Chain Reading

Kvothe (“pronounced nearly like quothe”) is an innkeeper. He has, however, only come into the position within the last year, and now goes by the name Kote in the little town where his inn resides. His story is long and his ultimate retirement complex, but there is one person that still loves him and wishes more for him than this life of stagnation and defeat. Recent attacks from beings thought to have no place in this small out of the way town remind Kote of his prior life, which seems now long past in his mind. On the heels of these attacks comes a historian of sorts who walks into Kote’s inn and claims to recognize him as the Kvothe of legend. Kote eventually succumbs to this accusation (as there are no other customers, as is typical, sitting in his common room) and decides to give his story to this historian. He claims that it will take him three days in the recitation, but that it will be worth the man’s time. They sit down to table, and Kvothe begins to speak.

The majority of this book is then told from Kvothe’s perspective, in first person narrative, as he lays out his beginnings in a touring company of actors (with his parents), his departure from them, life as an urchin in a large city, and the first few months of his rapid education as a user of magic.

As a debut novel, I have to say that this book was quite impressive on several levels. Despite the fact that it weighs in at a whopping 660 pages (in hardback) the prose moved me along at a quick clip and never seemed to lag enough that I noticed it. Rothfuss, somehow, doesn’t fall into the trap that writing characters from the first person can sometimes bring: slow parts in the story are boring and tend to drag. Despite the fact that nearly the entire story is told from Qvothe’s perspective, there is always something going on that tugs at your interest, makes you smirk at a connection, or wonder at just how much more is out there that the author hasn’t yet revealed. There are a few short breaks in the story where Rothfuss cuts back to the inn for a couple pages. I found that at each one I was eager to get back into Qvothe’s story. And I never found myself disappointed.

Characterization is quite good in this book. There are a handful of main characters that the author develops quite well. Secondary characters mostly seem to all be cut from the same paper, but it doesn’t distract from the story any as they are mostly there to just fill in the blanks surrounding those characters that are important. Also, music and stories play in integral part in the lives of these characters. This, I think, helps them to become more real to the reader, while also adding to their world.

Rothfuss also develops quite a good sense of history without delving into expository lumps of boredom. Most of his world-building is local to the place where the main character finds himself, and the rest is left to wash in the history that fills the story where it can. He does, however, do all this seamlessly and allows the reader to learn about the world as his characters interact with it. Very well done.

The actual plot of Kvothe’s story is somewhat ambiguous as this is the retelling of a much larger story than is contained within this single book. Although there is one over-arching impetus to Kvothe’s education and a few of his forays into the wild, I didn’t feel like the core of the story was built around that fact alone. I am expecting that this idea will, however, come more into the foreground of the story in the remaining two books. Still, despite this fact, the final page of the book leaves with a satisfying ending -- one that brings closure to at least one of the main thrusts of Kvothe’s life. At the same time though, it opens up a very large piece of the story about which I am expectantly awaiting more.

Something that might interest readers also, is that Rothfuss has said that the remaining two books in the trilogy have already been written and that they will be released in one year intervals. So, if you decide to pick this one up, the wait won’t be so terribly long as it might with another series. That being said, I’d recommend this book to any lover of fantasy that isn’t scared off by books with lots of pages, and loves stories that are built around characters, and not the other way around. This one will be completely worth your while. Happy reading.