It took me a bit to get into The Name of the Wind. It’s a dense, non-linear story. Kvothe reluctantly tells his story to a few people, breaking his past into small arcs. The current timeline moves very slowly forward, while his stories work to catch his past up to the present.
Book Information
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
First Published: Mar 27 2007
Format: e-book
Source: Library
Genre: Fantasy
Series: The Kingkiller Chronicle #1
Kvothe’s musical ability and skill are a recurring theme throughout the book, appearing in at least three of his stories. It was a key part of his university days. Some of the things that happen to his instrument are heart-wrenching.
Young Kvothe took a lot of risks, had absolutely no forethought, and it wrecked terrible consequences. I found it very annoying. As he was about to do something that would obviously turn out badly, I cursed to myself. It’s hard to read about someone repeatedly making bad choices. Kvothe is young and impulsive, sure, but for someone so driven towards one goal, it didn’t make sense to me for him to risk everything for small gains. He’s also quite distracted by one character, which I found out of place.
As this book focuses mostly on Young Kvothe, I hope that the next book will help Kvothe find some balance. The Name of the Wind did make me cry. I think only once or twice, but still, that’s annoying too. It’s full of tragedy and hardship, mostly not of his making.
There’s so much foreshadowing for what Kvothe accomplishes in his life. There are no major successes, no details that hint at the sources of his infamy. The next books in this series have some big shoes to fill. The Name of the Wind is an epic story. I’m delaying starting book 2 because there hasn’t been an update on book 3 in a long time. I hope Patrick Rothfuss does eventually get around to writing it, the Kingkiller Chronicles are too good to be left unfinished.