Mr Hosokawa had disciplined himself since early childhood to want only the things that were possible to have. These things did not include “happiness” a concept that he barely if at all understood. They did include an enormous global industry, a productive family and an understanding of music. The reader is made to feel Mr H is a typical product of an old school rigidly traditional and stoically hard working Japanese culture. When the government of an unnamed South or perhaps mid American country invites him to a state sponsored banquet to celebrate his birthday – their real motive is to induce Mr H to make a sizable investment in their infrastructure, perhaps by building a new factory there? – he only accepts because a recital will be given by Roxanne Coss, his favourite operatic soprano.

What follows borders on farce but it is to the author’s credit that even while documenting the absurdist elements of the plot, she simultaneously manages to create a complex character driven narrative that feels terribly and tragically plausible. The birthday party is hijacked by a band of communist guerrillas. They round everyone up and demand to know which one is the president of the republic. But he stayed home at short notice and handed the job of entertaining all the rich and powerful guests to his deputy. The poor vice president is pistol whipped for disappointing the terrorist leader. As a hostage the deputy is worthless. He’s a stooge from a peasant background, elevated to that position only to give the fascist president credibility. The president is not in attendance because this event clashes with his favourite TV soap opera whose heroine, Maria, enchants the entire population, even those like the guerrillas who live in the jungle and have no electricity or any other creature comforts. There are ighteen guerrillas, some of them still adolescents, minding 200 plus hostages. We are clearly in for a hell of a ride as the police siege of the stately home ensues and negotiations with the terrorists begin, mediated through a young Swiss International Red Cross worker unlucky enough to be taking a holiday in the country when the atrocity occurs.

There are several overlapping levels to the novel. Firstly, we have a suspense yarn about people trapped in an appallingly dangerous and claustrophobic situation being used as bargaining chips by an amateurish bunch of rebels whose cause may be valid but from the outset seem doomed to bloody failure. Secondly, we have a meditation about music and the power of the human voice through song to move us deeply into states of transcendental being that cannot be reached by mere words. Roxan’s singing is the only comfort both captors and hostages have to fall back on. It is her singing that gradually dissolves the inherent antagonism that exists between them, that gives them hope of a freedom sometime outside this prison. It is her singing which induces them in some way to love her and to begin to love each other. She has cast the diva’s spell over them all and over Mr H in particular who eventually, under her musical tutelage, comes to understand how frozen and repressed his life is. It is her singing that induces them to forget the dynamics of their terrorist-hostage situation, to forget that a violent massacre is only ever a few feet away from them, to lower their guard and to allow the brutality of the real world to gatecrash their illusory paradise.

But thirdly, we have a parody of classical European opera. Somebody says near the beginning of the book that the librettos of all operas are absurd contrivances, (which is true) but it is the singing that one must attend to, the music, not the fanciful, silly contortions of the plot. So I take it that the author is telling the reader, “Look, I know this story is rather ridiculous but what I want you to reflect on is what I’m saying about the power of quality music to soothe the most savage breasts, to reconcile people of different beliefs and class systems, to bring out the best of our humanity. I want you also to like and love and pity my diverse characters in the way I do and to perhaps see your true selves in their ambitions and predicaments.”

The keen eyed opera lover cannot miss ratchet’s use of standard bel canto operatic conventions. The names Beatrice and Carmen are big in opera, for instance, as is the tradition of femmes fatale women disguising themselves as men. The seduction scenes, the secret meetings, the bombastic stupidity of vainglorious men – this is the very stuff of opera. Patchett lays it on thick but she gets away with it. We know a bloody massacre will be the ending, we know the translator, who has tirelessly worked to help individuals relate better to each other and won the prize of Carmen, will never be able to marry her. Yet the finale still shocks us. The tragic absurdity of these poor half starved idealists wiped out in five minutes of government mayhem brings tears to our eyes.

The epitaph slightly disappointed me, if I’m honest. Gen and Roxan deserved each other, I suppose, and it is also a convention of opera to marry off the two most virtuous survivors. Yet I could have done without it. But then again I am a huge Verdi fan and anyway operas so often end when the flawed heroine falls dead in the main man’s arms. Never mind. Long live bel canto!

5 STARS *****