AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
Bel Canto.(Review)(Brief Article)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett HarperCollins, 304 pp. $25
Ann Patchett's new novel is introduced by the passage from Die Zauberflote in which Tamino defines the object of his quest as "friendship and love," and these are the themes of this thriller/love story/homage to the art of singing. The setting is an unnamed South American nation (clearly, Peru), where a beautiful American diva (a dead ringer for Renee Fleming) has been engaged to sing at a party honoring a visiting Japanese business mogul, in the hope that he will invest in the country. The plans go awry just after the last notes of "the aria from Rusalka" (presumably, the Song to the Moon), when terrorists invade the celebration and take the multinational guests hostage. The terrorists, a ragtag assemblage made up of three erratic and irascible generals supported by a gang of teenage guerrillas, hope to capture the nation's President, but he has skipped this party in favor of watching his favorite (soap) opera. Picturesque and appealing characters abound: the hapless host, the Vice President, usually mocked or ignored, now in his element as he scrubs the floors and waits on his fellow captives; the simple village priest who finds a way to get ...
- Ann Patchett. Bel Canto.
- Magazine article from: World Literature Today Powers, Elizabeth March 22, 2002 700+ words
...The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Ann Patchett has displayed a gift for impersonating...turns charming and cloyingly banal. Bel Canto is also about people in love in unusual...for the delightful entertainment that Bel Canto represents. Elizabeth Powers New York
- Ann Patchett's `Bel Canto' pushes the limits of technology.(Knight Ridder...
- Newspaper article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Bauers, Sandy September 5, 2001 700+ words
Ann Patchett's first two novels...quickly. Her latest, "Bel Canto," is pushing the limits...95. But in this format "Bel Canto" only costs $19.95...Amazon.com also offers "Bel Canto" as a Microsoft Reader...
- 'BEL CANTO' AUTHOR KEEPS 1,000 LAUGHING AS SHE DISCUSSES BOOK ANN PATCHETT...
- Newspaper article from: Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI) Wineke, William R. March 26, 2003 700+ words
...people gathered at Monona Terrace Tuesday night to hear novelist Ann Patchett talk about her book, "Bel Canto." The book was the second selection of the Dane County Public...is free and is open to the public. CAPTION(S): Photo of Ann Patchett
- SINGING HER PRAISES ANN PATCHETT WINS ACCLAIM FOR QUIRKY 'BEL CANTO'`.(L.A....
- Newspaper article from: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA) July 29, 2001 700+ words
...David Kronke Staff Writer Ann Patchett is a lot like her books...and her most recent, ``Bel Canto,'' based very loosely on...utterly regenerative. In ``Bel Canto,'' unnamed terrorists overtake...York Times exulted that ``Bel Canto'' was ``a novel that begins...
- An ode to Spear-O-Wigwam: Novelist Ann Patchett (Bel Canto) wasn't a dude ranch...
- Magazine article from: Sunset Patchett, Ann June 1, 2009 700+ words
ERNEST HEMINGWAY arrived at the Spear-O-Wigwam Ranch in 1928. He was still in his 20s, before anyone had started calling him Papa, though it was about the time the nickname became appropriate. He had just had a son in Missouri. His wife had had a difficult delivery and wasn't well. The baby was
- Novelists who phone it in. (Author, Author!).(Ann Patchett will join book group...
- Magazine article from: Book March 1, 2003 700+ words
NOVELIST ANN PATCHETT IS ESSENtially a homebody. The author of the luminous 2001 book club favorite Bel Canto and three other novels lives in Nashville; she visits many area book groups when they're discussing her books, but she finds...
- Like daughter, like mother: what's it like with two writers in the family? For...
- Magazine article from: Good Housekeeping Allen, Jennifer July 1, 2003 700+ words
...novel, Eat Cake, was published in June. Ray's novelist daughter, Ann Patchett, 39, is at work on her fifth (and first nonfiction) book. Her most recent novel, Bel Canto, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and won the...
- PRACTICAL MAGIC.(Ann Patchett )(Interview)
- Magazine article from: WWD Lawrence, Vanessa September 25, 2007 700+ words
Byline: Vanessa Lawrence Author Ann Patchett has a confession to make - and she...working on her 2001 prize-winning "Bel Canto" and did extensive research, reading...see and understand." Caption(s): Ann Patchett
