So. Fucking. Close.

As painful as it is to read a bad novel, it's arguably more painful to read a good novel that could so easily be great, but doesn't quite get there. Is it a worse fate to be unremarkable in your mediocrity, or remarkable for how close you came to achieving greatness? I'm not sure, but Bel Canto surely belongs to the latter group rather than the former.

To her credit, Patchett has been transparent about trying to ape Tolstoy, and for the most part, she pulls it off. I can't say that she ever stretched my powers of conceptual understanding the way the great Russians do - I don't think anyone would ever call Tolstoy simple - but good Lord, when this novel is at its best, it soars. One standout was Fyodorov's monologue, in particular its conclusion, which made me laugh in delight. And there are many great character tidbits throughout, like Reuben's discovery of his talent for gardening. Even if Patchett isn't Tolstoy, she's a damn good writer.

Until we come to that pesky epilogue, which takes the novel's somber meditations and ties them off in the kind of bow that would normally go on a NYT bestseller, tourniquetting a bleeding limb so tightly that the limb must be amputated. It's not that the wrap-up is too short, though it is, or too simple, though it is. The conclusion of Bel Canto is far too saccharine for the story that's been told, for the final turn that story takes. (Spoiler spoiler spoiler ahead.) Even a single line acknowledging that Gen and Roxane had not married for love, but are looking for their lost loves in one another, would have been enough to elevate this novel to greatness. I actually thought that was where it was headed, with Thibault's presence as an observer who could have accurately judged their love. But no! It's some shit about trauma bonding!

That, ultimately, is this novel's failing: it is afraid to take the final, courageous leap into the unknown, into danger, that would make it a masterpiece. Someone once told me that the great Russians would construct their novel with a sort of thematic screw in the middle, a great question around which lesser questions wound. I've certainly found that true of novels like Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov. Bel Canto, however, never made me think that hard. It occasionally digs into an interesting question - like whether ownership of art belongs to the artist or the observer - and then pulls away, choosing instead a lesser question - like what art does for our lives. (Also, strangely, it hardly touches on the sociopolitical conflict at its center. Rather cowardly, in my opinion.)

Yet, despite this novel's great failure, I can't help but respect it, for it succeeds in so many other ways. Sad to say, but I doubt many modern authors even aspire to classical greatness the way Patchett does. Even if she doesn't get there, I admire her attempt. Every great artist started off unsuccessfully imitating another great artist, after all. Maybe one day she'll get there. And if she does, I hope she rewrites that gosh darn epilogue.

Bel Canto

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