Wow. Just, wow. I think the last time I was this engrossed by a book was when I read A Game of Thrones for the first time, and even then, that took a week whereas I devoured The Name of the Wind in just three days. Given, I had been working full time when I read GoT and Rothfuss's book is several hundred pages shorter, but still. (And given how long fans have been waiting for the third book in Rothfuss's series, nine years and counting at this point, the comparison between him and Geroge R. R. Martin seems even more apt.) Wow.
I'm a reader who is still somewhat between being a reader of Young Adult fiction and Adult fiction. My "favorites" shelf on my bookcase is a mix of Rick Riordan, Laini Taylor, and GRRM. YA is fun, often easy to read, and often has interesting ideas. They can deal with heavier subjects at times without getting pretentious. However, the plot often drives the characters rather than being created by the characters, or the plot takes a backseat to a shoved in romance. Sometimes the writing just isn't very good. As I've grown older the number of YA novels to truly impact me has shrunk (though I still frequently read them for fun). Adult fiction, on the other hand, has more depth, more complexity. There's frequently more to the world than just the main character and their two potential love interests. Heavy and mature topics can be handled and discussed. And the main characters aren't all way out of their depth teenagers. But the writing can be more complex, sometimes to the point of all characters and narration speaking in riddles. There are frequently higher levels of explicit sexuality, which I personally am not a fan of. Sometimes they're just harder to read.
Why bring this all up? Because The Name of the Wind is honestly the type of book that honestly could be considered either YA or Adult while being accurate, and it manages to avoid many of the traits of both that I do not care for. Kvothe being someone destined to become a great hero, attending "magic" college after his parents are killed by powerful demonic forces that he wants revenge on, while being amazing at everything? At face value, this honestly sounds like a pretty typical (and likely bad, with Kvothe as a Gary Stu protagonist) YA fantasy novel that could be a decent read. But the writing is so well done, almost poetic (or musical as Kvothe's father would prefer) at times without being hard to read or pretentious, and even if Kvothe does seem like a perfect Gary Stu, his character is so fleshed out, with such depth and emotion, that honestly I found the narcissism and his greatest student of all time schtick to be easily ignored in favor for the struggles and grief he has faced. And while an ostensibly overdone plot, Rothfuss does enough to deviate from and subvert the typical hero's journey that it feels fresh, and Kvothe and Rothfuss certainly have a lot to say about how real life is not a story. Despite it's similarities to YA fantasy, there's enough craft to the work that it appear The Name of the Wind is much more often associated with Adult fantasy instead. For me, the book blurring those lines was a perfect fit.
Which man, the emotional depth and quality of writing. I had the book on my shelf for a while now, and I likely had read the synopsis before buying it, but I didn't before reading it and basically went in blind. Still, even before learning anything of Kote's true identity and backstory, Rothfuss does so much, in varying degrees of subtlety (some not at all) to show the reader the extent of trauma that he's experiences in his life. Similarly, he frequently leaves you with a sense of foreboding far before it comes to fruition, such as hinting towards the tragedy of the death of his parents or how far his rivalry with Ambrose ends up going. Kvothe's summary of his life at the start of his tale, more than half the synopsis of my copy of the book, leaves the reader waiting for something to go terribly wrong when Kvothe reaches Trebon, dreading a horrific fire, or every time he goes on the horns at the University, wondering if that will be the expulsion he mentioned. As for the trauma Kvothe does experience, even though in the grand scheme of things, only about 1/7 of the book is about Kvothe's life between the massacre of his troupe and him joining the University, those one hundred some odd pages do a lot to show and make the reader feel Kvothe's deep grief and loss, and just how lost he is on his own. And man, I appreciate how frequently Kvothe, and other male characters, are depicted crying or being more emotional throughout the book.
For me, I found that the emotional heart of the story, rather than being Kvothe's relationship with Denna, was actually his relationship to his lute and his music. His father's lute is the last thing he has remaining from his parents, and it's loss in an alley fight evoked just as much a sense of grief and loss in me as when Kvothe came back to his troupe's ruined campsite. While I found myself feeling some tension when he had to deal with the draccus, I found myself comparatively much more nervous about and invested in Kvothe's performance in the Eolain, just as numb as him when his lute string snapped. When Ambrose breaks his lute near the end, it is so reminiscent of the loss in the alley, and so much time has been spent on how important Kvothe's lute is to him, that I felt that same grief that I felt when he lost his instrument the first time. While I do wish I was as invested in Kvothe's relationship with Denna as with his lute, that Rothfuss could make the reader feel so much about an instrument is still a feat.
Since I read the book with no memory of the synopsis, I hadn't realized until Kvothe started telling his tale that the first 50 pages were moreso a framing devise for the tale then anything, and because of this I found myself surprisingly invested in the subplots of that. Bast is a great character, and honestly one of my favorites of the book, and I find myself curious about the malign forces that appear to be coming back. I found myself wishing for more interludes, in all honesty, to get more of Kvothe the innkeep, Chronicler, and Bast. And given how the book ends, with Bast threatening Chronicler not to remind Kvothe of the worst times of his life... well, needless to say, I look forward to seeing how that goes down in the sequel. The silence in three parts that opens and closes the book leaves the reader with a lingering feeling of loss and dread. And I plan to read The Wise Man's Fear as soon as I can to see where the man waiting to die takes his story.
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