The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

It is now 2011, so now I can talk about books I've read on this blog and start actually reviewing them AND putting them towards the challenge! Though really the first few will be extraneous because I did (technically) read them in 2010, but I'll add more to the end to make up for it. We'll try for 15 books instead of 12, sound good?

So the first book I'm reviewing is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This is his debut novel, and I'm one of those people who've never REALLY graduated from reading YA fantasy to reading adult fantasy, and there's so few adult fantasy writers I respect and enjoy reading . . . well, let's say if I wasn't about to get on a five hour flight, I probably wouldn't even have picked it up when I did. It did come well recommended to me though, courtesy of a friend in law school, so I thought "What the heck, I'll give it a shot" when I was in the airport bookstore.

Right away, the blurb on the back of the book attracts me:

            My name is Kvothe.

            I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make minstrels weep.

            You may have heard of me.

Unfortunately, exactly zero of that actually appears in this book. Well, maybe the burning of Trebon does. But it’s much less exciting than that implies. One of the traits I definitely don't like as much about adult fantasy is that the stories aren't very self-contained - it's hard to get a book that isn't part of a series. That's not always a bad thing - most of YA fantasy is like that as well. The difference is that in YA fantasy there IS an ending forthcoming - it's not left as open-ended as, say, McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series or god forbid Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” series. However, that’s not to say the book was bad; I definitely felt cheated that none of that was actually in the book I was holding in my hands, but at the same time I didn’t really want to put the book down.

The Name of the Wind is the first book of a trilogy, and sets out a lot of the basics. This is the story of a hero, Kvothe, told in his own words. This book seems to cover mostly background and the character’s motivations. Kvothe was born in a famed wandering theatre troupe called the Edema Ruh, and while he was there he learned acting skills that certainly come into play later in the book. His parents and the rest of the group is murdered by almost mythical demons called the Chaldeans over a historical song his father was writing about them, and Kvothe flees and becomes a street child in the city of Tarbean. The murder of his parents sets out Kvothe’s obsession in learning more about the Chaldeans and provides his main motivation for going to the University to learn about the names of things (a sort of combination of magic and science). On the streets of Tarbean, Kvothe picks up many personality traits, most notably a strong impulse to avoid being seen as weak; this later influences his name of “Kvothe the Bloodless” because he took numbing drugs to avoid passing out at his whippings for misconduct at the University, and the drugs had a coagulating effect which caused him not to bleed during the punishment. At the University, Kvothe meets his first true friends, first true enemies and falls in love. At the end of the novel, Kvothe is about 16 and has not been expelled yet, though that is strongly foreshadowed.

What I like about Kvothe and this book is his style of telling it. While we understand from others’ actions and other people’s treatment of Kvothe that he is remarkable, Kvothe himself in telling the story doesn’t come off as a hero but as a person. He’s relatable, which really allows us to connect with him. Unfortunately, we don’t get that sort of attachment to the vast majority of the other characters; while Kvothe feels like a fully fleshed out person, all the other characters feel a little bit extraneous – Denna is important because Kvothe is desperately in love with her, and we know that she travels a lot and is a beautiful singer and has no family, but somehow we’re unable to connect with her. Kvothe’s friends at the University, whose names I don’t even remember because that is exactly how much they stood out to me, feel like placeholders because it’s almost as if they exist because the main character is supposed to have friends. I would have liked to see more fleshed out secondary characters.

Another problem I had with it was that the foreshadowing was like a 2x4 hitting you across the head. I found that I really wasn’t surprised by much in the book. While I really enjoyed the book’s execution, a lot of what happened had been so strongly foreshadowed that it just felt like “naturally, that is what happens.” Part of this might be Kvothe’s storytelling style, because the events I am surprised by are mostly outside of Kvothe’s story itself and in the framework of the dictation method. Kvothe, now an inn owner and bartender in a small town under the name Kote, is dictating his story to a famed scribe, while it’s mentioned (though it doesn’t feature prominently – talk about foreshadowing delicacy of a baseball bat) that in the outside world some demons are making a comeback. Combining this with the word of Kvothe’s assistant, Bast, at the end of the book “It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story”, I’m going to guess that Kvothe comes out of retirement by the end of book 3 to help face the rising demonic tide. Or something like that. That said, the quote above is probably my favourite lines in the whole 700+ page novel, because I think it speaks to something about us and about who we are – we become, ultimately, what we see ourselves to be.

So in summary, Rothfuss earns major points on execution – even if I’m not particularly surprised by anything that happens in the book, I still want to see how he does it. Kvothe is a hero but at the same time he’s a person that we can relate to, though I wish we could see more of that in his secondary characters. And the foreshadowing could definitely use more delicacy. All in all, I’ll definitely be reading the next one when it comes out.