Ann Patchett's Bel Canto

In the end, says Patchett, it is neither politics nor religion that transform and inspire us, but art. More specifically, in her technicolor and lyrical novel, it is the music of opera. Here's the plot from the publisher's notes:

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.

Here, the diva rules. When one of the generals in charge of the siege tries to deny Roxanne a box of sheet music, she says to the translator: "Tell him that's it. Either he gives me that box right now or you will not hear another note out of me or that piano for the duration of this failed social experiment." "Really?" the translator asks. "I don't bluff," Roxanne answers.

The story is, in the words of a New York Times reviewer, "a paean to art and beauty." The exquisite music the diva sings so elegantly brings both revolutionaries and captives to their most profound senses. Social stratifications melt away, ideologies evaporate, ethnic differences are replaced by the common language of music. The story gives hope that, despite our differences, we can capture our deepest selves and find a unity there. In this case, through music.

I love this story of human transformation, yet, progressive churchy type that I am, I wonder if it underestimates both politics and religion. Patchett contrasts great music--that of Respighi, Rossini, and the like--with inept, ill-fated revolutionary generals and a benign but innocuous priest. Not a fair comparison. What about the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, whose religious and political visions have, like the music in Patchett's story, inspired and transformed? So here's my (perhaps naive) hope: that despite their corrupted forms in today's world, the saner and more compassionate elements of both politics and religion can take their places alongside great art in ennobling and transforming the human heart.