The Name of the Wind

Rothfuss, Patrick. The Name of the Wind. Book 1 of the Kingkiller Chronicle. 2009. 661p. ISBN 978-0-7564-0589-2. Available at FIC ROT on the library shelves.

Chronicler finds the red-haired man running a tavern in the middle of nowhere. His information is clear. This man is none other than Kvothe, a hero and villain who marked the recent history of Temerant. Through cajoling, Chronicler manages to get Kvothe to tell his tale.

As a youth, Kvothe always wanted to join the University where magic is learned. A member of the Ruh, a tribe of people who are performers, he has spent his youth moving throughout the continent playing in front of crowds large and small. On the road he met a man who taught him the rudiments of sympathy, how everything is connected together and how diverse properties can be used to perform actions others would perceive as magic.

But when his father and his caravan are slain for talking too much about the Chandrian, a mythical race, Kvothe is left alone, and must now survive in a world he is not entirely prepared for. Making his way to the large city of Tarbean, he survives for years as a beggar and thief, encountering other children like him and left for dead more times than he can count following violent encounters. Through it all, Kvothe holds the faint hope of making it to the University, and when he hears a storyteller recount the tales of the Chandrian, Kvothe realizes that he must chance the trip to the University.

On the way there he meets Denna, who is an accomplished singer. The two of them get along great, but when they arrive in Imre, Kvothe knows he'll never see Denna again. Penniless, he nevertheless participates in the University's entrance exam, and manages not only to impress the Masters, but also score a tuition whereby the University will pay him, something it has very rarely done.

Kvothe is hoping to use the expansive archives of the University to find more information about the Chandrian, but following an altercation with a rich student named Ambrose, he finds himself banished. Having to balance school work with regular work so he can eat, Kvothe progresses in his mastery of sympathy and his knowledge of magic, yet he remains far from his objective of learning more about the Chandrian.

Over the course of one day, Kvothe tells Chronicler about his life at the University, about the challenges he faced, and about Denna, the only girl he really loved. Fans of fantasy will appreciate the author's approach to telling a tale that features both deep world building and well-defined characters in a different way, having the main character retell his story to a biographer, with few interjections and interactions in the present.

The story continues in The Wise Man's Fear.