A few years ago, I gave myself the challenge of reading the complete works of Donna Tartt. Granted, that task was made easier due to Tartt having only three books(and the fourth will be well worth the wait) but it was a great reading experience indeed.
Well, I am going to take up a similar reading challenge up this year by launching my own Ann Patchett Project. Now, she has way more than three books but since I only have a trio of them on hand, this set number will have to do.
I decided to divide them by season and with winter hopefully almost over, this spring my first APP selection will be Bel Canto. Released in 2001, this story is set in a South American country whose embassy is taken hostage during a birthday party for a Japanese businessman named Mr. Hosokawa.
Disappointed that the president of the country did not attend, the hostage takers still stick to their demands while releasing several of the less prominent guests. The only female prisoner remaining is opera singer Roxane Coss, who was invited to entertain as Hosokawa is a huge fan of her vocal talents.
During the prolonged siege, many emotional bonds are formed with Roxane's singing being a guiding light of support for those on either side of the conflict. As time goes on, will those newly made connections be enough to save them all?
I've heard much about Bel Canto but haven't read it(or seen the 2018 film version). My copy happens to be the ARC(Advance Readers Copy) that I saved from my bookselling days. The book has been highly praised over the years and added to many Best of lists yet it didn't feel like the right time to read for me. One theme that intrigues me here is the use of art,music in this instance, to help people going a difficult period of time together which is something that I think all of us can relate to right now:
This summer, I plan to pick up Commonwealth, which I did try to read but put aside for far too long. It's a generational story that hinges on a tell-all book that changes more than one life and reveal a few family secrets.
We start at a christening party in California, where family friend Bert sort of gate crashes the proceedings and decides to pursue his long hidden love for Beverly, mother of the baby being celebrated on that day.
When Bert and Beverly do get married and move to Virginia, they bring together an assortment of step siblings who reluctantly share a summer vacation together that leads to dire consequences.
The child whose christening day inadvertently set this chain of events off, Franny, grows up to fall in love with novelist Leo, who writes about her complicated family ties in a book that was popular enough to be made into a movie that Franny takes her aged father Fix to. A strange full circle to be sure.
Interestingly enough, Patchett doesn't think that Commonwealth would make a good film. Maybe because Bel Canto had a lot of mixed reviews when it was adapted or due to the slow yet steady style of the plot? Regardless, I think that it might be better suited to a cable/streaming mini-series which would allow for a more leisurely pace of story telling:
For the fall, The Dutch House will complete my literary circle here. I did manage to get a review copy before the pandemic was fully in place and to my regret, I just wasn't into reading it then(I also have unread library books on hand but hey, I may get to them yet!).
This novel is narrated by Danny Conroy, the son of the title house set in Philadelphia whose mother Elna left him and his older sister Maeve behind as the grandeur of the place truly overwhelmed her.
Oddly enough, Danny's stepmother Andrea was more in love with the house than any member of the Conroy family and was quick to push him and Maeve out into the streets once their father died. That doesn't end this story at all; rather it's beginning of something even more strange.
This tale of a love-hate relationship with a house and what it represents has a Howards End meets the Brothers Grimm vibe to it that makes me want to properly appreciate it. Also, Tom Hanks did the audiobook and you know something is good when it has the Hanks seal of approval there:
It’s not just the celebrity approval that makes me want to engage with Patchett’s work. From what I have read of her, she does possess a nice turn of phrase and a talent for painting a richly detailed picture of her characters that can slowly draw you into their world.
Plus, Patchett loves books so much that she's the co-owner of a bookstore(Parnassus Books, which is still managing to stay afloat during our national health crisis). For an author to be so generous to her literary contemporaries that she's thrilled to promote their books just shows a generosity of spirit that I really want to support.
I might talk about these books once I'm done with them online and hopefully read more of her work after this, we shall see. In the meanwhile, it is good to have a small goal to get through these still rough times in front of us all:
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