Bel Canto

By: Ann Patchett

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

“Blissfully Romantic.... A strange, terrific, spellcasting story.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

“Bel Canto...should be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours forth so splendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its beauty.” (Lloyd Moss, WXQR)

“Glorious.” (The New Yorker)

Ann Patchett’s award winning, New York Times best-selling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Pratchett’s other novels, including Truth & Beauty and The Magician’s Assistant, the author’s lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.

Don't miss our free Ann Patchett interview. Patchett is an Audible CelebrityListener - find out what she's listening to here.

©2001 Ann Patchett (P)2001 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

• 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction
• Book Sense Book of the Year Award Winner, Paperback, 2003
• PEN/Faulkner Award Winner, 2002

"Patchett can be counted on to deliver novels rich in imaginative bravado and psychological nuance. This fluid and assured narrative...demonstrates her growing maturity and mastery of form." (Publishers Weekly)
"Mixing art and politics can have unexpected results, but rarely are they so poignant....[Anna Fields'] performance is the essence of Bel Canto, easy, pure of tone, with an agile, precise vocal technique." (AudioFile)

The Best

I've listened to dozens of audio books and this is the best one ever! The characters, very richly drawn right from the beginning, grow and change in surprising ways. The narration, complete with accents, was done beautifully. It never distacts and serves only to enhance the authors words. Even though the author wants you to know the inevitable outcome long before it happens, you will wait breathlessly to see how she writes about it. The author is masterful in her descriptions of everything from the state of mind of a female terrorist to the imprint left in the grass by 2 lovers.

Awesome and Tragic

This book is so incredibly well written that words do not do it justice. Just awesome. I so admire a writer that has the gift to live and communicate an intricate, loving, perfect story. This is not to say there is not sadness, tragedy and injustice but then this also is life. In this book these emotions are balanced with honor, appreication, and love with it's many faces. I love this book. Brava Ann Patchett; Anna Fields so perfect; we have lost such a talent in Ms. Fields. She will not be forgotten. For those with vision deficiencies she gave the written word life.

Sooo Good!

I found this story fascinating. There was a slow development of the characters, and peaks and ebs of tension in the story, as individual as well as group awarenesses and concerns evolved. It all spun into a poignant picture. It was a picture of the building of a mini social structure necessitated by circumstance, isolated from the main elements of a society. Not easily forgotten.

Deeply moving journey into the human heart

A gorgeous and quite original book that unfolds slowly, but never in a tedious or unneccessary manner. The story builds, the characters are first sketched, then colored in vivid tones. Like courses in a great meal, each chapter reveals a new flavor and aroma of the setting; all amid a situation which starts our dreadful and really doesn't get better for anyone, except in their minds. The realism of these characters never fades as they begin to do things that would seem unimaginable or even stupid outside the dreadful situation they are caught in. This is a brilliant book that loves humanity in a way that is realistic, sympathetic, but never cloying or childish. This author believes in the immense power, folly, and transendence of love and passion, and quietly shows you why. The reader is brilliant as well, perhaps the best I have heard among dozens; gracefully subtle. Enjoy!

Well written but opera-obsessive

Ms Patchett writes very well and creates a believable story between the haves and have-nots. I felt all characters were overly obsessed with opera which felt unnatural.

Wow

what a story...I have definitely felt like many of the characters and I loved how the characters were developed.

Anna Fields Is a Great Reader

Anna Field's narration of Bel Canto is so well done that immediately after listening to the recording, I did a search for other books narrated by her, something I have not done for any other narrator.

The story she narrates also happens to be very engaging. A group of terrorists take hostage a houseful of partygoers at the official residence of the Vice President of a South American country, and the long stalemate between the terrorists and government negotiators gradually becomes for those inside the mansion a magical interlude, owing mostly to the presence and beautiful singing of a world-class opera singer who had been hired at great expense to provide entertainment at the party. Under the spell cast by her singing, wonderful relationships begin to form among those inside the mansion, and the reader and even some of the characters begin to wish that the stalement would never end.

Real life in real fiction

I'm not much for fiction, but this made a convert of me. It has taught me something I should have been taught in school: that there is literature that engages life and there is escape literature to get away from it.

The later is much more common: living life, as it is, is the last thing most want to do - even when that life is creative writing - reading it, or writing it.

I cannot develop characters as a writer, that is why I was a technical writer. But Ann Patchett can. I wonder why I never heard of her before.

I finally gave in and read this book...

after my friends kept persuading me to read it. People loaned me copies and people gave me copies, and I just could not get into the book. I gave up after a few chapters several times. I finally reasoned that I might get more out of the book if I listened to it, and noting that it was read by the notable Anna Fields, I gave in.

Yes, the narration was spot on. The plot was,,,,slow to develop. I did finish the book, and noted two technical glitches where a few paragraphs are repeated. I know there is something here for me to learn, and I am simply not sure if I learned it. I thoroughly enjoyed State of Wonder, but this book, despite the acclaim it received, left me, if not cold, a bit lukewarm.

Phenomenally good!

This is one of the very best performances I’ve heard and it is in extremely well-written book! This definitely was an unforgettable experience that deserves more than 5 stars. I can’t recommend it enough; it will make you laugh and cry and give you a new appreciation for moments you otherwise would have overlooked.