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

by Patrick Rothfuss

“Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself.

“I don’t care,” Simmon said hotly. “It’s barbaric.” He hammered out his last word on the table with his fist, upsetting his glass and spilling a dark pool of scutten across the table. “Shit.” He scrambled to his feet and tried to keep it from spilling on the floor with his hands. I laughed helplessly until there was water in my eyes and my stomach ached. I felt a weight lift off my chest as I finally regained my breath. “I love you, Sim,” I said earnestly. “Sometimes I think you’re the only honest person I know.” He looked me over. “You’re drunk.” “No, it’s the truth. You’re a good person. Better than I’ll ever be.”

That is the kind of friendship I aspire to cultivate, always…but oh the risk…of finding those who are trustworthy and selfless enough of heart to merit the trust. And since we're being honest I doubt lately that I've inspired this kind of friendship but I am aware and workin on it

She took hold of it with both hands. “Why, this is a princely gift.” She peered down at it wonderingly. “Think of all the tipsy bees.”

“The question’s at the bottom,” I said. “A heavy question,”

“I brought you a ring.” It was made of warm, smooth wood.

“It’s quite enough to have a secret,” she chided me gently. “Anything more would be greedy.”

“They’re your secrets,” she said, as if explaining something to a child. “Who else would it fit?”

As always, her careful delicacy somehow made this makeshift meal on a rooftop seem like a formal dinner in some nobleman’s hall.

Owls are wise. They are careful and patient. Wisdom precludes boldness.”

“That is why owls make poor heroes.” Wisdom precludes boldness. After my recent adventures in Trebon I couldn’t help but agree.

She looked up and grinned. “Yes, I am,” she said proudly. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Chronicler stared at the red-haired man behind the bar. There was nothing left of Kvothe in him. It was just an innkeeper: friendly, servile, and so unassuming as to almost be invisible.

Ok, stay with me… I think there are 3 things happening at once when we see Kote the innkeeper. First there is Ruh performer who can so well immerse himself in a role that he seems to literally BECOME the character. Second there is the man who has been wounded by all we are learning little by little about his life up to the moment he dictates it to Chronicler. BUT also thirdly there is the Namer who has or is somehow renamed by Himself. Is it on purpose to hide himself? Does he realize that by using an alias and speaking falsehoods that he is negatively redefining himself. THIS is part of the mystery we readers desperately hope to discover by the end of the series.

“Aethin tseh cthystoi scthaiven vei.”

Fae. This is an assassin puppet of some aggrieved Fae Lord or Lady

his forehead furrowed in concentration. He stared intently at the bloody man standing on the other side of the bar. Nothing happened. The mercenary reached across the bar, catching hold of Kvothe’s sleeve. The innkeeper simply stood, and in that moment his expression held no fear, no anger or surprise. He only seemed weary, numb, and dismayed.

He gave Kvothe a flat look. “I figure you know

“There’s only one reason I can think you’d grab a bottle instead of that. You weren’t trying to knock that fellow’s teeth in. You were gonta light him on fire. ’Cept you didn’t have any matches, and there weren’t any candles closeby.”

“Fine. It was looking,” Chronicler said abruptly. “Looking for what?” “Me, probably,” Kvothe said grimly. “Reshi,” Bast admonished him, “you’re just being maudlin. This isn’t your fault.” Kvothe gave his student a long, weary look. “You know better than that, Bast. All of this is my fault. The scrael, the war. All my fault.”

“The Mael doesn’t even share a border with us. It’s as far away as anywhere can be in the Fae.” Kvothe nodded a hint of an apology. “I just assumed you knew what it was. You didn’t hesitate to attack it.” “All snakes bite, Reshi. I don’t need their names to know they’re dangerous. I recognized it as being from the Mael. That was enough.”

“Don’t ask him about it,” he hissed urgently. “Don’t mention it at all.” Chronicler looked puzzled. “What are you talking about?” “About the bottle. About the sympathy he tried to do.” “So he was trying to light that thing on fire? Why didn’t it work? What’s—”

I found what I had wanted most, yet it was not what I expected.” He motioned for Chronicler to pick up his pen. “As is often the case when you gain your heart’s desire.”

The names she gave them, nonsensical at first, fit like a glove when I finally saw what they described.

Definitely one of Elodin's students. I almost glossed over this as my sleeping mind devoured the exposition. She is naming! NAMING. Accurately!

Billows.

They were quiet tears for herself, because there was something inside her that was badly hurt. I couldn’t tell what it was and didn’t dare to ask.

of the hundred cow-eyed suitors who go mooning after her like love-struck sheep.” “I just don’t understand what you see in her,” Sim said carefully. “I know she’s charming. Fascinating and all of that. But she seems rather” —he hesitated—“cruel.” I nodded. “She is.” Simmon watched me expectantly, and finally said, “What? No defense for her?” “No. Cruel is a good word for her. But I think you are saying cruel and thinking something else. Denna is not wicked, or mean, or spiteful. She is cruel.” Sim was quiet for a long while before responding. “I think she might be some of those other things, and cruel as well.” Good, honest, gentle Sim. He could never bring himself to say bad things about another person, just imply them. Even that was hard for him. He looked up at me. “I talked with Sovoy. He’s still not over her. He really loved her, you know. Treated her like a princess. He would have done anything for her. But she left him anyway, no explanation.” “Denna is a wild thing,” I explained. “Like a hind or a summer storm. If a storm blows down your house, or breaks a tree, you don’t say the storm was mean. It was cruel. It acted according to its nature and something unfortunately was hurt. The same is true of Denna.”

I don’t know why but I don’t like her and by the way…unlike most series where I identify with the “hero/underdog”…this go-round I am Sim!

But that, as they say, is a story for another day.

“THAT SHOULD DO FOR NOW, I imagine,” Kvothe said, gesturing for Chronicler to lay down his pen. “We have all the groundwork now. A foundation of story to build upon.” Kvothe came to his feet and rolled

his shoulders, stretching his back. “Tomorrow we’ll have some of my favorite stories. My journey to Alveron’s court. Learning to fight from the Adem. Felurian . . .”

All these references totally do inform the rest of the story I know up to The end of tome 2

Last came the polishing of the bottles. As he went through the motions his eyes were far away, remembering. He did not hum or whistle. He did not sing.

“This is what I do,” Chronicler said, irritated. “I collect stories. And when I get the chance I investigate odd rumors and see if there’s any truth behind them.” “Out of curiosity, which rumor was it?” Bast asked. “Apparently you got soppy drunk and let something slip to a wagoneer,” Chronicler said. “Rather careless, all things considered.” Bast gave Chronicler a profoundly pitying look. “Look at me,” Bast said, as if talking to a child. “Think. Could some wagon herder get me drunk? Me?” Chronicler opened his mouth. Closed it. “Then . . .” “He was my message in a bottle. One of many. You just happened to be the first person to find one and come looking.”

“I thought you two were hiding?” “Oh, we’re hiding alright,” Bast said bitterly. “We’re tucked away so safe and sound that he’s practically fading into the woodwork.”

“And it’s a damn sight more than a bad mood, you ignorant, wretched anhaut-fehn. This place is killing him.”

Even old enemies come to settle scores would be better than him wasting away like this. But you’re better than I’d hoped for. You’re perfect.”

“You see, there’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.”

Oops…Bast just confirmed my theory about Kvothe fading away into/behind the mask of Koth and behind the ruins of whatever reputation he now has from events that left him magic-less and broken.

said. “The truth is deeper than that. It’s . . .” Bast floundered for a moment. “It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We

“But there’s a better way. You show her she is beautiful. You make mirrors of your eyes, prayers of your hands against her body. It is hard, very hard, but when she truly believes you . . .” Bast gestured excitedly. “Suddenly the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn’t seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen.”

You saw that thin shadow of a man behind the bar tonight.

After his first night’s writing he was like his old self again. He looked three feet taller with lightning on his shoulders.” Bast sighed.

Bast grinned like a child catching a priest midcurse. “Go on,” he urged. His eyes were delighted, and hard, and terrible. “Say it.” “Like some silly faerie story,” Chronicler finished, his voice thin and pale as paper.

“You know nothing of the Fae, if you think our stories lack their darker sides.

this is a faeri...

Hmmmm. Reshi managed to avoid assassination for hearing the thing in the tree but somehow killed a fairy king in the doing. Now all hell has broken loose between the kingdoms of men and the Fae and all were after his head when he "died."

“Hear my words, manling,” he hissed. “Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath.”

As he spoke, Bast’s eyes grew paler, until they were the pure blue of a clear noontime sky. “I swear by all the salt in me: if you run counter to my desire, the remainder of your brief mortal span will be an orchestra of misery. I swear by stone and oak and elm: I’ll make a game of you. I’ll follow you unseen and smother any spark of joy you find. You’ll never know a woman’s touch, a breath of rest, a moment’s peace of mind.” Bast’s eyes were now the pale blue-white of lightning, his voice tight and fierce. “And I swear by the night sky and the ever-moving moon: if you lead my master to despair, I will slit you open and splash around like a child in a muddy puddle. I’ll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance.”

“You are an educated man. You know there are no such things as demons.”

“There is only my kind.” Bast leaned closer still, Chronicler smelled flowers on his breath. “You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”

“What do you get?” he asked, his voice a dry whisper. “What do you want out of this?” The question seemed to catch Bast unprepared. He stood still and awkward for a moment, all his fluid grace gone. For a moment it looked as if

he might burst into tears. “What do I want? I just want my Reshi back.” His voice was quiet and lost. “I want him back the way he was.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Bast scrubbed at his face with both ha...

Delectable