How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Never in a lifetime would Gen have come to her [Roxane] on his own. Never would he find the courage to express his own sympathies and remorse, in the same way that Mr. Hosokawa would not have the courage to speak to her even if his English had been perfect. But together they moved through the world quite easily, two small halves of courage making a brave whole. (3.123)
Early on in the hostage crisis, Patchett gives us a chance to see community in action. Gen and Mr. Hosokawa find courage together they couldn't have found alone. Yep, that's pretty much foreshadowing what happens for all the characters in the book: they find courage for tough circumstances by becoming a community. Cue the soft lighting and gentle flute music. We're about to see a whole community come together.
Quote #2
They were all at the piano, Roxane Coss and Mr. Hosokawa and Gen and Simon Thibault and the priest and the Vice President and Oscar Mendoza and little Ishmael and Beatriz and Carmen, who left her gun in the kitchen and came and stood with the rest. All of the Russians were there, and the Germans who had spoken of a revolt, and the Italians, who were weeping, and the two Greeks who were older than the rest of them. The boys were there, Paco and Ranato and Humberto and Bernardo and all the rest, the great and menacing hulk of boy flesh that seemed to soften with every note. Even the Generals came. 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. (4.107)
This is one of the key moments where Bel Canto is telling us that community is possible among everyone in the building, whether they're terrorists or diplomats, and no matter what languages they speak. It's Kato's piano music that brings the whole community together here in a moment that shows us what art can do, even if it's not the showier type. (Opera, we're looking at you.)
Quote #3
"No one is leaving! Dinner for fifty-eight, is that what they expect? I will not lose one pair of hands [of those who are already in the kitchen], even if the hands belong to the very valuable translator. Do they think we're going to do this every night, every meal? Do they think I'm a caterer? Has she chopped the onions yet?" (6.233)
On a casual glance, Simon Thibault's bossiness the first time he cooks dinner doesn't exactly look like it's about community. But we're not the casual type here—well, at least where this quotation is concerned. Making a good dinner for everyone there turns out to be an experience of community-building for Simon, Ruben Iglesias, Gen, and even some of the terrorists. Plus, they're cooking for fifty-eight. That's everybody. And that's what community's all about.
Quote #4
Gen turned away from him and faced the people he thought of as his people. He watched their faces soften at the sound of his voice. "We are going outside," Gen said in English, in Japanese, in Russian, Italian, French. "We are going outside," he said in Spanish and Danish. Only four words but in every language he was able to convey that they would not be shot, this was not a trick. The group laughed and sighed and shook away from one another. The priest crossed himself quickly in gratitude for an answered prayer. Ishmael went and opened the door and hostages filed out into the light. (9.89)
Here, near the end of the book, going outside together is one of the biggest things that cements the community that has been forming among everyone in the house. Before, terrorists were allowed outside, but not hostages. Now everyone goes, and it makes people feel like equals even if, given the situation, they're about as un-equal as it gets.
Quote #5
Oscar Mendoza held out his dirty hand to Ruben Iglesias and they shook. "We're shaking for you," Ruben said, his voice betraying his happiness. "This seals the deal." He would have another son. The boy would be legally adopted. The boy would be known after that as Ishmael Iglesias. (9.146)
Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Here, Oscar and Ruben are so excited about their new community that they want to invite one of the terrorists into their ordinary one. Ruben wants to adopt Ishmael, and Oscar wants to give him a job. Pretty much unthinkable at the book's start. The community formed by the long time they've spent in the house and the presence of art is sort of like what happens in The Parent Trap, when being sent to a cabin together as a punishment is what lets the long-lost sisters bond and set up lifetime together as family. But one is (kind of accidentally) a terrorist instead of just being bratty and from Napa. (Oh, Lindsay, what has become of you.)
Quote #6
The soldiers played soccer with a ball they had found in the basement and some days there was an actual game, the terrorists against the hostages, though the terrorists were so much younger and trained into better shape that they almost always won. (10.18)
If we had any doubts about the community that's growing here, this proves it. Playing soccer together means the terrorists and hostages have really transformed from completely hostile groups into their own small world. What could be better proof than a good ole game of footy?
Quote #7
When Messner came now he often found everyone in the yard. The priest got up from his digging and waved.
"How is the world?" Father Arguedas said to him.
"Impatient," Messner said. His Spanish kept improving, but still he asked for Gen. (10.19-21)
Yep, everyone's hanging out and chilling in the yard like a 4th of July barbecue. It's a community. But a community that doesn't realize how loudly and messily the outside world is going to barge into its party. Messner reminds Father Arguedas here, but it doesn't seem to sink in for most of the people in the yard. Those fireworks ain't going to be pretty.
Quote #8
Today, Ishmael, who was regularly humiliated in soccer, had set up the chess set on a low table near the piano and played with Mr. Hosokawa. (10.51)
In case we needed any more proof that the original distinctions between terrorists and hostages have blurred into some sort of larger community, the young terrorist Ishmael is practicing his chess with Mr. Hosokawa. Like the soccer games, the fact that General Benjamin and Mr. H play regularly really shows we've left behind the days when the two groups saw themselves as wholly separate—heck, not just separate: enemies. There are still differences, but no one really remembers what they are.
Quote #9
It felt like their own private city, which was exactly what the bride wanted, a very quiet wedding in the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini. A breeze came up and she held down her hat with her hand. (Epilogue.3)
Why so quiet? Because the community Gen and Roxane met in the unnamed South American country is mostly not here? Or because the people who would have been their partners in that community are dead, not to mention a bunch of the other terrorists who in a way became their friends? Okay, lots of reasons. Anyway, it's symbolically appropriate the Thibaults are here, because they're a couple who were half in the hostages' world and half out of it for most of the book. Who better to see Gen and Roxane through the transition to being together in the outside world?
Quote #10
He [Thibault] was sure that Gen and Roxane had married for love, the love of each other and the love of all the people they remembered. (Epilogue.29)
Gen and Roxane weren't in love with each other earlier in the book, but now they're getting married. Is that just about something they've found together as a couple, or is it also about a sense of connection to a community they can never have again, the one that formed in the vice president's mansion during the crisis?