The Name of the Wind

Kasey Cox

Sometimes, the superlatives aren’t enough.

I have been accused of tending towards hyberbole. I have a hard time holding myself back, though: I say “H-U-G-E!”, drawing out the letters for emphasis; I say “awesome” and “amazing” quite a bit; I also like “fantastic” and “fabulous”. As a person who loves life and feels things deeply, it’s not unusual that my descriptions would be on the dramatic end of the spectrum.

This presents a bit of a problem, on occasion, when reviewing books. I love books. It’s easy to give all kinds of books an enthusiastic thumbs-up, employing any one of my favorite words noted above. But then what to do when a truly special book comes along? How to explain that this book, this author, the writing here, set themselves apart from anything else you’ve read in a long time?

Well, is that enough build-up, or have I exceeded my exaggeration threshold once again? If you can’t hear me on this, then look at what authors Ursula LeGuin, Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey, and Orson Scott Card – to name just a few – have to say about Patrick Rothfuss’s debut fantasy novel, “The Name of the Wind.” In just the short time since the first printing in hardcover in April 2007, Rothfuss has garnered praise from major newspapers all across the U.S. and Europe, Amazon’s “Best Pick of the Year 2007 … So Far” summer award, as well as earning starred reviews in The New York Times, the Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and The Onion A.V. Club. Reviewers didn’t just intimate that this was the next Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings series, they crowed it from the rooftops.

If you’re not a huge fantasy reader, you may still enjoy “The Name of the Wind” and the books to follow in ‘The Kingkiller Chronicles.’ Rothfuss’s writing is so mature, so capable, so smooth, that it transcends genre. In the same way that Tolkien wrote his Middle Earth books inspired by the legends of Classic Literature that he taught, so too, Rothfuss’s story reads like a modern telling of the heroes of old, the story of a man who became a legend in his own time. Rothfuss’s protagonist Kvothe reminds me of a Ulysses or Achilles, or more recently of Tolkien’s Aragorn. His story is by turns sentimental and sweet, intriguing, sad and desperate, triumphant, exciting, frightening. Both plot and the telling kept me turning pages well into the night.

If you are a fantasy reader, one who is still grieving the end of Harry Potter, or author Robert Jordan’s death before finishing his series … one who has been impatiently waiting the third installment in Christopher Paolini’s “Eragon (Inheritance)” series … one who re-watches the Lord of the Rings movies every year, and can provide a direct translation of all the Elvish phrases in Tolkien’s books … wait no longer. “The Name of the Wind” is just the book to sink your teeth into this summer. The only problem then: waiting for Rothfuss’s second installment, “The Wise Man’s Fear.”

Hobo, too, is hard at work on the second installment in his ongoing tales of a hero’s journey. In his first book, “Hobo Finds A Home”, the hero leaves his birthplace and begins his wandering and his adventures in the wider world. He just feels lucky he didn’t see any cottonmouth snakes! Who knows what he’ll see on his Summer Book Tour 2008? Check out his website for updates! http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com