thing that the, the thing that you can sign up for where they just drop a big basket of vegetables at your.

[B]

Like a. Like a co op or like a. Like a cpa? It is like a cpa.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's a CPA deal. It's like, man, what am I going to do with 34 okras?

[B]

Yeah, like, what am I supposed to do with all. And this is a little ways into the book, but they, they realize that this is happening and they have to start preparing the food. And the Vice president Is like, well, they're still all guests in my house. I'm going to be in charge. And the French guy knows food. Probably he's going to help me. And he does because he. At first. He does at first. Oh, it's so funny. Sometimes this book is really funny. He goes up to Roxanne and through the translator, he's like, can you ask her if she knows how to cook? And the translator asks her and she says to the translator, I'm going to assume this is a cultural thing where he assumes that because I'm a woman I know how to cook. And they're like, yeah, that's exactly what is going on here. And he's like, okay, great. You don't know how to cook.

[A]

You know who does know how to cook is the French guy. That's true. Light spoilers for the first season of the Gilded Age. But there is a man who is from Kansas who pretends to be a French chef so that he could get employees chef that rules at an aristocrats house.

[B]

But there, there is some like, fun hijinks to the cooking scene where they like have to let the militants let them use knives or not because they're not supposed to. And so then some of the militants have to come in and cook in the kitchen with them. But like all of this is happening against a backdrop of.

[A]

I'm sorry, I'm just thinking about somebody shooting a walnut open with a gun or something.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Of all these kind of characters who have left their outside lives behind and now they are thrown together for what will become four and a half months. Even though they don't know that the major like events that happen. Right. Is that they kind of realize they're not gonna get killed. The piano accompanies does die. He has this like unrequited love for Roxanne that she feels bad about. And then he dies of like a diabetic shock because he doesn't have his insulin. Sure. And there's like a whole to do with the militants maybe shooting him after he's dead to like make it look like they killed him as like a show of force. And they, they are disabused of that notion and they let all the women and workers and children go. Then it's revealed that two of the militants are women, Beatrice and Carmen. Carmen's the most more important character of the two. She is from one of those, like small villages, doesn't know how to read or write, has gotten caught up in this movement as whatever option that she has. Sure Ultimately, her and Jen the translator become romantically involved as she asks him to teach her to read and write. And then they have like, you know, 2:00am Rendezvous about that. That turn into rendezvous about something else.

[A]

Yeah, I get it.

[B]

Okay, great.

[A]

Awooga.

[B]

But first, but first it is about the like the reveal of that there are two women there like among the militants and like that's a whole to do. And then Roxanne asks for music and she's like, I've been here two weeks, I haven't bought. I have not been singing. First I need an accompanist. And they find a. Another Japanese businessman who knows how to play piano. Who even Hosaka was like, that guy plays piano? I had no idea. He works for me. That's strange. And his, that guy's whole deal is like, I love piano. I wake up at four in the morning so I can fit it into my stupid businessman life. I love being here because all I am is accompany us now. Like I love playing piano. What if I. What if my life was piano?

[A]

Did you ever have. I've never been the type to get up earlier than I had to. You know this about me.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But every once in a while as a kid there was like there. There would come along a video game that would be good enough that I would need to get up at like 5 in the morning so I could play it before school. Yoshi's Island.

[B]

Yeah. Yep. It was. It was one and we got. It didn't really happen for me until Nintendo. Until Super Nintendo.

[A]

Crucial to the Yoshi's island thing was that we did not own that game. When I was doing that, I was a rental. So every hour I was at school while we had that out was an hour that I was wasting.

[B]

Yeah, no, you're right about that. No, for me it was Chrono Trigger. It was like we gotta. We gotta save the world here. We gotta travel through time and I gotta wake up very early to do it. That was also unrelated to anything but about art that changes your life. I first played that game, it was a rent, it was a rental. I think the year I broke my foot in fourth grade and my neighbor brought his Super Nintendo to my house so that I could like play Chrono Trigger. It was. It was like one of the most touching things that an 8 year old has ever done. Yeah, it was really cool.

[A]

Yeah. Because that game was not cheap.

[B]

No, it was like $90,000. It was $90. It was a lot of money.

[A]

But that's in 1995. Yeah. Money that might as well be. It might as well be $6,000. Yeah.

[B]

But no. So there's her having this accompanist. It's very. It changes the whole tenor of the thing. Because now every day she gets tender.

[A]

You say, ah, I thought she was a soprano.

[B]

Every day she gets up and she is practicing and singing. And now everybody in the whole building. Oh, oh, yeah, that's coming up. Everyone in the whole building is like, so excited to hear the music. And it kind of changes their relationship to each other.

[A]

There's not one guy who hates opera.

[B]

No, there isn't. Like one. Beatrice does spend all her time watching tv. There is a scene where they turn on the TV for the first time. And a bunch of like, you know, village, like, militants who maybe have never seen a TV before react like there are ghosts in there. Like, it's a really weird little scene that I don't. I don't know that I need this.

[A]

Like a little Zoolander computer.

[B]

It is like a little Zoolander sequence. And, like, all these guys have guns. So it's always like, oh, no, what if I shot you? Because you turn on the ghost box? Like, it's. You know. But I. The. Some of the stuff like that with the militants, I think depending on how you're feeling, maybe it doesn't land for you. I think it all speaks to Patchett's interest in, you know, like, cross cultural interactions and in marginalized folks and marginalized cultures and marginalized folks inside of any culture where she's, like. She's very sympathetic to the militants. And the fact that they, like, wants. They want change so bad, they will mobilize without a good plan. And they will commit themselves. They will find themselves committed to something that is clearly not working. Because where they were before was definitely not working. And so, like, Beatrice is the one who's, like, not really on board with. With this whole, like, opera world. But Carmen is taken with it. And then Carmen, you know, grows to fall in love with Jen the translator. And Jen becomes the most popular guy. He facilitates Roxanne getting this big box of music which initially the generals don't want to give her. And then she sings really powerfully and is like, I will never sing again if you don't give me that music. And they give. Give her the music.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

And what would.

[A]

What song would you say to make a. To make guys give you a box of me? Like, would you sing, like, what Creed song would you hit them with?

[B]

Oh, with arms wide open.

[A]

Or would you. Would you do your Your classic Eminem thing.

[B]

I would do my Eminem thing, and.

[A]

And you'd be like, yeah, if you don't give me the box of music, you'll never. You won't get any more Eminem.

[B]

You'll never hear any more rhymes. I will never do window pane. You will never hear me do window pane. What song would you sing? What Weezer song would you sing?

[A]

What Weezer song would I. I mean, I say it ain't so is the obvious one.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And I would. It has, like, a double meaning because it's like, say. Say I ain't here in this hostage situation. Situation.

[B]

Well, then you sing it and you're like, and I' never sing again if you don't give me the rest of those guitar tabs. And they go, say it ain't so. And they hand them right over.

[A]

They hand me all The Marty Music YouTube videos that I want.

[B]

The thing that's happening over all of these little vignettes is that various people are falling in and, like, kind of falling in some version of love with the music that's happening or with Roxanne or with their home away from home that's going on. There's, like, a Russian guy who's talking to Jen Watanabe as he is like, you know, translator extraordinaire. And he's like, I gotta tell her that I love her. And he's like, do you really want to do that? Like, what are you talking about? And he's like, I gotta tell her that I love her. And he tells her this whole rambling story about how his grandma used to keep a book of beautiful paintings in their house. And it was, like, about how art touched his life wife. And he tells her that he loves her, and she's like, cool. That's kind of weird. And she's, like, having.

[A]

It would be exceptionally hard to ghost somebody if you were living with them in a hostage situation, I think.

[B]

And what's really fun about Jen as a character is he is somebody who's, like, devoted to Hosakawa. He does care for Roxanne, but is not, like, in love with her the way Hasakawa is. He cares for all these people, and he just kind of finds himself helping everyone because everybody needs to communicate. But he's also somebody who has not had a particularly, like, expansive personal life before either. He finds himself falling for the guard Carmen. And the two of them, obviously, I said hook up and fall in love together, but he has the way that she handles him as a. As a devotee device. Even, like, she doesn't always write that he is relaying dialogue, but he's clearly in the scene. And then he will interrupt the dialogue when he's like, I don't know about that. Or the person listening is like, I don't know about that. So when Roxanne hears him be like, yeah, this Russian guy's saying that he told you this story about this painting, and. And now he says he loves you. And she's like, can you tell him that? Like, I don't feel that. Like, that's a. That's what a. What a nice gift. But. But that's okay. And the Russian guy's like, oh, you're so American. I mean, like, Russian love. Like, we. It's like a deep love of you as a person, but, like, I'm not leaving my wife for you. Like, it's fine. And then he, like, walks away going, I feel so much better saying that I loved her. And it's just.

[A]

What is. What is interesting. And you mentioned, you know, some of the. Some of the characters and some of the hostage takers in, like, specifically are better sketched in than others, but you only really need to fully flesh out a few people before you, as the reader are like, oh, we're doing a thing where everybody has a rich inner life, and that's what we're gonna learn about.

[B]

Like, yeah.

[A]

From. From there, you're, like, set up to automatically start looking for the things to sympathize for.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

With all the other people. And so it does. It doesn't all need to be, like. It's extensively drawn in.

[B]

It doesn't.

[A]

Everybody. Everybody can just, like, have a little thing, and then we can move on to the main character.

[B]

It's a very long cast of characters. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Like, she'll even. What the other thing she does with this opera singer. It's such a. It is a shorthand for people being moved by art, as I said before, where the way they get the box of music is that the priest who elected to stand by rather than getting released so that he could help people calls a friend who just has an expansive library of music, and he convinces the generals to let him make a phone call, which has never happened. And as a treat to his friend, he just, like, has Roxanne get on the phone and, like, say the names of some pieces of music. And the friend is, like, so moved and so. And, like, it's not, like, creepy. It's just like, wow, this guy is like, obviously it's all wrapped up in the hostage situation, but it's also this artist that he loves. And, you know, how cute is that and how wonderful the thing that kind of supercharges the. The plot in as much as there is a plot. Obviously the, the negotiations have stalled and we're just kind of wondering when this will crumble. Jen and Carmen have been having their wonderful late night rendezvous. Jen is like, I am feeling something for the first time. I'm coming into my own as a person. This is really interesting. Here's somebody who wants to be able to express themselves as a person. I want to help that. But Hosakawa and Kas, you know, Roxanne have fallen in love even though they can't really talk to each other. And the first person that Jen ever tells that he loves is her because he's translating Watanabe. Like it's like this beautiful little moment of him realizing that he's never said this out loud to someone before and he's doing it for his boss to the opera singer that they're hostages with.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And there's like a little plan to help them meet in the middle of the night and have sex and make love and become a whole item. Ooh, this. Cause this, like not a lot in this novel has a like a strict domino effect of like. And this causes this because sometimes time just needs to pass. This one was kind of funny where like they get together two in the morning. She doesn't come down for her 7am rehearsal. Like she is sleeping. And the. The piano player is like, what do I. What do I do here? I'm supposed to play for the lady. What are we doing? And he's playing on the piano. And then this other militant who's like young, his name is Cesar, he just starts singing out of nowhere. And he has been. You get one reference to him earlier where like the music is hap. He's having like a, like a sexual reaction to the music.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And you're like, well, that's interesting.

[A]

Sure. I mean, where. I don't think we need to talk about it. If there's music that's.

[B]

Nope, that's.

[A]

That's inspired that kind of reaction. But, you know, sure, fine.

[B]

And it's kind of like comically set against the Russian guy being like, I just love her in the Russian way. And then this guy's like, this music is like changing my body in my life.

[A]

I. Yeah. I love her in the bone. In the boner.

[B]

The boner in the boner way. But then he is revealed to have a, like, generational singing talent. Like, he has been also studying her as a singer. He is completely untrained, but has kind of a perfect ear and is, like, eager to, like, let it out. Right, okay. And so then the relationship of the building changes where now she is going to teach him how to sing. But first he runs outside in the tree because he thought that she thought he was bad. And he hides. And to deal with this, they have to get permission from the generals to go outside, which is the kind of the last barrier of privileges that needs to fall. There's like a big 12 foot wall or whatever. The military can't see them. But now everybody's outside. They're playing soccer together. Football. Excuse me, they're playing football together. Yes. People are doing, like, doing laps around the house to, like, stay in shape at this point. There are some characters like Carmen, who are just like, what if we never left? What if we could just live here forever? It's. Most of us are thriving and we don't have to deal with the real world. The real world cannot hurt us. Here is kind of how a lot of characters are feeling. People are falling in love. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. And that, of course, gives way to Messner being like, this is gonna go bad. And he has like one more scene with the general where he's like, you need to end this because I can't tell you what's going to happen. But, like, I am negotiating you. Not all dying. Essentially. They're like, well, this is. I don't know, this is what we're doing. And everybody kind of has this, like, best case scenario of what's going to happen to them. Except, of course, the one guy whose wife, you know, got to be free and he's sad. And it is interrupted very sharply and suddenly by, I think it's Roxanne screaming. Which is an interesting little note since it's not her singing.

[A]

Yeah, but she, you know, she probably has a heck of a scream.

[B]

She does probably have a heck of a scream. Same pipes, you know, and all. And the. The thing that she's reacting to is, you know, you live in a building with 57 other people for four months, you know, everyone, and all of a sudden there's somebody there who she doesn't know. And they are all just shooting. They're just shooting all the militants. I won't be specific in who gets shot. It is upsetting and sad, but not everybody makes it. And, you know, sure, of course, none of none of the militants make it, and not everybody else makes it. And so, like, you have things like Carmen, who was in love with Jen, who is. Does not make it. She's a militant. You have Cesar, who's the singer, who's this, like, beautiful talent who. He does not make it. And there is, as I. To what you said in the. Before the break, Andrew, I'm now remembering there's, like, a line that she has that's something to the effect of, like. And they. They fired way more bullets than they needed to. Like, they were just, like, incredibly ruthless always. They. There's no reference to individual people and what they're doing.

[A]

Well, and we've already left any reference to whatever specific country this might be and what, you know, what state these agents might be acting on behalf of. That's. That's been disposed of many, many pages ago.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

At this point. Yeah.

[B]

And she's, you know, she's interested in humanizing every other little character as best she can, but not those folks. So. And it's like in the middle of us Of a soccer game, like, this breaks out, and everybody is just. It's terrible. And then there's a little epilogue where two characters get to have a happy ending or a bittersweet happy ending. And you're like, okay, great.

[A]

But so, I mean, if you boil. If you boil it down to its. To its essence, you know, hostage situation, happy ending. That doesn't sound so bad.

[B]

No, if you.

[A]

If you take it all the way down to its base form, yeah, they could be worse.

[B]

But she does kind of match the. Like, what did happen in the sense that one hostage. I think one hostage doesn't make it. All of the militants don't make it. And you're left with this feeling that, like, it's very sad for them that they all got to cut. There's not. It's not sad. There's kind of a wry tragedy to. This was a beautiful interregnum for 58 people. And then, you know, in the words of Eminem, snap back to reality. Whoop, there goes gravity.

[A]

Mom's spaghetti. Yeah.

[B]

Nobody eats spaghetti in this.

[A]

Nobody spaghetti.

[B]

And, yeah, it's just. It's kind of sad that that's how it goes. I haven't read any. I really like the language in this novel, Andrew. I haven't really shared any of it. Let me read one.

[A]

Well, it's a little secret, keeping a little.

[B]

I'll read one passage.

[A]

Keeping all the language hostage for yourself over there. Jesus.

[B]

I'll read one passage, then I'll have any other closing thoughts that I have, but okay. Rad it is when Jen, who again emerges as the lead character the novel because of the function he plays. He is thinking about how he loves Carmen, and he says, what a sense of humor. One would need to believe that the woman you love is not in Tokyo or Paris or New York or Athens. The woman you love is a girl who dresses as a boy, and she lives in a village in a jungle, the name of which you are not allowed to know. Not that knowing the name would be particularly helpful in trying to find it. The woman you love puts her gun beside a blue gravy boat at night so that you can teach her to read. She came into your life through an air conditioning vent, and how she will leave is the question that keeps you awake in the few free moments you have to sleep. Patch is just good at stuff like that. There's a lot of. Like, a lot of paragraphs at the end of a chapter have, like, a really good kind of either gut punch or heart stroke.

[A]

A little ribbon.

[B]

Yeah, a little ribbon on them. And. What was my closing thought? I thought I had.

[A]

What was your closing thought?

[B]

You know, I've talked a little bit about the kind of regrets that are out there for everybody. There's the communication element of the novel and that, like, everybody's kind of finding cross cultural bridges, cross language bridges, things like that. Oh, man. What was the thing I was thinking about?

[A]

I can't help you. I'm really sorry. I normally would have no idea what you're even going for.

[B]

I'm just. I'm trying to look at that quote and why it made me think of it right as I started to read it. And I don't know. Oh, I was thinking about the style of the book and why she chose opera and what.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It does. It reminded me of. I've seen. Oh, is it? I think I saw a stage production of. It was an adaptation of a novel by Chaim Potok called My Name Is Asher Lev. And it's about this, like, you know, beautiful, very talented painter who paints paintings that are both beautiful and, I think, scandalous to some people. And in the production that I saw, the paintings are represented by empty frames, like they did not render the paintings. That's not the novel. The play cannot work that way because the novel does not work that way. The novel can tell you that they are impactful, can attempt to describe them, but then you're kind of summoning them in your own head.

[A]

We've talked about this Many, many times if you try to write a book that revolves around a work of art that's so moving or something that it inspires like a. A reality bending response. And everybody who sees it, it's really important not to actually show it, because if you show it, everybody's gonna see how stupid it is.

[B]

Yeah, it. No, it's. It's a power of the novel that she can describe the singing and she does not belabor her descriptions of the actual singing and instead focuses on describing the reactions to it, where all you have to do is kind of like fill in whatever thing makes you very moved. Right. Fill in your favorite work of art.

[A]

Yeah. There goes gravity.

[B]

Yes. My favorite work of art. It reminds me of the. The Slate article I read when 30 Rock and Sunset Strip Studio 60 were premiering the same season.

[A]

All right. 100 years ago. Yeah.

[B]

And. And someone was like, yeah. 30 Rock somehow succeeds despite, like, a lot of it is that it's not actually showing all the sketches. And like, Sunset Strip shows you just a little too much of the sketches and it's clear that it's not actually funny.

[A]

Yeah. And every, like, every time you get any visibility into what an actual sketch on the girly show, the show within the show on Dirty Rock looks like, it's like, this is everybody's worst idea of what a badass and else get.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Is just what this show is entirely.

[B]

I. I worry much.

[A]

It's much funnier that way than to try and actually do a funny.

[B]

Yeah. I worry I've brought this up before and so if I have and people are listening and going, craig, you've said that, then I'm sorry I did it.

[A]

No, this isn't. This isn't setting off my responses. Like when you bring up the show Lost.

[B]

Well, that's fair. But, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

A very important work of art that I've never finished. Just saying that out loud.

[A]

It's. Well, I mean, maybe that's why you think so highly of it.

[B]

I know that there's a big dip. I know that there's a bit. I just know that the end made a lot of people feel things.

[A]

You're a big. I think you're a big.

[B]

Hey, I'm a big dick. No, this book is great. People should read it. I was very moved by it. And I think it is interesting that she kind of uses the hostage crisis as like, a bad things could happen at any time, but mostly not bad things are going to happen. And, like, that tension kind of keeps the novel moving despite being largely A lot of like, internal vignettes of people learning and growing and loving and learning. It's a very kind novel, if that.

[A]

If that despite being about a house.

[B]

Yeah. If I. Yes. And I think that is kind of, it's, it's mini triumph, even though.

[A]

I know kind of it's calling card. Yeah.

[B]

Even though, even when it, like won, I think it was the orange prize, there were people who were like, really, the, the very like sweet novel about a hostage crisis. So there you go. That's the book. That's Bel Canto. That's my beautiful song.

[A]

Thanks for the pretty. Thanks for the pretty singing.

[B]

Thanks for letting me sing to you.

[A]

I like to think that we're pioneering a sep. A separate form of, of podcasting that I call beautiful podcasting.

[B]

Yeah, that's it. You can go. You can listen to all of our ads and hear all the beautiful podcasting.

[A]

The beautiful podcasting.

[B]

If you, the listener, have thoughts on any of the adaptations of this novel, if you've kind of like dug into that, please let us know. I'd love to hear more. Or if you have any other thoughts about beautiful singing or shoegaze or Pokemon, send us an email over the pod gmail.com hit us up on social media at overdue pod. Thanks to the following folks who reached out in the past. Pablovana Huntor, Laura, Laurel. They're two different people. Allison, Jerry, Christian and Sam. Thanks to Nick Lauren, just who composed our theme music. Andrew. If folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[A]

Overdue podcast.com the old Internet website. Up there we have the books that we have read and the ones that we are going to read. We have a little web player you can use to listen to this week, week's episode. We have an archive of all the episodes that we have done. Next week I'll be reading I who have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. Start. I started that today and it's gonna be. It's gonna be a ride.

[B]

Okay. Neato.

[A]

No host. Well, maybe it's a hostage situation, maybe it's not. It's not, not clear yet. There's some incarceration happening. Maybe that's the through line. You can also go to patreon.com overdue pod that is the way you can support the show financially, directly, and also get access to our Discord community, our monthly newsletter, Dusty bookshelves, our long read project, the Silver Silly Morillian about the Silmarillion, which is going to be wrapping up pretty soon.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Here. And every once in a while, we'll drop another surprise. We have. We got one coming for you in a. In a couple of days. Patreon, folks. Folks, a Patreon exclamation exclusive from our special collections library. Yep. Tune in an episode that we've been mulling for quite some time. I think once you hear it, it'll be clear why it took us so.

[B]

Long to do it. It's very illuminating.

[A]

It's very illuminating.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

That's it, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. And until we talk to you next week, please, as always, try to be happy.

[B]

Happy.

[A]

That was a Headgum Podcast.

[B]

What's going on? It's Lamorne Morris and Hannah Simone, and we host the Mess Around a New Girl Rewatch podcast now on Headgum. Now here's the thing. Every single week, we chat about an episode of New Girl. And we really get into it. Like, we get up in there. We get up in there. You know, we reminisce about our times on set. We share behind the scenes. We react to rewatching episodes that we haven't seen in years. We talk about how Jake Johnson is dog.

[A]

That's not true. We talk about so many memories we have of working with the biggest stars on the planet. I'm talking Prince Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo.

[B]

We're just two BFFs having a good old time. Okay? Sometimes we even talk to other co stars like Zooey Deschanel, J. Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield, and Damon Waynes Jr. And your dad. We talked to your dad on this show as well.

[A]

Make sure you subscribe to the Mess around wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every single Tuesday.