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A review by ryanboros
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
5.0
The Kingkiller Chronicle is the story of Kvothe, a singer, magician, and adventurer of much renown. He is essentially the modern Odysseus of his world and his tales are the stuff of folklore and legend. After removing himself from public life, Kvothe becomes an anonymous innkeeper in an obscure village. He is tracked down by "The Great Debunker," the scribe known as Chronicler who has a knack for finding the truth behind the legend. With some persuading, Chronicler convinces Kvothe to tell his real story over the span of 3 days. The Name of the Wind is the first day of his story. The book is told in two levels, in the present day with Kvothe's third person interactions with Chronicler, his assistant Bast, and the local town folk, as well as in his first person narrative on his life story.
Kvothe is an interesting character. While he's incredibly intelligent, bold, and clever, he definitely makes his share of mistakes, both due to his youth and inexperience in the beginning and his sharp tongue and quick temper. This helps make him a sympathetic character. His penchant to make powerful enemies foreshadows that his story will probably in tragedy. Despite that fact, I don't feel that the story is depressing at all in tone.
What I like best about Kvothe's story is that the reader not only learns the truth about Kvothe, one learns the truth of the mysteries of Kvothe's world as well. Be it fairy tale or country folklore surrounding the Chandrian, the Fae, the Tehlan Church or the Amir, or mysterious idiosyncrasies of cultural groups like the Adem mercenaries and his own Edema Ruh, Kvothe relentless searches for truth behind them all. So its significant when Kvothe comes across a new story during his own narration, because it leads to a deeper truth behind the secrets of his world.
It's not the perfect story. Being a long form fantasy with the initial conceit of Kvothe telling his story in three days, sometimes it feels like Kvothe is spending too much times on certain aspects of the story, like his time at the University. But that's really the only complaint I have so far. The story within a story works very well. Kvothe's adventures are pretty cool and as a reader I root for him to come out of whatever forced him into hiding and resume a heroic role (leading to a story beyond book 3 maybe). I want to solve the mysteries of the story as much as Kvothe does sometimes. It's a great read and I highly recommend it.
Kvothe is an interesting character. While he's incredibly intelligent, bold, and clever, he definitely makes his share of mistakes, both due to his youth and inexperience in the beginning and his sharp tongue and quick temper. This helps make him a sympathetic character. His penchant to make powerful enemies foreshadows that his story will probably in tragedy. Despite that fact, I don't feel that the story is depressing at all in tone.
What I like best about Kvothe's story is that the reader not only learns the truth about Kvothe, one learns the truth of the mysteries of Kvothe's world as well. Be it fairy tale or country folklore surrounding the Chandrian, the Fae, the Tehlan Church or the Amir, or mysterious idiosyncrasies of cultural groups like the Adem mercenaries and his own Edema Ruh, Kvothe relentless searches for truth behind them all. So its significant when Kvothe comes across a new story during his own narration, because it leads to a deeper truth behind the secrets of his world.
It's not the perfect story. Being a long form fantasy with the initial conceit of Kvothe telling his story in three days, sometimes it feels like Kvothe is spending too much times on certain aspects of the story, like his time at the University. But that's really the only complaint I have so far. The story within a story works very well. Kvothe's adventures are pretty cool and as a reader I root for him to come out of whatever forced him into hiding and resume a heroic role (leading to a story beyond book 3 maybe). I want to solve the mysteries of the story as much as Kvothe does sometimes. It's a great read and I highly recommend it.