“The Name of the Wind and Wise Man’s Fear are the very finest examples of first-person storytelling. It’s comparable to sitting across from someone, in a comfy chair, before a log fire, listening to them recount one of the most intricate and fascinating stories you’ve ever heard. To quote Ursula Le Guin: “It is a rare and great pleasure to find a fantasist writing… with true music in the words”.
– Fantasy Book Review
“I have stolen readers back from the doom of endless repetition. I revitalised an entire genre. This book is the product of fourteen years and a thousand revisions…I escaped with both my sanity and my life. I spent nine years as an undergraduate before my college made me declare and finish a major. I ride the line of modern and classic writing like a master, managing to write with tantalising beauty, poetry, and music. I have talked to myself, and written books that make the beta readers weep.
My name it Patrick Rothfuss. You may of heard of me…”
The Dwarf
This is a book that belongs in The Archives. Kvothe Kingkiller, Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, the man of many names tells the story of his life to the Chronicler, who will write Kvothe’s entire chronicle starting from his childhood up to his present life as an innkeeper in Waystone Inn.
Kvothe will tell the entire chronicle of his life within three days and The Name of the Wind encompassed Day One of his storytelling.
The Kingkiller Chronicle:
- Day 1: The Name of The Wind
- Day 2: The Wise Man’s Fear
- Day 3: The Doors of Stone
“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 build ourselves out of that story.”
Kvothe the Bloodless
The book, which is essentially an autobiography of a once famous now reclusive musician, arcanist and adventurer named Kvothe, is revolutionary in both its story telling method and narration. At least that’s what folk are saying in the Tavern. To quote Patrick Leo, “It’s meticulous, brilliantly unputdownable, elegant, lyrical, and poetic. It’s evident how the fourteen years of revision and editing brought fruition to this absolutely marvelous result.”
The story wraps around Kvothe’s life just as you would want, exploring his journey from childhood into adolescence, and a little of the way into maturity. The universe in which this story is set is beautifully and articulately created. This includes everything from a more academic style of magic then is normally employed all the way through to making storytelling and music a large part of the story.
In fact it the part that captivated me more than anything else in the book was its depiction of music.
“Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.”
Kvothe the Musician
I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll leave it at that!
If your still not sure about giving this book a read then…
Here’s what one of the Fantasy Nobility have to say about it…