Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett

Here's part of an email I sent to Mable Hecht, apologizing for missing the meeting. This is my impression of the book.

I thought it was a fabulous story. I think the choice of names added a lot of cinematic familiarity to it--Hosokawa sounds vaguely like Hayakawa (I think Hayakawa played the Japanese general in Bridge Over the River Kwai). Gen Watanabe, the translator, immediately made me think of Ken Watanabe, the Last Samurai. I loved all the main characters, especially General Benjamin after I got over his hitting the Vice President with the rifle butt. The inevitable climax, when nearly everyone got shot, was bitter but in a way seemed fitting. The only part I didn't like was the "denouement." Gen and Roxane married? Bah, it would never happen. I did love Thibault and his wife, but all four of them were just a little too happy. The end was too different from the rest of the book. I know it must have been hard for the author to write anything at all after the shooting scene.

What I'm reading now is The Shaman's Secret, by Douglas Gillette, not as great as I thought it would be, but fascinating enough. I guess it explains why Cortes found the walls of a room in Montezuma's palace plastered with human blood. Of course, Mz was Aztec, but probably the same principle applied.