Bel Canto

From the beginning of the book to its end, the presence of music—Mr. Hosokawa’s love of opera; Roxanne Coss’s exalted voice; Kato’s gifted playing; Carmen’s attraction to its beauty; Cesar’s unlikely talent—unites these disparate characters. When the government soldiers come rushing in, Roxanne and Cesar are at Kato’s piano practicing as usual; music fills this mixed-up house, wherein terrorists become lovers and opera singers. It is truly a utopian—that is to say, impossible—existence for a time. It is an existence united around the creative powers of Beautiful Singing: The Power of Female Music. The author asks “what if” before the outside world of patriarchal constructs comes in to destroy the beauty and unity.

The idea and experience of love is also intimately bound up with music. Roxanne Coss is an object of lust, love, jealousy, and obsession throughout the book; all of the men fall for her, some in romantic ways (Mr. Hosokawa, Fyodorov), and some in sexual ways (the young male terrorists). Messner is jealous of the hostages, ironically because he does not get to hear her sing, while Cesar mimics her in his love for her singing. Cesar, an Indigenous person, also develops his Resonant Sounds: Political Voice and Agency of the Oppressed here by way of creativity and power through Beautiful Singing: The Power of Female Music.

When Cesar first demonstrates his raw talent, it is in homage to Roxanne; he is filling in for her as she sleeps late after her first night with Mr. Hosokawa. What he produces startles the gathered audience of hostages and terrorists alike: “There was no mistaking it now, but somehow this boy brought on the rocking sensation of love” (267). Later, when Carmen tries to talk Cesar down from the tree he has climbed in his embarrassment, she reassures him that his singing came out of a deep-seated need: “You had to do it. You didn’t have any choice.” And she thinks to herself, “Love was action. It came to you. It was not a choice” (270-71). Cesar’s tribute to Roxanne represents not only his notional love for her but also his profound love of the music. Music allows him to find and express his voice both on an individual and on a political level; as Roxanne says, it is a “deep-seated need.” The novel suggests that voice and love are one in the same and come from each other; if society allows for the voices of all, then love between everyone will form, establishing a Global Family: Cultural Attachments and Affiliations.

In these final chapters, it becomes clearer that the hostages are no longer prisoners. Upon letting all of the hostages go outside, one of the Generals worries that they will wander beyond the wall. But General Hector knows better: “What is there to control? [. . .] As if they would go anywhere now” (279). The hostages prove him correct: “They were in love with the place. They wouldn’t leave if you tore the wall down. If you poked them in the back with your gun and told them to get going they would still run to you” (283). The situation itself, with the beauty of the music and the cooperative atmosphere, has become captivating—rather than an enforced captivity. As Gen thinks, deep into his love affair with Carmen, he “knew that everything was getting better and not just for him. People were happier” (302). The arc of the book suggests that beauty, as expressed here primarily through music, transcends cultural differences, overwhelms political concerns, and unites people in love and mutual concern. At first, the typical hostages of the world, the Indigenous people, are the captors while the typical captors, the elite patriarchy, are the captives. Later, they all become free precisely through this role reversal, precisely because the Indigenous people are allowed a voice and autonomy. The novel suggests that if Indigenous people were in charge, there would no longer be anyone in charge; the world would be an egalitarian utopia.

An evolution in the personalities of the terrorists can even be seen. They first appear as bored and reckless teenagers, with violence simmering below the surface—not to mention that they are essentially interchangeable as characters. But, by the end, several emerge as distinct, and distinctly sympathetic, individuals. Besides Carmen, whose relationship with Gen humanizes her, and Beatriz, whose attempts at atonement humanize her, Cesar and Ishmael develop into mature and interesting young men. Cesar learns from Roxanne, “as if the singing would save his life. He was settling into his own voice now and it was a voice that amazed her” (308). In another time, in another place, perhaps it would have; alas, his sail has already been yoked to a sinking ship. Ishmael, bright and eager, learns to play chess just by watching and helps the Vice President in the garden. Ruben is smitten with the boy and, in total sincerity, offers to adopt him: “He would have another son. The boy would be legally adopted. The boy would be known after that as Ishmael Iglesias” (288). As stated previously, the dream cannot survive the always inevitable implosion of the utopian state, the intrusion of the outside world. The novel suggests that if there was more time, all of these people would assert their voice to be viewed as individuals and not merely as interchangeable characters. They would all form a truly Global Family: Cultural Attachments and Affiliations.

There is foreshadowing that doom is imminent. When General Benjamin agrees to allow the hostages out into the yard, it is after the dawning realization that the situation is impossible: “Why was it only now that he understood that things would end badly? [. . .] It was all the fault of hope. Hope was a murderer” (278). This realization also occurs to the love pairs. While Gen and Carmen are hostage and terrorist, “Roxanne Coss and Mr. Hosokawa, however improbably to those around them, were members of the same tribe, the tribe of the hostages” (294). Thus, it is not completely surprising—though it is melancholic—that Gen and Roxanne decide to marry after Mr. Hosokawa dies trying to save Carmen from the government’s bullets. When Carmen’s name (along with Beatriz’s) does not appear in the newspapers after the ordeal, it is as if she never existed, as if she was a mere fantasy of Gen’s. To end the book with a wedding also obliquely references Western comedies, which often end with marriage or the promise of marriage. This marriage is one manifested through tragic circumstances. It is a beauty created out of the tragedy of this scenario, however, and it resembles opera itself: a beautifying of tragic events and lives. This also speaks to Beautiful Singing: The Power of Female Music.

Finally, just as the novel begins with the unreliability of memory—the mistaken memory of a kiss between the opera singer and her original accompanist—it ends with a willful forgetting. All of the hostages, and most of the terrorists, begin to lose sight of the real world, of the inevitability of the end of their enclosed and highly personal domain. Surprisingly, it is Gen—whose default rational mode is disrupted by love—who exemplifies this tendency: “He forgot about the future and the past. He forgot about his country, his work, and what would become of him when all of this was over. He forgot that the way he lived now would ever be over” (304). This is true of all the inhabitants of the Vice Presidential mansion: “Mostly, they had to forget that they had not come up with a way to leave” (305). This ideal world, wherein people from various countries and cultures learn to communicate, cooperate, and even love, is predictably assailed by outside forces with their own political agendas. The construct of time returns in a moment’s notice, as every other construct from the outside world returns too, crushing this borderless utopia.