How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Every last one of them came, until there were fifty-eight people in the room, and when he finished Tetsuya Kato bowed his head while they applauded. Had there not been a need for a pianist there was little chance that Kato would have sat down that afternoon to play, though he had watched the piano the way the other men watched the door. He would not have chosen to draw attention to himself, and without his playing the story might have missed him altogether. But there was a need, a specific request, and so he stepped forward. (4.107)
Kato is seriously lucky when he gets to become Roxane Coss's accompanist by playing piano here. It's like a high school musician finding out that Lady Gaga's band is delayed in traffic and she desperately needs someone to play backup for a show, and then getting invited to join in for the next tour. Here, it's the dire necessity for an accompanist that gives Kato the courage to explore his piano talents in public. Like a lot of people in Bel Canto, he discovers a new role for himself because of a need created by the crisis.
Quote #5
There was one other person there who understood the music, but she was not a guest. Standing in the hallway, looking around the corner to the living room, was Carmen, and Carmen, though she did not have the words for it, understood everything perfectly. This was the happiest time of her life and it was because of the music. (5.205)
Carmen's whole world opens up when she encounters the art and music in the house, not to mention the community they lead to. What she expected would be a terrorist kidnapping actually becomes an exploration of things she'd never known before.
Quote #6
So Ruben opened up the drawers and cabinets and Simon Thibault began his systematic inventory, wire whisks and mixing bowls, lemon squeezers, parchment paper, double boilers. Every imaginable pot in every imaginable size, all the way up to something that weighed thirty pounds empty and could have concealed a small-boned two-year-old child. It was a kitchen that was accustomed to cocktail suppers for five hundred. A kitchen braced to feed the masses. (6.133)
Exploring the kitchen may not sound as cool as, say, going to the Caribbean. But Patchett makes it feel like they're venturing into an exciting place, full of new possibilities—and for adults, not just toddlers banging pots and pans together for the first time. The kitchen in the novel is the place where several of the hostages gain more power over their own lives, a place where they get to be creative even though they're prisoners. It's also the place where several hostages and several terrorists work together to feed their community, and that changes the dynamic between the groups. Oh, and it's also the place where Gen and Carmen agree to meet in the china closet, so it's the beginning of their exploration of language and love together.