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Bel Canto

Nearly finished but a wonderful powerful novel, I keep on finding echoes of plots of operas hidden in there - maybe some of them are wishful thinking on my part...?

  • Carmen - echoes everywhere - and quoted in a few places.
  • Prisoners coming out to the light - Fidelio
  • The names are a web of references
  • girls appearing to be boys (Rosenkavalier?)
  • Madam Butterfly - the Japanese and the American - but the genders swapped
  • Is there an opera with [K]Cato and C[a]esar in? Google suggests Catone in Utica by Vivaldi


but an intermediate me, me, me reaction. Mr. Hosokawa is 53 at the start of the story, his birthday he receives a wonderful gift that ensnares and changes him that seems pretty unpleasant. I am now 53 on my 53rd birthday - an anniversary - as the book says, I had a meeting with the head of the company where I was offered extra responsibility and welcome things that went with it. But he knew he was lying and three weeks later I was at home with a coming redundancy. Trapped - not wanting to go out of the house, but there's a question - as in the book - as to how far the imprisonment is voluntary.

I'm sure that's grossly indulgent!

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