The Wise Man's Fear
Last night I finished reading The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, which is the long-awaited sequel to The Name of the Wind which is probably one of the best books I've read in the past decade. It was about 994 pages long, so I find it only fitting to distill the entire thing down into a summary in convenient spoiler-free haiku form:
I had lots of sex.
Then I got some magic stuff.
Oops, where is the plot?
This makes it sound like I enjoyed the book much less than I actually did. Honestly, I thought it was quite good and worth the wait, albeit not as mind-bogglingly great as the first book in the trilogy - which still puts it head and shoulders above most other epic fantasy being published these days, mind you. I really think that Rothfuss is probably the best prose stylist working in traditional fantasy right now (apart from maybe Scott Lynch, though what he's doing is much less traditional than the Kingkiller Chronicle). Kvothe's voice is just so original and compelling in a way that epic fantasy protagonists usually are not. He's also second to none when it comes to worldbuilding, characters, and dialogue. I loved getting to see other cultures and more parts of Kvothe's world in this book, some of which provide very refreshing twists on standard fantasy tropes, much as the draccus in the first book did.
Still, it cannot be denied that I am sweating a bit at the thought that Pat intends this to be a trilogy. The first book covers Kvothe's life from birth to 15 or so, which seems reasonable considering that I think he's supposed to be 28 or something when he's telling the framing story. However, by the end of The Wise Man's Fear, we've only covered about 2 years. As implied in the haiku, not a whole lot happens plot-wise in this book, and by the end of the book Kvothe is (geographically speaking) in pretty much the same place where he started out with a bunch of new skills and magic doodads to show for the time in between. The end result is that a lot of The Wise Man's Fear is effectively a training montage - albeit a very interesting, unique, and well-written training montage. While book two does encompass some clearly important events in Kvothe's life (the meeting with Felurian in particular), there are still a lot of things that are implied to be part of his legend that we haven't gotten around to talking about yet. I'm starting to wonder how he can possibly get from the current endpoint to the framing story in a number of pages that can be reasonably expected to fit between two covers. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the third book had to be split into two parts like To Green Angel Tower was, way back when. (I'm choosing this instead of more obvious comparisons because I don't want to invoke the spectre of GRRM here if I can avoid it. Wait, crap.)
And now to get a little more specific: Maybe I'm just a big linguistics nerd but I thought the subplot with the Adem was awesome. I was really fascinated by how deeply their culture was explored, and how the differences between the Lathani and the book's dominant human cultures also provoked differences in their language use, their cultural values, etc. The idea of a society where showing emotion with your face is impolite and you're intended to show it with your hands and body language instead absolutely fascinated me. And now I want to read all the Kvothe/Tempi fanfiction EVAR, GIVE IT TO ME
Another awesome part of this book was the evil tree of evil that tells the truth but only when it will hurt you and cause you to do bad things. Its actual name is something unpronounceable that starts with the letters "ct" and that I can't spell so I am just going to call it the Cthulhutree from now on. Anyway, the Cthulhutree was a great idea and I was really fascinated by the idea that the faeries think that it's the most dangerous thing in existence because of how it makes people wreck everything they come into contact with. This is definitely going to have some metaplot significance later on, methinks.
Also, maybe I'm just inured to ridiculous sex scenes in fiction thanks to Laurell K. Hamilton and bad fanfiction, but I also don't think Kvothe's time with Felurian is nearly as explicit, gratuitous, or pointless as some people have been saying it was. Yes, it was different from anything in the first book, but considering what 17-year-olds are actually like, I find it much more annoying for a writer to pretend that all of their thoughts and actions are completely sanitized than to admit that yes, at this age the protagonist is more than a little obsessed with sex. I also loved Kvothe's way of escaping from Felurian, which was straight out of a fairy tale and utterly perfect if you ask me.
The one thing that I did find a little frustrating about the book's lack of plot progression was the lack of new information about important metaplot elements like the Chandrian and the circumstances in the framing story world. I don't need all the answers right now, but a little more information than what we got would have been nice. For example, the answer to the question of why Kvothe's parents specifically were killed by the Chandrian was a really interesting and satisfying one. I think the book would have done well to include a few more tidbits like that, just to keep it all fresh in the readers' minds.
Finally, I don't necessarily have a theory for where this series is going per se, but I do think that Kvothe as a narrator is clearly unreliable as heck and I wouldn't be surprised if the guy telling the story ultimately turns out to be not Kvothe at all. Particularly considering the places where the framing story doesn't match up with the Kvothe story, and the new almost throwaway detail we get about Denna wondering whether a magic exists where you could make people believe something to be true just by writing it down? Are they trying to thwart the Cthulhutree or whatever somehow? I'd, uh, keep that scene in the back of my mind in the future, I think.
In short, if you liked the characters and setting of The Name of the Wind, and if you don't mind a plot that is a bit slow-moving, you will enjoy The Wise Man's Fear as much as I did. If you only want to see the story move forward by leaps and bounds, you'll probably be disappointed. I'm still a big fan of this series and looking forward to seeing where it goes next. Bring on the final volume! Eventually.
This entry was originally posted at http://gamerchick.dreamwidth.org/586194.html. You can comment on either journal. Number of comments on Dreamwidth:
I had lots of sex.
Then I got some magic stuff.
Oops, where is the plot?
This makes it sound like I enjoyed the book much less than I actually did. Honestly, I thought it was quite good and worth the wait, albeit not as mind-bogglingly great as the first book in the trilogy - which still puts it head and shoulders above most other epic fantasy being published these days, mind you. I really think that Rothfuss is probably the best prose stylist working in traditional fantasy right now (apart from maybe Scott Lynch, though what he's doing is much less traditional than the Kingkiller Chronicle). Kvothe's voice is just so original and compelling in a way that epic fantasy protagonists usually are not. He's also second to none when it comes to worldbuilding, characters, and dialogue. I loved getting to see other cultures and more parts of Kvothe's world in this book, some of which provide very refreshing twists on standard fantasy tropes, much as the draccus in the first book did.
Still, it cannot be denied that I am sweating a bit at the thought that Pat intends this to be a trilogy. The first book covers Kvothe's life from birth to 15 or so, which seems reasonable considering that I think he's supposed to be 28 or something when he's telling the framing story. However, by the end of The Wise Man's Fear, we've only covered about 2 years. As implied in the haiku, not a whole lot happens plot-wise in this book, and by the end of the book Kvothe is (geographically speaking) in pretty much the same place where he started out with a bunch of new skills and magic doodads to show for the time in between. The end result is that a lot of The Wise Man's Fear is effectively a training montage - albeit a very interesting, unique, and well-written training montage. While book two does encompass some clearly important events in Kvothe's life (the meeting with Felurian in particular), there are still a lot of things that are implied to be part of his legend that we haven't gotten around to talking about yet. I'm starting to wonder how he can possibly get from the current endpoint to the framing story in a number of pages that can be reasonably expected to fit between two covers. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the third book had to be split into two parts like To Green Angel Tower was, way back when. (I'm choosing this instead of more obvious comparisons because I don't want to invoke the spectre of GRRM here if I can avoid it. Wait, crap.)
And now to get a little more specific: Maybe I'm just a big linguistics nerd but I thought the subplot with the Adem was awesome. I was really fascinated by how deeply their culture was explored, and how the differences between the Lathani and the book's dominant human cultures also provoked differences in their language use, their cultural values, etc. The idea of a society where showing emotion with your face is impolite and you're intended to show it with your hands and body language instead absolutely fascinated me. And now I want to read all the Kvothe/Tempi fanfiction EVAR, GIVE IT TO ME
Another awesome part of this book was the evil tree of evil that tells the truth but only when it will hurt you and cause you to do bad things. Its actual name is something unpronounceable that starts with the letters "ct" and that I can't spell so I am just going to call it the Cthulhutree from now on. Anyway, the Cthulhutree was a great idea and I was really fascinated by the idea that the faeries think that it's the most dangerous thing in existence because of how it makes people wreck everything they come into contact with. This is definitely going to have some metaplot significance later on, methinks.
Also, maybe I'm just inured to ridiculous sex scenes in fiction thanks to Laurell K. Hamilton and bad fanfiction, but I also don't think Kvothe's time with Felurian is nearly as explicit, gratuitous, or pointless as some people have been saying it was. Yes, it was different from anything in the first book, but considering what 17-year-olds are actually like, I find it much more annoying for a writer to pretend that all of their thoughts and actions are completely sanitized than to admit that yes, at this age the protagonist is more than a little obsessed with sex. I also loved Kvothe's way of escaping from Felurian, which was straight out of a fairy tale and utterly perfect if you ask me.
The one thing that I did find a little frustrating about the book's lack of plot progression was the lack of new information about important metaplot elements like the Chandrian and the circumstances in the framing story world. I don't need all the answers right now, but a little more information than what we got would have been nice. For example, the answer to the question of why Kvothe's parents specifically were killed by the Chandrian was a really interesting and satisfying one. I think the book would have done well to include a few more tidbits like that, just to keep it all fresh in the readers' minds.
Finally, I don't necessarily have a theory for where this series is going per se, but I do think that Kvothe as a narrator is clearly unreliable as heck and I wouldn't be surprised if the guy telling the story ultimately turns out to be not Kvothe at all. Particularly considering the places where the framing story doesn't match up with the Kvothe story, and the new almost throwaway detail we get about Denna wondering whether a magic exists where you could make people believe something to be true just by writing it down? Are they trying to thwart the Cthulhutree or whatever somehow? I'd, uh, keep that scene in the back of my mind in the future, I think.
In short, if you liked the characters and setting of The Name of the Wind, and if you don't mind a plot that is a bit slow-moving, you will enjoy The Wise Man's Fear as much as I did. If you only want to see the story move forward by leaps and bounds, you'll probably be disappointed. I'm still a big fan of this series and looking forward to seeing where it goes next. Bring on the final volume! Eventually.
This entry was originally posted at http://gamerchick.dreamwidth.org/586194.html. You can comment on either journal. Number of comments on Dreamwidth: