Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
The book whose first sentence is my favorite: "When the lights went out, the accompanist kissed her." The author whose friendship with Lucy Grealy struck me in her memoir Truth and Beauty.
I had wanted to read this book for a long time. I had kept it guardedly on my bookshelf as a reminder, like a reservation for a dinner table. And all this time I had saved it, but for what? I had gifted it to Katerina a couple years ago, by the first paragraph I had judged it a good book--she would like it, it's about music and love and why, it's the winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award. Katerina is a musician, Russian, neuroscience major--she wrote back and told me she loved it. And I am loving it.
The chapters are long, about thirty pages each, containing voices, many spoken, one sung. Nevertheless I can hear them, not only in English but in Japanese and French and Spanish and Russian and Italian--and in music. On Gen's voice Patchett writes: "It was not a musical voice, and yet it affected him [Mr. Hosokawa] like music." Perhaps the translator's music-like voice comes from his linguistic ability--a different language like a different key.
English must be in E major. Sing with me.
