The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss Series: The Kingkiller Chronicle #1
on 2007-03-27
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, General
Pages: 736
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The riveting first-person narrative of a young man who grows to be the most notorious magician his world has ever seen. From his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime- ridden city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that transports readers into the body and mind of a wizard. It is a high-action novel written with a poet's hand, a powerful coming-of-age story of a magically gifted young man, told through his eyes: to read this book is to be the hero.
I read a little of this book the first day I got it. Only got about a hundred pages through it before I was content to do something else. It was a slow beginning and slow beginnings tend to make me set aside a book and pick it up occasionally. Well, I didn’t have occassion to pick it up again until yesterday. Got through another little boring section and then something happened. Something that was written so well that I couldn’t hardly put the book down last night. I woke up early because I couldn’t sleep and I needed to read it. So what does this mean? The character went through something that completely pulled me into his life. Nothing that followed, no matter how boring or mundane, could pull me out of the story after that.
There are no spoilers in this review. I will simply say that there will be those who connect with Mr. Rothfuss’s writing and are drawn into this story. There will be those who cry, such as myself, because of the way he writes tragedies. On the other hand, there will be those who don’t like the writing or “flashback” type feel of the book or the rather slow parts. I loved it. I loved the hints you got from Rothfuss when he hopped to current times. They gave me little tastes of what was to come and it made me read on, curious at times, dying at others. As for the slowness, yes it is. However, once that major moment happened for me, I rather enjoyed the slow parts.
There’s something very quiet about Kvothe that draws me to him, while there’s other traits that make me frown. But I still adore him. I’m a character reader who only tends to give five stars when a character suffers so much in their life and somehow pushes through it. Kvothe is that character for me. I loved him. And I loved this book.
I won’t be buying the second one. Not yet anyways. Once the third one comes out, I’ll spend a week reading all three. I don’t know that I could handle the wait if I read the second book. I hate waiting.
And there it is. My ramblings.
About Patrick Rothfuss
Patrick Rothfuss was born in Madison, Wisconsin to awesome parents who encouraged him to read and create through reading to him, gentle boosts of self-esteem, and deprivation of cable television. During his formative years, he read extensively and wrote terrible short stories and poetry to teach himself what not to do.
Patrick matriculated at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, initially studying chemical engineering which led to a revelation that chemical engineering is boring. He then spent the next nine years jumping from major to major, taking semesters off, enjoying semesters at part-time, and generally rocking the college student experience before being kindly asked to graduate already. Surprisingly enough, he had enough credits to graduate with an English major, and he did so grudgingly.
Patrick then went to grad school. He’d rather not talk about it.
All this time Patrick was working on “The Book,” as he and his friends lovingly titled it. When he returned to Stevens Point he began teaching half-time while trying to sell The Book to publishers. In the process, he disguised a chapter of The Book as a short story and won the Writers of the Future competition in 2002. This put him into contact with all the right people, and after deciding to split The Book into three installments, DAW agreed to publish it. In March 2007, The Name of the Wind was published to great acclaim, winning the Quill Award and making the New York Times Bestseller list.
All this success was wonderful. Patrick eventually had to stop teaching in order to focus on writing, though he screwed that up by having an adorable baby with his adorable girlfriend. He started a charity fundraiser called Worldbuilders and published a not-for-children children’s book called The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle in July of 2010 through Subterranean Press, which was adorable, and seriously isn’t for children.
After a great deal of work and a few cleared throats and raised eyebrows from his patient editor, Wise Man’s Fear came out in March 2011 to even more acclaim, making #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. Life continues to rock for him, and he’s working hard on writing the final installment of the series.
