量子的生活呢喃
爱人，被爱，珍惜，宽待
Bel Canto 在意大利文的意思是“美妙的歌声”，也意指歌剧的美声唱法。
南美某国副总统府邸中，来自世界各地的权贵显要聚集一堂，正为日本最大的电子公司总裁Hosokawa举办一个盛大的生日宴会（为的是吸引他来此国投资设厂）。 宴会的高潮是举世闻名的歌剧女高音Roxane Coss的献唱。 一曲告终，正当众人还如痴如醉沉浸在余音绕梁之际，一群荷枪实弹的恐怖分子突然从天而降，喝令交出总统。 没料到总统正在家里追看电视连续剧，根本没有出席这个派对，倒霉的副总统和几百号贵宾就这么阴差阳错地被扣为人质。 恐怖分子还算人道，放走了妇女儿童仆人等，也并没有大开杀戒；但政府态度强硬，不肯接受和谈条件，场面遂陷入僵局，屋里的绑匪和人质开始了漫长的劫持煎熬。
虽然整部小说里都没写出东道主国名，但不用猜都知道那是秘鲁。 可不要以为这是一部劫持人质的惊悚小说，除了开头和结尾，全书没有任何染血的情节。 但小说的灵感确实来自当年的秘鲁人质危机－－1996年年末，在秘鲁首都利马，日本大使宫邸正庆祝天皇诞辰，一伙武装恐怖分子入侵，劫持了数百名外交官（包括18个国家的大使）、政要和企业高管。 恐怖分子先后释放了300多名人质，但秘鲁政府始终没有让步。 这场危机持续了四个多月，期间秘鲁政府打通一条地道入馆，最后成功突袭，全数击毙了恐怖分子，营救了人质。
精彩的开场后，整个故事的核心登台－－一大堆来自不同国度、素未平生的人物本来毫无交集，甚至语言上完全不通，却被抛入这样一个极其荒谬的处境。 只有Hosokawa的日本翻译Gen是个通晓多国语言的天才，一下要跟老板说日文，跟Roxane说英文，跟绑匪说西班牙文，还要跟其他各国宾客讲俄文、德文、法文、瑞典语、葡萄牙文、希腊文等等等，连恐怖分子都要仰赖他下命令。 这个翻译是个关键，在人和人充满隔阂时，他成为最需要的理解和互信桥梁。 而更全球化、更动人的语言，则是最初吸引众人来到这里的Roxane天籁美声。 Roxane坚持每天练习声乐，她那圆润宛转的歌喉似乎能穿透身心，震撼灵魂，令全屋的人质和绑匪一同沦陷。 而除去了头衔、事业、名利，远离了从前的身份和社会等级，高官显贵退回凡夫俗子的原形－－以前极少在家的副总统日日以双手劳作爱护家园，总裁先生对自己人生重新审视，思念妻子的法国大使成为厨房大厨，年轻神父满怀救世关怀，翻译先生从扮演传声筒而成为中心人物，俄国官员感性表白对美对爱的追求和勇气，企业高管重拾钢琴演奏，害羞又勇敢的Carmen，还有一个个身怀天赋和热情的丛林小孩。。。绑匪和俘虏们渐渐成为一个与外界隔绝，而相互共生的团体，而随之发生的爱情故事更是令人匪夷所思。
正如歌剧的夸张炙热的艺术手法，整篇小说的情节浪漫、梦幻，但并不煽情。 Patchett的文字淡雅轻灵，人物刻画栩栩如生。
Ann Patchett 描摹歌声的手法非常引人入胜。
“…and the first breath of music stirred from someplace far below them. Tiny people, insects, really, slipped out from behind the curtains, opened their mouths, and with their voices gilded the walls with their yearning, their grief, their boundless, reckless love that would lead each one to separate ruin.”
“It was soaring, that voice, warm and complicated, utterly fearless.”
“It was different in ways he never could have imagined, as if the voice were something that could be seen. Certainly it could be felt, even where he stood in the very back of the room. It trembled inside the folds of his cassock, brushed against the skin of his cheeks. … How far she must have gone inside herself to call up that voice. It was as if the voice came from the center part of the earth and by the sheer effort and diligence of her will she had pulled it up through the dirt and rock and through the floorboards of the house, up into her feet, where it pulled through her, reaching, lifting, warmed by her, and then out of the white lily of her throat and straight to God in heaven.”
这部2001年出版的小说赢得the Orange Prize for Fiction还有PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. 去年更已经被改编为现代歌剧。 作曲者Jimmy Lopez就来自利马。
其他节选：
“It was too much work to remember things you might not have again, and so one by one they opened up their hands and let them go.”
“For a man to know what he has when he had it, that is what makes him a fortunate man.”
“When you think of love you think as an American. You must think like a Russian. It is a more expansive view.'
'Americans have a bad habit of thinking like Americans,' Roxane said kindly.”
“They were so taken by the beauty of her voice that they wanted to cover her mouth with their mouth, drink in. Maybe music could be transferred, devoured, owned. What would it mean to kiss the lips that had held such a sound?”
“Most of the time, we're loved for what we can do rather than for who we are. It's not such a bad thing, being loved for what you can do.'
'But the other is better.'
'Better. I hate to say better, but it is. If someone loves you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them.”
“But together they moved through the world quite easily, two small halves of courage making a brave whole.”
“The light was cut to lace by the trees that had grown so thick with leaves in the last few months.”
日本总裁做人质一周后脱掉鞋子的这一段让人忍俊不禁：“Wearing shoes in the house was barbaric. There was almost as much indignity in wearing shoes in the house as there was in being kidnapped.”
