The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is a bit of a puzzle. On the one hand, the novel has some interesting ideas and does a few things very well; on the other hand, it has some very notable problems. It’s an interesting jumble of parts that almost fit together.
The book starts out in third person, opening with a well-written prologue. There are some elegant passages here, and it really starts the book off on a high note. As we continue, a handful of characters are introduced, doing all sorts of interesting things that should be the start of a lengthy novel. Evil spider things that might be demons? Count me in. A mysterious guy who looking for someone specific that just might be in this tiny town? Sure, why not. Another mysterious guy whose eyes turns blue when he’s attacked by some kind of magic? Now I’m good to go!
But then the characters sit down to listen to one of them, Kvothe, narrate his life. The world is going to hell, but in this tiny part of it, a scribe is simply looking for a story. Fair enough, for as it turns out, Kvothe knows why the world has gone to hell.
And here is where the problems begin. The story is framed thusly: Three characters in the Wayside Inn are sitting around a table listening to Kvothe tell his entire life story which will take three days time. The bulk of the novel is Kvothe’s first person narration, and he starts at the very beginning when he was young and living with a traveling group of performers.
There are certain expectations one has when going into a true life narration told orally. We expect the narrator to have memory gaps, to stumble with his words, and to offer asides and explanations. We expect stretches of the truth and outright lies at some points because such things spice up the monotony of life. We expect flaws in a story that’s only been lived and never once been told from start to finish.
For the most part, we don’t get those things.
Kvothe narrates the first third of his life in this book with no problems of narration. He never stops and goes, “I don’t quite remember what happened next, but…”, and it’s established early on that he’s a reliable narrator and not someone lying. His ability to recall large conversations from his childhood to intricate problems of his time in school are simply not believable, and honestly, they become quite tiresome. Kvothe needs an editor.
It doesn’t help that some of the dialogue isn’t the best out there either. Much of it comes off as unnatural and overly pompous, as if all of the really smart characters are talking down and lecturing to those around them.
Kvothe himself is his own problem as well. He has lived an interesting life, but he isn’t an interesting character. Oh sure, he has his ups and downs, but the summation of his parts is: He is clever and really good at everything he tries to do. He’s a character who has suffered, but he’s also a character with no real flaws to his name. He is boring. Every challenge thrown before him is overcome, mostly with ease and self reliance. There are few struggles to his struggles, and so it’s really difficult to empathize with him.
A boring character with an interesting life makes for a puzzle of a novel.
The pacing is also a bit of a problem. Too much time is spent on the various areas Kvothe has visited, and considering Kvothe himself has only three days to tell his story, you’d think he’d glossed over the unimportant parts. A huge section is devoted to him being a poor beggar in Tarbean, and it’s filled with unneeded exposition and strange bouts of storytelling that those listening should already know. There were entire chapters that simply felt irrelevant.
This is supposed to be the “Kingkiller Chronicle” after all! I want to know about that, not the first time Kvothe gets his first pair of Tarbean-made shoes.
Thankfully, once Kvothe moves to the University, things pick up. We are introduced to some new characters that are all pretty fun and likeable, and the University itself is an interesting place. The reverse to that is Kvothe only has three days to tell his story, so spending the entire first day talking about his experiences at school seems an inefficient use of time.
Kvothe, being the clever sort that he is, has no problems with the University’s schoolwork or mastering difficult concepts of Sympathy (a kind of magic), so his next round of obstacles involve affording the school’s high tuition. It’s at this point that The Name of the Wind devolves into a slice-of-life affair where Kvote goes to school and tries to find jobs so he can keep going to school. It’s cute at first, but it grows a bit dull.
I feel like there’s so much more to this world and Kvothe’s adventuring than him borrowing money from shady individuals. I only wish The Name of the Wind shared my sentiments.
But, I love the way this book treats magic. I’m a sucker for books that try to describe magic—even though that’s counterintuitive—and this one does a fun job of it. Magic here is a kind of mix of alchemy and thermodynamics. Since everything is made up of matter and energy, Sympathy simply controls the way matter and energy link together.
It’s fun to see the uses of Sympathy and the academic explanations of it, though, since the laws of thermodynamics didn’t show up until the mid-1800’s, the whole thing becomes a bit of an anachronism. Kvothe’s time of living surely isn’t the 1800’s.
While Kvothe isn’t all that interesting, the characters he runs into are. Simmon and Will become his two friends, and they are likeable chaps that work well together, offering a nice handful of laughs and advice when required. Ambrose makes for a fine school antagonist, even if he is a tad cliché. The people that run the school are all fun and eccentric, and the former student Auri is a perfect mix of adorable and broken. Her relationship with Kvothe is well written, sweet, and a bit sad too. She stands out as being the best part of this novel.
Denna, the love interest, is also pretty interesting and a nice mirror to Kvothe. Whereas Kvothe overcomes all of his obstacles by being clever, she has to use more normal and less law-abiding methods; whereas Kvothe can be manipulative, she straight-up uses people. She’s a great foil and the two make for an interesting, if not awkward, pair.
It’s a shame that The Name of the Wind doesn’t have a real sense of buildup or decent climax. Things happen, and then it’s pretty much over. I can pinpoint what is supposed to be the climax, but it isn’t all that exciting and ends with Kvothe being the hero because he has to be. What comes after is a bit on the boring side, and there’s certainly no sense of closure. The story is told like there are two parts to follow, and so the more important climax is somewhere in the second or third novel.
If you can get over the framing issues, there are some good things here. My biggest gripe was the way the book was framed; it’s just not an efficient way to write a story. Patrick Rothfus’s third person sections are great, so I don’t know why the entire novel isn’t written that way. And though Kvothe might not be an interesting character (and though he might be a bit long winded in his details), the world he is in sure can be, and the characters he encounters surely are. It’s a book that’s hard to recommend since there are better fantasy novels out there, but it’s also not a book that is straight out bad. I had some fun with it though, notable problems notwithstanding.
It’s… a puzzle.
