Bel Canto

I do a fair amount of work-related driving.  This week even more so as I anticipated spending over two hours a day traveling to and from South Carolina.  Normally, the idea of getting into the car and driving around town without an audio book does not make me break out in a cold sweat.  But long-distance driving is quite another matter, so I figured it would be a very good time to "read" Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which is something I've been meaning to do ever since I finished State of Wonder.

I am currently on disc 5 of 9, which brings me a little more than half-way through, and I like the story line quite a bit.  World famous opera soprano, Roxane Coss, is engaged to sing at the palatial home of the vice-president of an unnamed South American country following a dinner party to celebrate the birthday of the chairman of a large Japanese electronics company.  The party is attended by rollers and shakers of industry and politically powerful personages.  The president of the unidentified country is supposed to be in attendance as well; however, the party falls on the evening his favorite soap opera is scheduled to reach its denouement.  He sends his regrets at the last minute.  Meanwhile, a terrorist organization has composed a plot to break into the house at the height of the festivities and kidnap the president.  The break-in is successful, but for obvious reasons the kidnapping is a bust. The terrorists take everyone who is in attendance hostage instead.

That is about all of the plot line I'm going to reveal, except to say a lot of the book is character study and is very well written - at least as far as I have come in the book.  Let's tally this up so far:  Plot line:  Very good; Writing:  Excellent; Character development:  Insightful.  So why am I not loving this book?  Narration.  Narration, dear readers, can kill a good book quite dead.

Because the aforementioned gala event is attended by multi-national glitterati, there are a lot of foreign accents to be heard among the crowd.  That's okay when the reader is reading inside the reader's head.  The mind sort of fills in the blanks without much notice.  But in narration?  Well, let's say in this particular instance it goes something like this:

Russian guest (predicable low voice):  "OH-prra eez wary eemporrtahnt een my cowntry."
Spanish guest:  (higher voice) "Eees eet polithicul or-r-r museeecul? Joo cahn nevahrrrr thell."
Japanese guest (halting sotto voce):  Well, there's just no way to type it, but it reminds me of Ming the Merciless in the old Flash Gordon television series.

It's a shame, really, to subject an otherwise very worthwhile book to linguistic torture.  And it is only because it is very worthwhile that I will soldier on until the end.  My advice to actors who wish to pursue a career in the book-reading biz is to ditch the phony accents.  Because unless you're David Suchet or Meryl Streep, it seldom works and you will only accomplish ruining the experience for the poor reader who, like me, is trapped inside their car contending with foul weather, traffic jams and road construction.  Is it too much to ask that you simply read the words?

As the Russian said, shaking his head, "Eees so wary froostrrating."  I hear you, pal.  I feel the same way.