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The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)

Patrick Rothfuss

Discussion: . Week 41: Magic

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. Week 41: Magic

* Week 41: Progress Post
By Zaz , Mood Minion · 13 posts · 32 views

last updated Dec 30, 2015 09:51AM

* Week 41: Introduction
By Zaz , Mood Minion · 1 post · 41 views

last updated Aug 01, 2015 09:37AM

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Dec 23, 2014 Jukka Särkijärvi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, student-life

Some years ago, I was at a convention, where a panelist described an acquaintance of hers at Oxford who was studying children's literature. She had this theory of Tolkienian fantasy literature as conceived in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where heroes had to study, the heroes had to learn things from books, they had to be smarter than they were strong to prevail. Gandalf was a researcher, not a fireball-flinger.

It was years ago and my faulty mortal memory is probably mangling her res Some years ago, I was at a convention, where a panelist described an acquaintance of hers at Oxford who was studying children's literature. She had this theory of Tolkienian fantasy literature as conceived in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where heroes had to study, the heroes had to learn things from books, they had to be smarter than they were strong to prevail. Gandalf was a researcher, not a fireball-flinger.

It was years ago and my faulty mortal memory is probably mangling her research, The Name of the Wind reminded me of that panel. We have our hero, Kvothe, who goes to the University, and he spends most of the novel's over 700 pages attending it. You can tell that Rothfuss is drawing on his own experiences in writing about it, and those of us involved in the university experience will recognize many elements, even if we weren't taught naming and alchemy. The student who's been enrolled for decades, for instance? I totally know that guy.

His defining characteristic is that he's smart. He solves problems by his wits rather than his mighty thews or swordsmanship.

There is in The Name of the Wind a subversion of many tropes of fantasy literature. In addition to the hero being intelligent rather than strong – and believably written as intelligent, I might add – there is this ongoing theme of things rarely going like storybook logic dictates. There's also a dragon. It's not what you'd expect.

Of course, a lot of those subversions are fairly explicit and draw attention to themselves, partly because the story is narrated by Kvothe himself, and Kvothe is well acquainted with the workings of tales and stories. Being the narrator (named Kvothe, heh heh), I suspect he is unreliable to some degree, but determining the amount of bullshit he's feeding the reader is something for the reread. There is probably a fair bit, since he's an egotistic asshole.

An egotistic asshole is not usually the kind of character one wants to read about for great length, but here the tale is delivered by Patrick Rothfuss's prose. He has a poet's way with words, and a wonderful ability to build atmosphere and hook in the reader. I've rarely encountered such a skill with foreboding. I lost two night's sleep to this novel.

I recommend it. Rothfuss is not being terribly original, but he is doing things few have done before him, and he writes better than most of them. ...more

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Feb 09, 2015 Leonor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, adventures, desafío-2016

Reseña

Kvothe es el joven protagonista de esta historia. Sin embargo, a pesar de su juventud, ha vivido muchas cosas duras y difíciles, ha madurado muy rápidamente y se ha hecho un nombre entre la gente de su época. Es un héroe, pero ya no está “en activo”. Se presenta en un pueblo en el que nada pasa nunca con otro nombre, Kote, y abre un bar hospedaje.

Su vida ya no tiene sentido para él, está apagado y sin ganas de vivir, esperando su muerte. Repentinamente, se encuentra con Cronista, que es el ...more

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