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How to Fall in Love with Opera
By Ann Patchett
Bel Canto
was the most frustrating book I’ve ever written.
All of my
novels have to do in some way with the passage of time—how it slows down, how it
speeds up. In
Bel Canto
I was trying to write about the suspension of time. A thick fog
settles in. Gen gives his watch away. No one really remembers how long they’ve been
in the vice-president’s house. But time and action are what move the reader (and the
writer) forward through the story. Suspend time and things get stuck. I would finish a scene
and then have no idea which way to turn next. I knew that something was happening in
the kitchen, in the bedroom upstairs, in the china closet, outside, but all of those things
were happening simultaneously. Months would pass without me even looking at the book.
Finally I would pick a direction, write the next scene, and then get stuck all over again. This
went on for years.
My husband told me if I was having such a hard time with the novel that it probably meant
I should move on to something else. I had an idea for a wonderful new book that was
all about real time. The whole thing would take place in 24 hours and be loaded with
action. But years before, when I was writing my first novel,
The Patron Saint of Liars
, I made
a promise to myself that I wouldn’t go on to the next novel until I finished the one I was
writing. (I had wanted to quit
Patron Saint
, too.) It was an excellent promise and so I’ve
stuck with it ever since.
Bel Canto
was less about opera for me and more about how people without a common
language can communicate—first through a very clever translator, then through the
power of art, and finally through love.
Bel Canto
is all about the shortcomings of language.
Because so many people in the book couldn’t easily speak to one another, I also had to
figure out how to write in a completely omniscient voice so that the reader would have
access to what everyone was thinking. Learning to move the point of view from person to
person turned out to be the greatest trick of all.
I briefly considered calling the novel “How to Fall in Love with Opera” but my editor told
me it would always be mis-shelved in the “How To” sections of bookstores. So I called it
Bel
Canto
because that was the file name on my computer document. It’s funny how well
some accidents work out.
I then went on to write
Run
, my novel set in real time. It was such a relief!