Go read this book. Right now.
Done? Okay. Let's talk.
So Pat Rothfuss is quite the guy.
He's got a way with words. The sheer amount of skill that comes out in his phrasing, sentence structure and paragraph length is just breathtaking. Rothfuss is poetic without being overwrought. He's clever without being silly. He can describe a song so well that you can hear it and magic so well that it feels like you could try doing it yourself.
His characters are well measured and structured. With a sentence here or a word there he can convey a character trait that would take a lesser author a good 10 pages to convey. And more importantly, they feel like real people. Whenever Rothfuss strays near an archetype (i.e. mean old noble guy) he'll salt something in to differentiate them. Screentime is carefully managed to leave the reader with the correct impression of a character.
I have been of the opinion for some time that Rothfuss is in fact the best author currently making use of the English language. We are privileged to live in his generation. While I was reading this book I did little else. When I walked down the street, I had my Kindle in hand reading. When my Associate turned his back, I would pick up my Kindle and read. I've been reading the book at every opportunity for the last 4 days.
Having finished it now, I am in awe of Rothfuss' skills and wonder how it is that a man of such incredible powers could make so many mistakes.
There are three ways in which the Wise Man's Fear disappoints. Let me emphasize again before I begin that this is still the best book written between the release of the Name of the Wind and now.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Flaw #1 - Plot
I really think what Rothfuss did right in the Name of the Wind was to take a step away from the World Building style of fantasy that plagues the genre these days, choosing instead to leave most of that stuff aside so that he could run a tight-plot. Even as Kvothe mucked about in the University and fought a Draccus, the plot never loses sight of the Chandrian
The Wise Man's Fear, on the other hand, does just that.
Going on a trip to Vintas to visit some Lord guy? Cool, that broadens the setting.
Fighting some bandits? Well okay, I guess that's how everybody gets their start.
Having sex with one of those slutty Great Faeries from Zelda? Oka-... wait, what?
All of the encounters are linked back to the main story just so clumsily. Kvothe getting information from the head karate lady in the one town just felt video game-ish, with Kvothe asking for what essentially amounted to a Quest Reward.
And honestly, where did the main plot really even go in this? Besides a brief Cinder cameo with the bandits and a few repetitive rumours (I know there are fucking seven of them and they don't like the Atur, let's move on), the Wise Man's Fear offers next to no new information. There's a list of names sure and you get how they knew someone was singing about them, but there's no more information about what their problem is. Honestly, I've waited for this for years and this is all I get? Surely some of the information coming in the third book could have been moved up into two.
Flaw #2 - Pacing and Kvothe's powers
A lot of the things in the book easily overstayed their welcome. Kvothe's training with the Adem is the first thing that springs to mind in this list. That was just pure World Building Fantasy. Chapter after chapter doing little more than exploring the eccentricities of these weird Karate People's culture. I don't understand the reason why that had to last as long as it did. I mean, maybe if the whole Lethani thing were linked a bit more closely to finding the Name of the Wind it would have been a bit better, but the whole thing seemed pretty arbitrary.
I also think that on one level Kvothe is getting a bit silly. In the Name of the Wind Kvothe was an eternal underdog, but now he's a Rich Magic Karate Singing Sword Man (who's great in bed). I know it's all going to fall apart nonetheless and sink him into a shitty inn in the middle of a bunch of shit farms. But did he really even need to learn all that martial arts shit? Personally I think sticking with goddamn magic would have been a lot better. That stuff he did when he used sympathy on a corpse to slit those bandits' throats was fucking awesome. I'd much rather he do shit like that then go around using obscure Karate.
I did really like the poem about beating up the 10 year old girl though.
And it was a bit of an odd choice to make the Karate moves and the sex moves have such similar names. "Thousand Hands" vs. "Sleeping Bear", etc.
Flaw #3 - Women
Okay. Let's start with the more minor problem...
So I remember Rothfuss once describing himself as a casual anime fan, but... well, I don't think that's true and that he's minimizing that. Because the first chunk of the book in the University really did read a lot like a harem anime. An Event here with Devi (Tsundere-type), another one there with Mola (Senpai-type), another with Fela (Idol-type) and another one there with Auri (Mysterious-type). Like a harem, none of these things were allowed to come to a natural conclusion. Kvothe would have a meaningful scene with one of them and you'd think 'oh okay how is this going to develop?' only to have him a similar scene with a different girl in the next chapter.
Pure harem. That isn't a major crime in and of itself, but it certainly was an odd choice.
But then there was Felurian.
I think I was hoping for a more Jonathan Strange/Mr. Norrel path into the fae lands, but I can get over that. If I could describe the way those chapters were written as anything it would probably be self-indulgent. His decision was his decision. It was certainly interesting to see Rothfuss amazing powers of writing employed in something so raunchy.
But what I don't like is what it did to Kvothe's character. Whenever Kvothe meets a pretty girl I must now ask the question 'Is he going to sleep with this lady?' On average, the answer in the WMF after the whole Felurian thing appeared to be 'yes' (unless she was underaged, which is a small mercy). Rothfuss in this regard seemed to be expressing a sort of promiscuous philosophy at times so I was glad when Kvothe's dalliances resulted in him being shut down with Denna. At least that shows that Rothfuss is aware of the limitations of that philosophy, but I nevertheless don't think that Kvothe being a man-slut serves his character very much.
Also I really don't like Denna. And her patron is almost certainly a goddamn Chandrian.
Nevertheless...
This was a fantastic book. Brilliantly written, well-structured and well-executed. I am eager to see how the plot will develop and look forward to having some friends read it already so that we can discuss questions as to Chandrian identities and where the heck Skarpi or Bast are or how Kvothe should just forget about that Denna bitch and focus his attentions on Auri.
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