My rating - 8/10
It's a book about the opera. It's a book about "friendship and love". It is one of those books that have a slow buildup; that is however followed by an abrupt climax, and a startlingly unbelievable ending. But that, I guess, is life.
"Beautiful music" - the title says it all. When you read this story, you feel a certain peace in your heart. A host of people, all fairly important in their own spheres of life, are gathered for a birthday party (read that as a diplomatic gathering) in a politically unstable country in Latin America. The evening proceeds beautifully until they are surprised by a guerrilla attack; they are taken hostage in the very same vice-presidential manor where the party was being arranged. The story is loosely based on the hostage situation created in Peru in 1996-'97, when guests attending a party in the Japanese ambassador's residence were taken hostage by a group of guerrillas. As in the real-life event, the story also has the guerrillas holding their post for quite a few months.
The story describes what goes on inside the house. It describes how the hostages and the terrorists gradually form bonding, how friendship and love bloom in that isolated environment. It concentrates on the positive sides of the human nature - love, compassion, companionship - even among terrorists and their hostages. Because we must never forget that even the terrorists are human beings, comprising of equally good and bad characters; and sometimes when their cause is justified, they are not so bad after all!
The slow pace of the storytelling takes you in. You settle down with the characters, into their long days of little or no work. The story beautifully portrays the self-development led by the absence of one's daily activities. When you do not spend all your day doing all the work you have to finish, running against deadlines, when your schedule is completely empty, it is then that you have time to think, you have time to comprehend who you are, what you inherently like. You still find out some job that you can perform; although it may be radically different from your normal profession. The characters in the story develop with such self-explorations.
A big part of the story, as is apparent through the title, is music. Music is what brings them all together. The effect of music on the soul is made apparent, how it soothes the mind, relaxes the body. The reader feels that soothing effect of music through the words read.
When you read through the chapters, at some point in time, you start thinking that life cannot be so perfect. Maybe that is the beauty of the story, it makes you apprehend the ending somehow. It makes you fear that something is going to go wrong, and when it does, you are horrified, but not surprised. The massacre brought about in the end is swift - it is over before you comprehend what happened - almost as it must have happened in real life.
The blending of fiction and reality in this story is what makes it so lovable to the reader. The buildup of the Utopian society within the walls of the mansion makes you hold your breath, because although you want it to be true, you realize it is too ideal. You wait with bated breath for reality to take over. You are somehow even relieved when it finally does; especially when it shatters every single relationship that was made - at least you do not have to feel sad about a part of it being destroyed. The finality of the massacre is the genius of the author - she took advantage of the pessimistic nature of the sadist mankind.
The absurdity of the epilogue is another strike of pure genius. It makes sense, although it seems so genuinely absurd. But then, when people face such a chain of incredible incidents together, they have to live it out with each other's company. That is the only choice left to them.
This story touched my heart, as I am sure it will touch yours, my dear readers. Take this one up for the sheer pleasure of experiencing music through words - the Music of Life.
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