The Name of the Wind

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, because so many commonly appraised fantasy books do not appeal to me. And The Name of the Wind is certainly one of them. It has become a classic and it has been praised for originality. The originality I wasn’t able to see. The book bored me to the bone.

To my mind, it isn’t refreshing. Actually, it’s your Contemporary High Fantasy stock novel. Setting somewhat between Early Modern and Medieval Period? Check. Ancient legends drawing inspiration from Christian and Celtic/German mythology? Check. Dubious Elves Renamed Fancily? Check. Tokenistic portrait of girls? Check. MarySue-ish character famed throughout the realm who now lives anonymously? Check. Attempts to create ambiguous plot and heroes? Check. Crude message on social problems? Check. Magic which is intended to be sophisticated but looks incomprehensible to an average reader? Check.

And the worst is that the author’s intention were actually good; you can see that. He wanted to show poverty. But the homeless life of Kvothe turned into a kind of poverty porn. He wanted to show “strong” women. But whom he displayed are two tokenistic friends of the Main Hero, one Wonderful Mum and one Femme Fatale who’s envied by girls and either abused or admired by men. If you are a girl and reading it—well, you feel as if you were invited to a club where you don’t belong to. And please don’t tell me that it’s just epic fantasy’s feature. Robin Hobb, with all the flaws of her books, managed to complete a balanced and convincing crew of characters somehow. And so many other authors did. I don’t mean that The Name of the Wind turns sexist on purpose. But voluntarily or not, it turns exclusive.

You can draw Rothfuss’ good intention from his depicting of class issues as well, and here it actually gets a bit better. The relation between money, influence and access to education is clearly shown, as well as the prejudice Kvothe faces. But again, coming to other characters—if you write about classism, mentioning that servant women are harassed isn’t enough to show the pathology of the system. Neither showing the nobs either as villains or Noble Patrons is helpful in achieving this. And yes, Rothfuss, we can easily make out that actors and sex-workers aren’t especially respected in your universe, just as they weren’t respected in Medieval Europe.

My main problem with the book wasn’t the sociological flaws, though. It was its form, and the boredom it brings. Because, you see, unlike Ursula LeGuin or Sofia Samatar, Rothfuss isn’t good at describing Daily Things in Fantasy World. And he writes about them a lot. About living with an itinerant troupe, about leading a precarious existence on the street, and above all, about attending an university. There is no true intrigue. And the only premise of EpicEvents are the legends which our heroes are telling to each other.

Overall, his novel feels more like Great Expectations or David Copperfield than like an epic fantasy. But oh, wait… Pip and David weren’t MarySues famed all throughout their country. And the support characters surrounding them were fleshed out. And the mysteries of the plot were explained. While The Name of the Wind has a whole cast of immerorable characters, and secrets which aren’t revealed at all, but in the end we don’t care to read another book in which things are supposed to be at least partially uncovered.

The Name of the Wind feels like a very long prologue to the sequel. And guess what? I don’t give a damn what is happening in The Wise Man’s Fear.