Description: Wow. This book surprised the hell out of me the first time I read it, and was no less satisfying the second time. The first in a trilogy called the King-killer Chronicles, The Name Of the Wind is essentially a hero epic narrated mainly in the first person by the main character, Kvothe. If you were turned off by that last sentence, don't be...
Although now in hiding, Kvothe is persuaded to tell his story to Chronicler, who has sought him out to give an account of how he became known as the King killer ... starting from the beginning. Kvothe feels that to tell the entire story in the right context he must start from when he was a child, meaning that by the end of the book, the King whom Kvothe assassinated to earn his malefic title has not even factored into the story. Not that this leaves the reader with any sense of frustration. The story of Kvothe's childhood, from his initial prolific grasp of magic (referred to aptly as 'sympathy'), to the massacre of his family by the Chandrian (bad guys), to his orphanage and eventual acceptance to The University, was enough to rob me of sleep for the few days I took to read it. Like any truly 'great' book, I found myself not wanting to finish it because the experience would be over and I'd have to wait half a year for the second book. I have given a copy of the book to others to read, and more than one has made the same remark.
The real magic of this book however, is that it even appeals to non-fantasy readers. My grandmother is the first to admit that she does not enjoy traditional fantasy, but she absolutely loved this book. I can see how many fantasy novels can alienate readers, and I think that the mark of a really good fantasy novel is that it can paint a portrait of another world, but still keep the reader's focus on familiar things such as relationships, emotions and good old fashioned wanting to know what happens next. Patrick Rothfuss delivers all these things. Fantasy elements are used sparingly, and obscure terms such as sympathy and naming (forms of magic) are described intuitively, without that pretentious I've clearly used a fancy word here because I am creative and if you don't understand it well then you must be unimaginative style present in too many novels of the genre.
For me, the vivid character constructions and their believable interactions (the unrequited romance between Kvothe and Denna being the most prominent), as well as the role of Kvothe's music and the natural dramatic progression of the storyline made this novel seem less like a fantasy, and more like an extremely well written historic text - if there ever existed such a thing as magic, of course. If there did, it would be this book. Read it.
No comments:
Post a Comment