Review: The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Review: The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

by Rich Horton

[I wrote this for my blog back in 2009. I will confess that I haven't yet read the sequel, The Wise Man's Fear. I am aware that he has written a few more short pieces after that -- including a novella, "The Narrow Road Between Desires", in 2023 -- but not the much awaited third novel. So be it -- I am not one to resent writers who are having difficulty finishing their long-awaited series -- I'm not in their shoes, but I do know it can be hard to get things just right, especially as time passes and people change.]

The Name of the Wind is Patrick Rothfuss's first novel, from 2007. This is the first of a series, the Kingkiller Chronicles, presumably at least a trilogy. The Name of the Wind itself is well over a quarter of a million words long -- which is to say, it's a Fat Fantasy, sure enough. And I don't usually read Fat Fantasy Trilogies, more because of time than any particular reason. But I read and greatly enjoyed and decided to reprint in my Best of the Year book his story "The Road to Levinshir". (Some people told me that that story is an excerpt from The Name of the Wind, which is simply false. It does feature Kvothe, the hero of The Name of the Wind, and perhaps the story, in some form, will show up later in the series. An early version of it was included in a Writers of the Future anthology.) So I figured I ought to try the novel.

Right from the start I was enthralled by The Name of the Wind . It is in some ways hard to exactly pinpoint what makes the book particularly good. Is it fabulously original? No, not really, though the magical system, while based on familiar principles, is well depicted. Is it full of edge of the seat action? Not really, though there are some nice sequences. Is the plot gripping and/or brilliantly constructed? Well, it may end up that way, but this is book one of a trilogy, and nothing is really resolved. Is the villain compelling? Well, we haven't exactly met the principal villain yet -- or perhaps we have, but only tangentially -- and the minor villain that occupies much of the action is just that, a minor annoying twit. Is the story amazingly romantic? Well, the main character, about 16 at the end of the action, remains a virgin, and the girl he seems to love is always with other men ... I dissemble a bit, here, because the love story (so far) in this book is interesting, but it is surely not at all resolved.

So, what did I like, then? I guess the main thing is the central character -- well, and the characters in general. The main character is very well depicted, and very likable, though (as with so many novels in this genre) he is rather the amazingly talented superhero: superintelligent, an amazing musician, attractive to women, brilliant at magic. (In this, as in the complete villainy of the bad guys (to the extent we encounter them), and the fabulous looks of the women, the novel does hew closely to convention. I didn't like this book because it did anything especially new, just because it did what it does very well.) The side characters are closer to types, but engaging types. I should also mention that the world -- only lightly touched on so far -- while again quite a conventional secondary world, still gives a feeling of realness. And, too, Rothfuss has that storytelling touch -- you always want to turn the page. Perhaps one thing he does is make even small events interesting. 

Well, then, what's the book about. It is fairly nicely framed. In a remote country town there is evidence of sinister events, such as spiderlike, almost mechanical, magical things attacking. In this context we meet the owner of a not very successful inn, who seems to know a bit more than one might expect about magic, and the spiderlike beings. This could be a setup for events just about to happen -- but then appears a wanderer who calls himself Chronicler, and who is looking for the real story of a legendary hero -- who, it appears, is the barman, Kote, better known to history and legend as Kvothe. After some prodding, Kvothe agrees to tell his story to Chronicler, and also to Kvothe's assistant/apprentice, a Fae named Bast. 

And in this book we learn of the first decade and a half or so of Kvothe's life. His childhood with the gypsy-like travelling performers, the Edema Ruh, where he learns to act and sing and play the lute. His early exposure to magical principles. And then the shattering murder of his entire troupe by the almost legendary evil figures, the Chandrian.

Kvothe vows to find out more about the Chandrian, perhaps at the University, to which his magician mentor had urged him to go when he came of age. But first the boy spends three hard years in the slums of a large city, learning basically at the school of hard knocks. Finally he becomes old enough, and gets the opportunity, to travel to the University. There he encounters further financial issues (it turns out schooling costs money!), difficulty with some hidebound professors (but help from others), and rivalry with a vile upperclass twit (who we know is especially vile because he abuses women). He begins to learn more about magic, but not much about the Chandrian. He plays a lot more music. And he meets an enchanting girl, a couple of years older than him, named Denna, who is hard to keep track of ... And, at the end, he tracks down rumors of the Chandrian, and an actual dragon. Though not quite a dragon as we might think of them!

In the end, what I assume to be the primary plot of the trilogy was only barely introduced. But that's OK really -- perhaps this novel is at one level scene setting, but it's very good scene setting, very absorbing -- and I think perhaps spending the first novel setting a scene might be a way to avoid middle novel problems!