The Name of the Wind

Ah, the name of the wind.

It's hard, when you skip a series that is so well known in one of your favorite genres, for years, because it's almost impossible to not hear tons of opinions on it, and that will inevitably shape your experience.

I struggled with what to rate this, because I was consistently underwhelmed by it. So why did I rate it 5 stars? Because it deserves 5 stars.

I hear three constant things about Name of the Wind. Rothfuss' prose is incredible, the series sucks because Kvothe is a Gary Stu/unreliable narrator, and the series is the greatest thing ever. I found the first to be true, and the second two to be false (in my opinion).

Firstly, I listened to this on audio, and that was a mistake because the prose is gorgeous and it is really hard for me to latch onto phrases in audio form. I will definitely be reading this physically at some point.

I don't understand where people calling Kvothe a Gary Stu comes from, he has a ton of flaws. He just also has hyper competences at some things. I can understand those things annoying you (particularly the beginning, where he's a kid and just learning a ton of shit super quickly and never forgets any of it even after not thinking about any of it for years after), but calling him a Gary Stu is willfully ignoring all the shit he does wrong. He's also not exactly an unreliable narrator, because many times he talks about unflattering things he did or how he wishes he did something different, or he talks about how he let some legend about him persist (if he was trying to make himself look better, he would just say, “yeah, that happened”)

The plot was meandering, and pretty bare bones, and Kvothe as a character I never particularly liked that much, although there are aspects that I really liked. At no point did the plot really kick into an overdrive where I was wowed, like in any of my other favorite fantasy series.

But that said, I was engaged at every single goddamn second of this book. I was not bored for a moment. Rothfuss is such a gifted writer, I cant believe it. I had thought, based on people's comments, he was going to be dense like Tolkien's (also beautiful) writing, and was prepared for a slog. But it's instantly readable, engaging, and thought provoking. Truly one of the best.

The worldbuilding was also pretty good, although it could have been better. We didn't get a lot on how the magic worked, or the layout of the overall world, but I imagine this is all expanded upon in Wise Man's fear and the eventual, perpetually delayed, Doors of Stone.

I can say that Name of the Wind was not what I was expecting. I don't imagine I will ever consider this one of my favorite series (but who knows, maybe book 2 will convince me!). But this book will stick me for a long time and I would recommend it to anyone who was trying out some fantasy.