I can’t remember how many times friends have told me I should read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I was aware of the book’s popularity, but for one reason or another I avoided tackling the 662-page tome for years. Now that I’ve finished it, I finally appreciate what everyone was talking about.
Review
The Name of the Wind starts out like so many other fantasy novels. There’s an inn in a small village that happens to be threatened by monsters. I was pretty sure I had read that one before. But then a character named Chronicler shows up, and the story takes a welcome turn into something fresh and engaging.
The inn, it turns out, is just a front for Kvothe (pronounced “Quothe”), known as Kvothe the Arcane and Kvothe the Kingkiller, a notorious figure now in hiding. Chronicler wants to record the story of Kvothe’s life, to separate the truth from the legend. After some debate, Kvothe gives Chronicler three days to take down his story. This novel is day one of Kvothe’s account.
What follows is a journey that leads to the University, a school of magic that reminded me of the wizards’ school in Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, mixed with a bit of Hogwarts, but set in a fictional late-Middle Ages or early-Renaissance city. In fact, the book’s title takes its name from a form of magic taught there, for much like the wizards of Earthsea, knowing a thing’s true name gives an arcanist power over it. As a young and ambitious arcanist, Kvothe longs to learn the name of the wind.
The novel is filled with memorable characters, including a faculty of stern and eccentric professors; a waif of a girl who lives in the catacombs beneath the school; an aristocratic student who quickly becomes Kvothe’s rival; and a wayward young woman who toys with Kvothe’s heartstrings while searching for a patron among the city’s wealthiest men to support her fledgling singing career. There are also some intriguing mysteries, such as what might lie behind a locked door deep within the University’s vast and secret library, and a race of malevolent beings called the Chandrian, whose brief role in the novel has a major impact on Kvothe’s life. Finally, there’s Kvothe’s love for music, epitomized by a lute he’s constantly trying to protect. Kvothe hails from a Romani-like troupe of performers, and his skill in both acting and song are an endearing part of the narrative.
If I had one complaint it’s that, at times, the story meandered like a trip down a slow, lazy river. It never got boring, but sometimes the tension disappeared, making it too easy to put the book down. I’d end up leaving it for days at a time, before mustering the resolve to press on through it. Fortunately, however, there was plenty here to get me to the novel’s satisfying end, and inspire me to start book two in the series, A Wise Man’s Fear.
If, like me, you’ve put off reading this book, let me give you the same advice I received: You really should read The Name of the Wind.