Book List - On the Importance of Names
5. The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two) by Patrick Rothfuss
Thanks to my credit card points, I was able to get myself a $100 Barnes & Noble gift card, of which I promptly spent about a third buying this book - still a New Release in hardcover. I tried to read it as slowly as I could to shorten the time between books, since there's still no word as to when Book Three will be released (I'm hoping for Spring 2012, since on the author's website, he mentions that the whole thing has already been written, and he intended each of the books to be released a year apart...but then again, there was more than a year between Book One's release and Book Two's if I remember correctly, so who knows). I managed to drag it out for well over two months, which is no small feat for a normally fast reader like me, but today, I just couldn't hold myself back anymore, so I finished the last 100 pages or so.
Given my usual feelings about middle segments of trilogies, I was skeptical when I picked up this 994-page mammoth of a middle volume. However, since the first one was SO good, I was hopeful that I would continue to enjoy the story enough to not get stuck in the mud of the middle for years like I did with Lord of the Rings back in high school. As it turns out, not only did I not get stuck, I found myself just as unable to put this book down as the first one.
This was not a typical middle volume. I think it's partially due to the unique, first-person narrative and the fact that while there are many supporting characters who have major, major roles in the story, there is only one true main character. So rather than having several groups of major characters split off at the end of book one, and jumping between their story lines in book two (like Lord of the Rings, and like most of the Tad Williams books I've read), it is one continuous plot line. This definitely helped to hold my attention. Also, typically in a middle book, a few of the story lines will be much more interesting to me than the others, so I'll end up getting the urge to skip over the ones I don't care about as much. In this book, however, each step along Kvothe's journey was just as interesting as every other step, and it felt very true to real life in that every time he was almost getting somewhere in one place, something happened to force him to go off that path on a different adventure. What really made it work though, was that he always somehow made it back to the original path, even if it was 600 pages or so later. And it always seemed to take just the right amount of time - long enough that you were anxious to find out where that original path would lead, but not so long that you became disinterested in the new path(s) or forgot what had been going on on the original path before he got sidetracked.
The book made me cry on several occasions. It evoked emotions in me that I've been sorely lacking of late. And, like any good piece of writing should, it had many snippets of Real Truth that made me pause and quote them somewhere (usually in a facebook status). What I love about the fantasy genre is that because it takes place in a world where there are no rules except those the author creates, it has the ability to freely showcase real-world truths that cannot be properly expressed within the constraints of social/political/other rules and restrictions in the real world. The biggest thing in this series in particular that is resonating with me (and I actually have moments where I'm fairly sure I can see where this is going, and I can't wait to find out if I'm right when I read Book Three!) is the focus on Names and Naming. One underlying theme throughout the entire series so far has been Kvothe's pursuit of the Name of the wind (hence the title of Book One), and his education in the ancient art of Naming. What strikes me about it is how true it rings to my own view of the importance and power of names.
There's a passage in this book where Master Elodin (Kvothe's Naming teacher) and Kvothe meet with a young friend of Kvothe's whose real name nobody knows, but who Kvothe has been referring to as Auri. When Elodin hears Kvothe call her Auri, he raises an eyebrow and later asks Kvothe why he calls her Auri. Kvothe responds that he doesn't know, he just started calling her that because it seemed right. Elodin says nothing, but it's made clear by his reaction that Kvothe has a natural ability for Naming, and it seems that Auri may be her true Name (although it hasn't been explicitly stated as such yet). I felt this passage so deeply that I'm not sure I can explain it. I've always had an obsession with names. I have noticed a strong association between names and personalities, and although everyone thinks I'm crazy when I tell them that, I still maintain that there are certain characteristics that people with certain names tend to have, with very few (if any) exceptions. For this reason, I'm very picky about names, especially names for my own future children. It's not that I judge new people that I meet on their names alone, but simply that I observe these similarities between people with the same name. This leads me to feel that there is something deeper to a name than just a label by which to call someone. And this series is exponentially reinforcing that feeling, and showing it in ways I never dreamed of...
...Although, actually, now that I think about it, maybe there was a time when I did have a deeper understanding of the power of names. When I was in elementary school, my friend Nina and I would go on walks around our neighborhood, playing a game as we went. In the game, we were two princesses from another planet, who had been stranded on Earth. We learned the names of things by touching them. I don't remember exactly how it was supposed to work, but basically, we would touch whatever it was, and the word for it would just come to us. So we walked around, and we would touch a flower, cock our heads to one side as if listening for a few moments, and then slowly say, "flower" as if tasting this new word as it came out of our mouths. We repeated this process for "tree", "grass", "mailbox", and other random things we passed on our walk. It's been many years since we played this game, obviously, but for some reason, that aspect of it has always stuck with me.
I have friends who are really into numerology and some other new age-y things of the sort. While I don't necessarily believe in any of that, there is a focus on names as meaningful within them that resonates with me. I do believe that there is a deep truth in this power of names that extends beyond the fantasy realm of books into the real world.
I am loving this series in a way I haven't loved anything else I've read - potential new favorite author? He certainly captures the essence of humanity as deeply as Orson Scott Card does, but in a very different way. I wouldn't say I like these books BETTER than OSC's or Tad Williams' books, but I definitely like them just as much, and in different ways.
Can't wait for book three!
Thanks to my credit card points, I was able to get myself a $100 Barnes & Noble gift card, of which I promptly spent about a third buying this book - still a New Release in hardcover. I tried to read it as slowly as I could to shorten the time between books, since there's still no word as to when Book Three will be released (I'm hoping for Spring 2012, since on the author's website, he mentions that the whole thing has already been written, and he intended each of the books to be released a year apart...but then again, there was more than a year between Book One's release and Book Two's if I remember correctly, so who knows). I managed to drag it out for well over two months, which is no small feat for a normally fast reader like me, but today, I just couldn't hold myself back anymore, so I finished the last 100 pages or so.
Given my usual feelings about middle segments of trilogies, I was skeptical when I picked up this 994-page mammoth of a middle volume. However, since the first one was SO good, I was hopeful that I would continue to enjoy the story enough to not get stuck in the mud of the middle for years like I did with Lord of the Rings back in high school. As it turns out, not only did I not get stuck, I found myself just as unable to put this book down as the first one.
This was not a typical middle volume. I think it's partially due to the unique, first-person narrative and the fact that while there are many supporting characters who have major, major roles in the story, there is only one true main character. So rather than having several groups of major characters split off at the end of book one, and jumping between their story lines in book two (like Lord of the Rings, and like most of the Tad Williams books I've read), it is one continuous plot line. This definitely helped to hold my attention. Also, typically in a middle book, a few of the story lines will be much more interesting to me than the others, so I'll end up getting the urge to skip over the ones I don't care about as much. In this book, however, each step along Kvothe's journey was just as interesting as every other step, and it felt very true to real life in that every time he was almost getting somewhere in one place, something happened to force him to go off that path on a different adventure. What really made it work though, was that he always somehow made it back to the original path, even if it was 600 pages or so later. And it always seemed to take just the right amount of time - long enough that you were anxious to find out where that original path would lead, but not so long that you became disinterested in the new path(s) or forgot what had been going on on the original path before he got sidetracked.
The book made me cry on several occasions. It evoked emotions in me that I've been sorely lacking of late. And, like any good piece of writing should, it had many snippets of Real Truth that made me pause and quote them somewhere (usually in a facebook status). What I love about the fantasy genre is that because it takes place in a world where there are no rules except those the author creates, it has the ability to freely showcase real-world truths that cannot be properly expressed within the constraints of social/political/other rules and restrictions in the real world. The biggest thing in this series in particular that is resonating with me (and I actually have moments where I'm fairly sure I can see where this is going, and I can't wait to find out if I'm right when I read Book Three!) is the focus on Names and Naming. One underlying theme throughout the entire series so far has been Kvothe's pursuit of the Name of the wind (hence the title of Book One), and his education in the ancient art of Naming. What strikes me about it is how true it rings to my own view of the importance and power of names.
There's a passage in this book where Master Elodin (Kvothe's Naming teacher) and Kvothe meet with a young friend of Kvothe's whose real name nobody knows, but who Kvothe has been referring to as Auri. When Elodin hears Kvothe call her Auri, he raises an eyebrow and later asks Kvothe why he calls her Auri. Kvothe responds that he doesn't know, he just started calling her that because it seemed right. Elodin says nothing, but it's made clear by his reaction that Kvothe has a natural ability for Naming, and it seems that Auri may be her true Name (although it hasn't been explicitly stated as such yet). I felt this passage so deeply that I'm not sure I can explain it. I've always had an obsession with names. I have noticed a strong association between names and personalities, and although everyone thinks I'm crazy when I tell them that, I still maintain that there are certain characteristics that people with certain names tend to have, with very few (if any) exceptions. For this reason, I'm very picky about names, especially names for my own future children. It's not that I judge new people that I meet on their names alone, but simply that I observe these similarities between people with the same name. This leads me to feel that there is something deeper to a name than just a label by which to call someone. And this series is exponentially reinforcing that feeling, and showing it in ways I never dreamed of...
...Although, actually, now that I think about it, maybe there was a time when I did have a deeper understanding of the power of names. When I was in elementary school, my friend Nina and I would go on walks around our neighborhood, playing a game as we went. In the game, we were two princesses from another planet, who had been stranded on Earth. We learned the names of things by touching them. I don't remember exactly how it was supposed to work, but basically, we would touch whatever it was, and the word for it would just come to us. So we walked around, and we would touch a flower, cock our heads to one side as if listening for a few moments, and then slowly say, "flower" as if tasting this new word as it came out of our mouths. We repeated this process for "tree", "grass", "mailbox", and other random things we passed on our walk. It's been many years since we played this game, obviously, but for some reason, that aspect of it has always stuck with me.
I have friends who are really into numerology and some other new age-y things of the sort. While I don't necessarily believe in any of that, there is a focus on names as meaningful within them that resonates with me. I do believe that there is a deep truth in this power of names that extends beyond the fantasy realm of books into the real world.
I am loving this series in a way I haven't loved anything else I've read - potential new favorite author? He certainly captures the essence of humanity as deeply as Orson Scott Card does, but in a very different way. I wouldn't say I like these books BETTER than OSC's or Tad Williams' books, but I definitely like them just as much, and in different ways.
Can't wait for book three!