I recently finished The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, which is rather shameful since it’s been out for almost a year now and Rothfuss is one of my favorite authors. What can I say? Life intervened, as she so often does.
TWMF continues the story of Kvothe, the music-loving arcanist first introduced in 2007’s The Name of the Wind (which I keep mistyping as The Name of the Rose!). The whole series is actually a story-within-a-story. Kvothe (now masquerading as a simple innkeeper named Kote) is telling his life’s story to an itinerant scholar known as Chronicler. And it’s quite the story: in TNOTW, Kvothe was orphaned at a young age when his parents were killed by the mysterious Chandrian. After spending years begging on the streets, Kvothe finally enters the Arcanum, a school for the study of the arcane arts. Although Kvothe soon shows himself to be a talented arcanist, his temper often lands him in trouble, and he makes a lasting enemy of a young nobleman named Ambrose.
In TWMF, Kvothe’s feud with Ambrose takes a sinister turn when it looks like Ambrose is using ‘sympathy’ to try to hurt him. Sympathy involves forging magical links between objects, and Kvothe believes that Ambrose has used some of his blood to create a sort of voodoo doll. Eventually, Kvothe triumphs over his rival, but he is then arrested on charges stemming from the events in the first book. Although Kvothe escapes punishment, it is clear that Ambrose and his family hold a deep grudge, so Kvothe’s friends and instructors convince him to take a break from his studies until things have cooled down.
During his ‘vacation,’ Kvothe heads to Severen to gain the patronage of the local Maer. Kvothe is ultimately unsuccessful in obtaining full patronage, but along the way he foils a plot against the Maer, hunts bandits, has copious amounts of sex with a Fae woman, and learns a nifty new set of combat moves from a mysterious warrior race. By the time he returns to the Arcanum, he’s a much different person. Kvothe the boy is now Kvothe the man, and he has finally begun to learn how to effectively control his powers.
TWMF has received the same near-universal acclaim as its predecessor, but I’m afraid I’m going to be one of the few dissenting voices. Don’t get me wrong: TWMF is a very good book. I think Rothfuss is one of the best world-builders in fantasy, and I really, really like his prose. Like N.K. Jemisin or Genevieve Valentine, he writes elegantly yet simply, without the ponderous prolixity that often mars fantasy novels. Rothfuss has also done a wonderful job developing Kvothe’s character. He could have very easily become a ‘Marty Stu,’ but his flaws help keep him believable.
My biggest problem with TWMF is that it the story often bogs down. The scenes with Felurian (the uber-sexy fae woman who has a reputation for humping men to death) drag on and on. Interesting things do happen (such as his encounter with the Cthaeh), but they’re obscured by the repetitive sex talk. Similarly, Kvothe’s time among the Adem felt a lot longer than it really was. The Lethani is a cool concept, but I sometimes felt like I was being beat over the head with it.
There were also a few WTF? moments. Kvothe’s trial came out of left-field, and it sort of felt like that whole episode had originally been intended for the first book. It seemed strange that Ambrose’s family would have waited so long to have Kvothe brought before a judge. Maybe it just took them a while to grease enough palms.
Kvothe’s sudden decision to run after Felurian also struck me as odd. Granted, Kvothe can be the King of Bad Decisions at times, but his eager pursuit of her made me scratch my head. He’s supposed to be returning to the Maer’s court, yet he drops everything to make time with some Fae harlot. I suppose one could argue that Felurian’s supernatural allure combined with Kvothe’s natural brashness to make him cast reason aside, but it still seemed weird. I did not get the sense that Felurian’s appeal was impossible to resist; the other male members of Kvothe’s group managed to keep their distance from her.
Ultimately, the entire book felt like one big digression from the main plot. I would have liked to have learned more about the Chandrian and the Amyr, which have lurked at the margins of the plot since the beginning of the series. Given Rothfuss’ talent, the side road is still an attractive proposition, but I sure was glad when Kvothe returned to the Arcanum (and the main plotline) at the end.
Codex Lochianus 