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Dale's review

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One)
by Patrick Rothfuss

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186074.The_Name_of_the_Wind?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One)" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1172529959m/186074.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186074.The_Name_of_the_Wind?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Name of the Wind</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/108424.Patrick_Rothfuss">Patrick Rothfuss</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5411212?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars This is the eleventh book I read on the commute. I had been meaning to read it ever since reading the review of it in The AV Club, which said that it was not just the best new fantasy novel of the past ten years, but flat-out the best story of any genre in any medium in the past ten years.
 
 A word, if I may, about genres. Obviously I am a huge nerd/geek/dork and I have, in my life, voraciously consumed reams and reams of writing, good and bad, that has anything to do with magic, monsters, aliens, superheroes, and junks like that. Sometimes I feel a little bit bad about that. I feel I should be reading more "serious" literature, partly because variety is the spice of life and partly because it is a serious world we live in and I need to be a "serious" adult. Granted, I don't feel this way very often, but still. So when the New Commute started, and I realized I'd be reading a lot more on a much more regular basis, I thought it was as good a time as any to intentionally step outside my comfort zone and read more "serious" literature - more classics, more non-fiction, more contemporary lit, etc.
 
 How am I doing so far? Still skewed heavily towards genre fiction, I'm afraid. Ten books in, the count was as follows: one classic of literature (Ulysses), three non-fiction books (Reading Lolita in Tehran, The Tipping Point, and Busting Vegas), one modern (using the term loosely) novel (Still Life With Woodpecker), and five genre novels (a Dungeons & Dragons trilogy, the last Harry Potter, and the horror novel Hell House). I'll keep the count updated, but The Name of The Wind does definitely fall in the genre column as well.
 
 But it also utterly transcends the fantasy ghetto as well. It is a first-person fictional memoir about a gypsy boy named Kvothe who as a child learns a little magic from a traveling alchemist, is forced to survive for years on the streets, and then as a young man pulls himself up by his bootstraps to attend the university where his magical education will continue. The first-person recollections are framed by a larger story about a historian tracking Kvothe down in order to get his life story, at a time when it seems that the same demons that orphaned Kvothe may be rising to threaten the land again. The storytelling is phenomenal, as Kvothe's story goes from funny to sweet to heartbreaking to scary and back again. The characters spring to life with every word they speak. And the author has created a unique fantasy world, complete with its own mythology, its own explanation for how magic works, and its own societies, meticulously constructed right down to the level of systems of currency. It's all bloody brilliant, but never in a way that beats you over the head. No long-winded side discourses about the creation myths or treasury politics, it's all just unobtrusively in the background, making everything seem rich and real. The sequel comes out in April 2008 and I cannot wait to add it to my "to-read" list then.
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/329383?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Dale's review
rating:

This is the eleventh book I read on the commute. I had been meaning to read it ever since reading the review of it in The AV Club, which said that it was not just the best new fantasy novel of the past ten years, but flat-out the best story of any genre in any medium in the past ten years.

A word, if I may, about genres. Obviously I am a huge nerd/geek/dork and I have, in my life, voraciously consumed reams and reams of writing, good and bad, that has anything to do with magic, monsters, aliens, superheroes, and junks like that. Sometimes I feel a little bit bad about that. I feel I should be reading more "serious" literature, partly because variety is the spice of life and partly because it is a serious world we live in and I need to be a "serious" adult. Granted, I don't feel this way very often, but still. So when the New Commute started, and I realized I'd be reading a lot more on a much more regular basis, I thought it was as good a time as any to inte...more This is the eleventh book I read on the commute. I had been meaning to read it ever since reading the review of it in The AV Club, which said that it was not just the best new fantasy novel of the past ten years, but flat-out the best story of any genre in any medium in the past ten years.

A word, if I may, about genres. Obviously I am a huge nerd/geek/dork and I have, in my life, voraciously consumed reams and reams of writing, good and bad, that has anything to do with magic, monsters, aliens, superheroes, and junks like that. Sometimes I feel a little bit bad about that. I feel I should be reading more "serious" literature, partly because variety is the spice of life and partly because it is a serious world we live in and I need to be a "serious" adult. Granted, I don't feel this way very often, but still. So when the New Commute started, and I realized I'd be reading a lot more on a much more regular basis, I thought it was as good a time as any to intentionally step outside my comfort zone and read more "serious" literature - more classics, more non-fiction, more contemporary lit, etc.

How am I doing so far? Still skewed heavily towards genre fiction, I'm afraid. Ten books in, the count was as follows: one classic of literature (Ulysses), three non-fiction books (Reading Lolita in Tehran, The Tipping Point, and Busting Vegas), one modern (using the term loosely) novel (Still Life With Woodpecker), and five genre novels (a Dungeons & Dragons trilogy, the last Harry Potter, and the horror novel Hell House). I'll keep the count updated, but The Name of The Wind does definitely fall in the genre column as well.

But it also utterly transcends the fantasy ghetto as well. It is a first-person fictional memoir about a gypsy boy named Kvothe who as a child learns a little magic from a traveling alchemist, is forced to survive for years on the streets, and then as a young man pulls himself up by his bootstraps to attend the university where his magical education will continue. The first-person recollections are framed by a larger story about a historian tracking Kvothe down in order to get his life story, at a time when it seems that the same demons that orphaned Kvothe may be rising to threaten the land again. The storytelling is phenomenal, as Kvothe's story goes from funny to sweet to heartbreaking to scary and back again. The characters spring to life with every word they speak. And the author has created a unique fantasy world, complete with its own mythology, its own explanation for how magic works, and its own societies, meticulously constructed right down to the level of systems of currency. It's all bloody brilliant, but never in a way that beats you over the head. No long-winded side discourses about the creation myths or treasury politics, it's all just unobtrusively in the background, making everything seem rich and real. The sequel comes out in April 2008 and I cannot wait to add it to my "to-read" list then.
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message 1: by Christine

10/25/2007 05:37AM

I love your comments Dale! I have the same problem. I find myself picking up the fantasy books before the other "serious" literature. Mostly because I can breeze through them and in my "real" life I've been going to school and studying one realm of serious stuff so reading becomes my break.

Now that I'm almost done studying (for the most part), I'm trying to be more balanced.

But that being said, this books sounds very intriguing. . .