Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by tiasmith
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
3.0
My three stars isn't fair, because I've started the second book. Rothfuss spent more time with the prose in the second, and many of the issues I have with the first book are barely visible there. I can't give this two stars, because I obviously liked it enough to continue to the next book; but I really don't feel that this book--standalone--deserves more than three.
I can see why Kvothe's story polarized my friends. There are many small issues that culminate into one big issue: it's boring. For all the interesting things that happen in it, it's a boring read. Kvothe has faked his death and opened an inn in a backwater town. He's content to listen to the locals share inaccurate stories of his legendary escapades until a scribe finds him and asks to record his life story. He obliges, and the story begins. Kvothe was raised a bard and became a famous arcanist after the Chandrian killed his troop. This shouldn't be boring, so why is it?
1. Rothfuss struggles with pacing. He admits to this in his review of The Lies of Locke Lamora. It takes too long to start. We spend hundreds of pages with Kvothe before he even reaches the university--a location that was introduced in the first 50 pages. The extraneous scenes become burdensome, and many read like a writer forcing himself through writer's block. They contribute nothing to the story or to the world: Kvothe's random conversations with undeveloped characters that never appear again; his struggle with poverty in Tarbean; the introduction and immediate dismissal of Skarpi; Denna.
2. There aren't any characters except Kvothe. For all of the words dedicated to Kvothe's admiration of and obsession with Denna, she falls as flat as every other non-Kvothe character in the book. By the end of the book, I couldn't describe Denna or Kvothe's two best friends (Wilem and Simmon) outside of their physical appearance. Fantasy favors telling over showing, but, even for the genre, there were very few things shown to me.
3. Rothfuss obsesses over simile and adverbs throughout the book. No one can just smile or sigh or shrug. They smile like the sun or exhale forcefully. A character can't do anything without a modification, and this weakens the strong comparisons (such as my personal favorite, where trees lined a road like stubborn old men on porches). This thick layer of weak imagery makes it difficult to read dialogue-heavy scenes, as character tend to move around and breathe a lot.
4. The book just ends. Readers say this a lot about series without considering the difficulty of juggling an overarching plot for all books, a plot for each book, and subplots for each book, chapter, and character. In this case, though, I'm with the rabble. The overarching plot is Kvothe's life with a probable emphasis on the Chandrian, but I don't know the plot of the The Name of the Wind. It ends in the middle of his university training without warning.
So, what kept me reading? Kvothe advances his own plot, which isn't common in fantasy. He actively makes decisions that impact the course of the story. It's one of his charms: his ability to make horrible decisions seem like good ideas. I love him for it, but I could see how, if you don't enjoy Kvothe, this book would be unreadable. He's a genius, charismatic underdog. There's a specific audience for that type of character.
Rothfuss builds great suspense and expectation for Kvothe's future. I know he is destined for great adventures, and I want to know as much as possible about the Chandrian. So I kept at it, and, like many other series, the second book is much better than the first.
I can see why Kvothe's story polarized my friends. There are many small issues that culminate into one big issue: it's boring. For all the interesting things that happen in it, it's a boring read. Kvothe has faked his death and opened an inn in a backwater town. He's content to listen to the locals share inaccurate stories of his legendary escapades until a scribe finds him and asks to record his life story. He obliges, and the story begins. Kvothe was raised a bard and became a famous arcanist after the Chandrian killed his troop. This shouldn't be boring, so why is it?
1. Rothfuss struggles with pacing. He admits to this in his review of The Lies of Locke Lamora. It takes too long to start. We spend hundreds of pages with Kvothe before he even reaches the university--a location that was introduced in the first 50 pages. The extraneous scenes become burdensome, and many read like a writer forcing himself through writer's block. They contribute nothing to the story or to the world: Kvothe's random conversations with undeveloped characters that never appear again; his struggle with poverty in Tarbean; the introduction and immediate dismissal of Skarpi; Denna.
2. There aren't any characters except Kvothe. For all of the words dedicated to Kvothe's admiration of and obsession with Denna, she falls as flat as every other non-Kvothe character in the book. By the end of the book, I couldn't describe Denna or Kvothe's two best friends (Wilem and Simmon) outside of their physical appearance. Fantasy favors telling over showing, but, even for the genre, there were very few things shown to me.
3. Rothfuss obsesses over simile and adverbs throughout the book. No one can just smile or sigh or shrug. They smile like the sun or exhale forcefully. A character can't do anything without a modification, and this weakens the strong comparisons (such as my personal favorite, where trees lined a road like stubborn old men on porches). This thick layer of weak imagery makes it difficult to read dialogue-heavy scenes, as character tend to move around and breathe a lot.
4. The book just ends. Readers say this a lot about series without considering the difficulty of juggling an overarching plot for all books, a plot for each book, and subplots for each book, chapter, and character. In this case, though, I'm with the rabble. The overarching plot is Kvothe's life with a probable emphasis on the Chandrian, but I don't know the plot of the The Name of the Wind. It ends in the middle of his university training without warning.
So, what kept me reading? Kvothe advances his own plot, which isn't common in fantasy. He actively makes decisions that impact the course of the story. It's one of his charms: his ability to make horrible decisions seem like good ideas. I love him for it, but I could see how, if you don't enjoy Kvothe, this book would be unreadable. He's a genius, charismatic underdog. There's a specific audience for that type of character.
Rothfuss builds great suspense and expectation for Kvothe's future. I know he is destined for great adventures, and I want to know as much as possible about the Chandrian. So I kept at it, and, like many other series, the second book is much better than the first.