When I picked up The Name of the Wind, I knew 3 things about it:

1. It is an “epic fantasy.”

2. The protagonist is an innkeeper.

3. It’s supposed to be awesome (this guy calls the book “arguably the best fantasy fiction [he’s] ever read” and refers to Rothfuss as “the next coming of J.R.R. Tolkien”).

Now, there’s something you need to know about me and things that are supposed to be awesome: I tend to not think they’re awesome. I’ll spare you specific examples [*cough*Gone With the Wind*cough] so that you don’t freak out and decide to hate me forever. I just tend to like what I like, and what I like often doesn’t line up with what the world at large likes.

Plus, the more something is hyped, the more disappointed I tend to be when it’s not all I imagined it would be. You’d think I’d learn my lesson and stop expecting greatness every time greatness is forecast, but no. I’m incorrigible that way.

So I went into The Name of the Wind in a divided state. On the one hand, I was really excited to read a spectacularly awesome fantasy book. On the other, I was bracing myself for disappointment when I inevitably disagreed with the populace at large.

And after finishing TNOTW, I have to say…I’m still divided.

THE PLOT

TNOTW revolves around Kote, keeper of a modest inn in a small town. As the story opens, the townsfolk are all in a tizzy over some strange happenings: namely, giant spider-demons attacking travelers on the road. They come into the inn, troubled and flummoxed, and discuss the horrors of the world outside.

Then, unbeknownst to the townsfolk, Kote and his assistant, Bast, have a Very Mysterious Discussion where we come to realize that Kote knows something about the spider-demons, and that for some reason (beyond the obvious fact that they are giant spider-demons), they are Very Bad.

Then he goes out to kill a bunch of them. But before he can, he stumbles into a traveling scribe. Or rather, the scribe — Chronicler — stumbles into him. Chronicler was riding down the road, minding his own business, when he was robbed by highwaymen and forced to set out on foot. Lucky for him, he wandered straight into where Kote had set up spider-killing camp, and arrived just in time for the party.

After witnessing Kote single-handedly dispatch a bunch of spider-demons, and subsequently passing out, Chronicler is brought to the inn, where the truth quickly comes out: Kote is really Kvothe (pronounced “quothe,” and thus screwing with my internal narrator every single time I read his name), the legendary — and presumably dead — hero. Chronicler immediately presses Kvothe for information, since he’s pretty much the most famous guy ever. And Kvothe grudgingly agrees to tell him the story of his life. It will take 3 days.

[Side note: It took me for-e-ver to realize that the book’s subtitle, “The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day 1,” refers to the first day of storytelling. Duh.]

Thus begins the story of Kvothe’s childhood, where he was raised by loving parents in a troupe of traveling performers…until they were brutally murdered by the Chandrain, terrifying beings that, up until that point, Kvothe (and everybody else in the world) presumed didn’t exist.

Young Kvothe mourns his parents and friends, while struggling to survive, for several years before he sets off determined to complete his education at the University, which is a lot like Hogwarts: The College Years. The students learn about magic in a variety of forms, although they don’t call it magic. “Magic” is a term for ignorant country bumpkins. University students pursue sympathy, artificery, alchemy, and other fancy words that really just mean magic.

Kvothe is 15 when he enters the University, several years younger than his youngest classmates, but his prodigious intelligence, coupled with his sharp wit and abundant charisma, help him quickly advance through the ranks. He makes a few close friends and more than a few enemies. Oh, and there’s a girl. Of course.

MY THOUGHTS:

I learned something about myself while reading this book. I realized that I am a big fan of the 3-act narrative.

Act 1: Characters are introduced. Background is given. World is built.

Act 2: Things go well. Hint of conflict. Or maybe even lots of conflict. You get a good feeling for who the good guys and bad guys are, and where the story is headed.

Act 3: Big finish. Possibly a battle. Major conflict is resolved in a thrilling way. Possible set-up for future conflict if it isn’t a stand-alone novel.

Part of the reason I’m so divided about TNOTW is that it doesn’t follow this formula. At all. Really, the whole book seems like a big Act 1. Maybe a bit of Act 2. Definitely no Act 3. I didn’t realize that I was hungering for an Act 3 until I finished the book and never got one. I was so sure it would be there, even when I noticed I was down to the last 50 pages and no noticeable conflict was being set up, that I was actually shocked when it never happened.

But then again, this book never promised me that it would be set up in 3 acts. As a matter of fact, it told me very clearly what to expect when Kvothe began his tale: a story of a man’s life that would be told in 3 days. And this was Day 1. The fact that I didn’t really pick up on this — or was expecting the story of his life to fall neatly into three days of 3-act narratives — is my fault.

So I need to judge this book on what it is, and not what I expected it to be.

The Pros:

Mr. Rothfuss is a wonderful storyteller. He gives enough detail to draw a reader into the world, but not so much that I got bored or that my attention wandered. He was able to draw from me every emotional response that the story required: happiness, contentment, sadness, fear, desperation, determination, anger, triumph.

Probably one of my favorite scenes in the whole book was Kvothe’s first time performing at the Eolian. As a musician and former performer, I could vividly empathize with all the emotions he was feeling, and I actually felt my heart racing when he took the stage. It was a magnificent scene, even though (as far as I can tell) it had nothing to do with Kvothe eventually becoming a hero. Being able to draw me so far into scenes like that — scenes with little adventure or intrigue, but full of emotion — was one of the book’s great strengths.

The magical world he created was also extremely well-developed. The laws of sympathy are well-defined and loosely rooted in science, which makes it almost hard to believe that this stuff couldn’t work in real life. All the divisions of sympathy work together in an orderly and understandable way. And Mr. Rothfuss never bends or breaks the laws of sympathy, even when it could possibly make for some cool action scenes.

Kvothe’s time at the University is in turns exciting, frustrating, illuminating, and captivating. And always interesting.

The Cons:

First off, many of the main characters have more than one name (maybe this is meant to underscore the heavy emphasis placed on Naming in the story). Kvothe, Bast, Chronicler, Denna…all go by multiple names during the course of the story. It’s not really confusing, but I’m also not sure it’s entirely necessary. Kvothe/Kote’s name change is understandable. I don’t know if the rest really are.

Secondly, Kvothe is kind of irritating. I didn’t dislike him, but I didn’t love him either. He’s just too good at everything. He’s ridiculously handsome. He has a voice like an angel. He can play the lute like he’s some sort of superhuman with 15 fingers. He’s apparently memorized every minute fact to have ever tripped across his consciousness. He excels at every form of sympathy that he tries. He can spin a yarn, work a crowd, woo the ladies, and outmaneuver the wiliest of weasels.

Eventually, you just kind of want a protagonist to have some weaknesses, ya know? And no, “I’m misunderstood by the jealous and petty professor/student because they’re envious of my awesomeness” is not weakness.

Lastly, I felt at times the story lacked direction. It opens with the Very Mysterious and Terrifying spider-demons, then never mentions them again until the very end of the book, and then only kind of. It sets up Kvothe to be the greatest and most famous hero the world has ever known, but doesn’t even begin to tell us why. He spends the entire book trying to find information about the Chandrain, and ends with barely more than he started with.

I understand that most of this is probably because this is the first book in a trilogy, but I’m of the opinion that if you can’t resolve any of the story lines in the first book, then you should just write one long book. Overarching plots and conflicts are great. I am a fan of the multi-book series. But let’s resolve something in book 1. Let’s not just write trilogies for trilogies’ sake. I know trilogies are all the rage right now, but come on. Let’s have a purpose.

A friend described the middle of the book as “meandering,” and I’d have to agree. It meanders. It’s an interesting meander. I never was bored, or annoyed. But I couldn’t figure out what the point of all these little vignettes was. It just kind of moseyed around, taking its sweet time, with no clear destination in mind.

What’s more, since the story never really felt like it was going anywhere or driving toward anything, I never really had that sense of urgency to keep my turning pages. I could put the book down in the middle of a chapter and not feel that pull — you know, the one. It’s the one you feel when you’re doing dishes or folding the laundry, and all of a sudden you’re not doing those things anymore because you’re reading. You didn’t decide, necessarily, to stop being productive and start reading. You just were reading, because the book pulled you back. Because there was something in the story that hadn’t resolved, and you needed to know how it resolved.

Anyway. I never felt the pull. I would enjoy the book while I was reading, put it down when I needed to, and pick it up later when I remembered I was in the middle of a book. It was a weird feeling to be able to completely walk away from a book I was actually enjoying, and not feel the pull. It’s never happened to me before.

THE VERDICT:

So I’m torn. It wasn’t what I expected. Not a lot happened. I still don’t see why this guy is legendary, and I’m kind of annoyed that he’s good at everything.

Was it enjoyable? Yes, for the most part. Frustrating when I realized I was basically just reading one big setup for book 2 (or maybe even book 3), and wasn’t going to get any payoff in this book. But barring that, it was enjoyable.

Was it well-written? Did everything in the book make sense, according to the rules of the world Kvothe was living in? Absolutely. Zero complaints there.

Do I recommend it? Right now I’m going to say yes. I haven’t finished book 2 (The Wise Man’s Fear) yet, and book 3 (The Doors of Stone) hasn’t even been released. I have a feeling this is one of those trilogies where once I finish the whole thing, it’s going to drastically impact my opinion of the first book. But for now, I’m going to say yes. It has great potential to be a fantastic story.

I just hope something actually happens in the next book.

Content guide: Contains violence and peril.