Review of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
note: I experienced this in audiobook form, read by Nick Podehl
The Name of the Wind is a deeply engaging debut novel, from new fantasist Patrick Rothfuss. It is rather unique in that most of the story is told in first person by the main character, Kvothe, to a scribe known as Chronicler (his actual name is Devan). Kvothe has assumed a new name and taken up a quiet life as an Innkeep in a small town presumably to escape from a notorious past. He seems content in his mundane new life but also rather depressed. In fact, he’s described as “a man who is waiting to die” in the Prologue. Though he’s isolated himself from the world at large, stories involving Kvothe’s past adventures have caught up with him and the retellings have become largely distorted and unnerving. He looks upon Chronicler as his means to set the stories straight. But while Chronicler is anxious to get to the juicy bits, Kvothe says it’s important to start from the very beginning to truly understand how he earned his renowned reputation. And so the story begins. Wind is actually the first in a trilogy of books and as such has the secondary title – The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One – referring to Kvothe’s first day of honest re-telling to Chronicler. When asked about the story’s scope, Rothfuss writes:
“This story started with Kvothe’s character. I knew it was going to be about him from the very beginning. In some ways it’s the simplest story possible: it’s the story of a man’s life. It’s the myth of the Hero seen from backstage. It’s about the exploration and revelation of a world, but it’s also about Kvothe’s desire to uncover the truth hidden underneath the stories in his world. The story is a lot of things, I guess. As you can tell, I’m not very good at describing it. I always tell people, “If I could sum it up in 50 words, I wouldn’t have needed to write a whole novel about it.” I didn’t plan it as a trilogy though. I just wrote it and it got to be so long that it had to be broken up into pieces. There were three natural breaking points in the story… Hence the Trilogy.” — from 10 Second Interview – A Few Words with Patrick Rothfuss on Amazon.com
The world Rothfuss paints is easy to slip into. It doesn’t differ much from the familiar late-Medieval/European Renaissance/Elizabethan era type setting found in so many other books in the fantasy genre. What gives it a special flavor though is its strange history which involves an elder race and a terrible centuries long conflict called the Creation War. There’s a tragic love story involving some powerful beings followed by terrible repercussions and betrayals. Dark remnants of this strange past may be encroaching on the present. We meet one in the form of scrael, badger-sized spiders of living stone, that attack Chronicler shortly after he chances upon Kvothe at a campfire one night. The mystery behind their emergence brings a whole new level of eeriness to the story that really draws you in. We also meet Bast, who’s described as Kvothe’s student, but seems more like a demon-familiar and a hanger-on from the glory days.
Kvothe’s driving motivation is revealed early as he relates his life story. While still a boy, Kvothe’s parents are murdered by a group of demonic beings known as the Chandrian led by a shadow-wrapped figure named Haliax. Kvothe is told his parents were murdered for “singing entirely the wrong sort of songs.” Kvothe’s life is spared for reasons unclear, but the experience totally alters him. He sinks into depression and survives only by soothing his heart with music. Yet, he does not succumb to melancholy for long. The pain of his loss is tremendous, but he is driven from the abyss by a fierce desire to understand why his parents were murdered so casually. Who were these demons? Kvothe makes it his life mission to solve the mystery.
Kvothe possesses a beautiful mind. Not only does he excel at music, but he has a natural gift for solving challenging problems and a bottomless thirst for knowledge. He endeavors to master the secrets of the physical world and to delve beyond it and learn magic of the sort in story and song. He comes across as arrogant but never snotty or snooty. He’s just extremely intelligent. Kvothe started his education on the road with his parents’ thespian troupe. A road companion named Abenthy took him under his wing and began to teach him the basics of Sympathy which whetted Kvothe’s appetite to learn magic. Sympathy relates to creating bindings or links between things on a metaphysical level to accomplish astonishing feats like starting a fire from a distance. It’s an interesting system and Rothfuss leads us into it gradually and as thoughtfully as if we were learning it too.
Ultimately, what Kvothe truly wants is to learn the magic of Naming, so he can control the wind, call down fire and lightning, and split stone like the storied magician of yore, Taborlin the Great. After the death of Kvothe’s parents and a brief period spent living as a grubby shoeless urchin, Kvothe sees an opportunity to advance his mission by entering a prestigious University that stands across the river from the town of Imre. He wheedles his way in by impressing the school masters with his brilliant mind. Kvothe proceeds to develop his skills and expand his knowledge and he meets some interesting people, friend and foe alike. At this point, the story almost bears resemblance to Harry Potter and Hogwarts. Though I think Kvothe’s origin and world seems quite a bit more believable. The idea of masters who each specialize in some specific area of arcane knowledge is not new but Rothfuss does a fine job of presenting it in an utterly convincing way. Memories of a long ago read book by Lyndon Hardy titled Master of the Five Magics also came back to me, though again, I think Rothfuss presented his material in a fresh way and much more convincingly.
While Kvothe does not suffer from a lack of wits, he fights a continual battle with poverty. And while he gets his foot in the door at the University, he must struggle for ways to earn borrow or steal the coin he needs to keep up with tuition and expenses. He’s also quite prideful and loathe to accept any charity or borrow from his friends. Eventually, he does go to a moneylender for aid, takes advantage of his musical talents to give himself a means of support, and takes on some physical work as well. Aside from his quest for knowledge, he is very interested in the University because of it’s fabulously vast library. He believes he will find answers to a thousand questions concerning the demons who killed his parents hidden some where in its ancient tomes.
Kvothe crosses paths with a number of intriguing young women, a few of whom offer compelling love interests. The first is the moneylender named Devi who turns out to be the most interesting of the lot; the second is a student named Fela who serves as a Scriv, someone who works in the University library’s protected archives – a place that Kvothe desperately wants to get into; and finally, there is a singer named Denna who appears to live off the support of one gentleman sponsor to the next as suits her whim. While not described as a whore, Denna unfortunately fits that profile to a tee and is by far the most annoying and aggravating woman who enters Kvothe’s tale. Of course this means Kvothe develops the strongest liking for Denna, and he suffers for it immensely. It’s not really Denna’s fault. Kvothe simply is a bumbling idiot when it comes to relationships with women. Kvothe’s puppy-love pursuit of Denna is a bit like chasing after a goal that keeps turning a corner and getting away. I really hope the agony doesn’t persist into the next book. Devi seems like a much better match for him.
Kvothe performs some impressive heroics in the story which foretell bigger things to come. He seems rather brash and fearless about it and he pays the price accordingly. Still, you can’t help but cheer for him. By the end of Chronicler’s first day of scribing, I was longing to learn what happens next. The book didn’t end there, though. The narrative switches back to third person and the present. A strange visitor happens into the Waystone Inn that night which continues the sense of eerie wonder and dread that began with the scrael attack. Something sinister is after Kvothe. Also, more than ever, we want to know why Kvothe’s holed up and living a simpleton’s life and not out battling dark forces with all his learned skills and natural ability. What happened to Denna, Fela, and Devi? Did Kvothe pair up with any of them? Is Bast one of the Amyr?
Originally published in 2007, Wind is a hefty piece of work but well worth reading. The writing itself is extremely good and flows nicely. Straightforward, just the right amount of description, and completely accessible. On the downside, it seemed filtered or tamed down for a younger audience, similar to Brandon Sanderson’s style. The next book, The Wise Man’s Fear – The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two – is more weighty still, but the immersive first-person narrative should make it go down smoothly. Kvothe’s life-story is deeply realized, full of emotions, conflicts, and heroics. I will definitely keep reading.
8/10