Pink Slime: The Name of the Wind (part 1)

2007 saw the publication of The Name of the Wind, the first book of the as-yet incomplete Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy by Patrick Rothfuss. In the decade since its release, it has been hailed as a modern classic to almost universal critical praise. On Amazon, it sits with a 4.6 out of 5 rating from 7,122 reviews. Goodreads rates it at a 4.55 out of 5. Critics laud it as being as good as A Song of Ice and Fire or, if they're insane, The Lord of the Rings.

I gave it an honest shot. 

I really did. Went into it with the expectations that it has an interesting magical system and a good setting.

I abandoned this book after 10 chapters, almost 100 pages, and one week. I haven't hated the reading experience this much since The DaVinci Code.

Therefore, this is not a “review” in the traditional sense. This is a post-mortem for my aborted read-through, because when I say that this book is badly written, I want you to see the full chapter notes where I point out examples of my argument. Then there's going to be a wrap-up.

This will take several posts.

Chapter Notes:

Prologue:

We have a sleepy inn in a sleepy village. We have a ginger barkeeper who is waiting to die. Some mood setting, but that's it.

Chapter 1:

Some villagers are drinking in the inn and one of them's telling a story about an old timey hero who could do magic by knowing the names of things. Then a friend of theirs comes in all bloody and scratched. His horse was killed by a magical stone spider...thing and the falling horse killed it. We are told this instead of being shown. The barkeeper, Kote, knows its called a scrael and they determine that it can be burnt by iron. The villagers call it a demon and wonder what to do next.

Fast forward a few hours and Kote returns to the inn to clean up. He does so for several pages. A young brown man named Bast shows up with a bowl of soup and calls Kote “Reshi.” He's his magical apprentice/cabana boy. Why he shares a name with an Egyptian Cat Goddess eludes me. The two talk about the scrael and how it was disposed of by the local priest “who did all the right things for all the wrong reasons.” Kote, who knows what the things are and the danger they pose to a village of innocent people, did nothing in the disposition of the monster's body except lowkey make sure they disposed of it properly. This is somehow better than what the priest did.

Our hero.

Again, we are told what happened, but instead we got to see Kote sweeping floors and talking snidely about the local rubes.

He eats soup, stares at his room, stares at a locked chest before going to bed.

Riveting.

The next day there's village small talk and rumors about King Whatshisface and a war and taxes being raised and the roads being especially perilous.

So thus far we've established that our seeming protagonist is a world-weary man not yet thirty with considerable magical knowledge and an unwillingness to do the right thing when his neighbors are frightened and imperiled.

The prose is standard, but chooses to go into flourishes at weird points, and some sentences repeat their information in tandem. “When Kote's eyes fell on the chest they did not dart quickly away. They did not slide slyly to the side as if he would pretend it wasn't there at all.” 

That's two sentences that say the exact same thing. That's not good writing. Word economy is already a problem.

Chapter 2

A short one, at least. Its a perfectly beautiful autumn day, which is apparently rare in “the real world.” This is untrue, because I regularly experience about a month's worth of perfect autumn days every year in rural Ohio. They're gorgeous. Maybe he's just English. No, he's from Madison, Wisconsin. I've BEEN to rural Wisconsin in the fall. Its beautiful! I don't get what he's saying. Its also warm and dry and autumn and fields are ripening. Better start getting those harvests in, boys, or its going to be a hard winter.

Some scribe creatively named Chronicler has his horse and a bunch of money and belongings stolen by exceedingly polite former soldiers turned bandits. Turns out he's smart enough to keep a bunch of money socked away in a shoe and they didn't get that. Its an okay scene, I suppose, but feels like a waste to have its own chapter.

That's it. Just a character establishing chapter. Reasonably good, but pure fluff.

Chapter 3

Kote is in his inn and some woodworker brings in a wooden sword hanger/plaque that Kote commissioned. Its made of weird wood that was hard to work with. Bast is surprised that Kote would get something like that. Kote then hangs his sword up there, which is a special snowflake design that is “not a familiar shape,” which...what? How so? If the village is vaguely Western European, then their standard swords are probably cruciform arming swords, but...the description of “Folly” here tells me absolutely nothing about what it looks like. “It looked as if an alchemist had distilled a dozen swords, and when the crucible had cooled this was lying in the bottom: a sword in its pure form. It was slender and graceful. It was deadly as a sharp stone beneath swift water.” 

Yes, but WHAT THE HELL DOES IT LOOK LIKE THAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT FROM STANDARD ARMING SWORDS? Is it curved? Is it single-edged? Does the head broaden closer to the tip like a falchion? Is it a rapier? Rapiers are thin. Are you trying to tell me that its “foreign” because crucible steel making originated in India and that's why it doesn't look like anything local? If that's the case, then why not also mention the very distinct style of hilt that Indian smiths put on every single weapon they got their hands on.

Here's an Indian khanda sword I found on Wikipedia. That style of hilt is extremely common in Indian designs.

JUST DESCRIBE WHAT THE FURSHLUGGINER SWORD LOOKS LIKE.

And then a bunch of travelers arrive and the inn's busy for a change and people are having a good time and someone calls Kote by the name “Kvothe the Bloodless.” Kote makes up some cover story about an old arrow injury to his knee (this was written several years before Skyrim), and has Bast drug the poor sod's drink so he falls asleep sooner.

The next day the travelers leave and Kote buys some thick leather gloves & an apron from the blacksmith and an iron rod. Then he closes the inn up early.

Chapter 4

Chronicler is walking toward the village of Newarre when night falls and he finds a bonfire that smells of burning hair and rotting flowers and is being tended by Kote, who's bundled up thickly except for his red hair. He grudgingly allows Chronicler by the fire and talks down to him about the dangers in the woods. Then the dangers in the woods attack, five of those spider-like scrael. Chronicler is useless in the fight and bumps his head, fading in and out of consciousness, which is great because then we might've had to experience a fight scene and who in their right mind would want that when you can tell instead of show?

Chronicler passes out after trying to stand up and an injured Kote carries him back to town.

Chapter 5

Bast complains to Kote about running off into the woods alone to fight scrael. They argue. Not like master & apprentice. Not like comrades in arms. They argue like lovers. Which would actually be really interesting opportunities for exploring those kinds of characters in a Medieval-like setting, but Bast has been established as spending most of his free time with the young women of the village. This is tonal dissonance. Kote's wounds are tended too and he goes to sleep. Bast watches him sleep, brushes his hair out of his face, and softly sings to him, but no homo, bro.

Part the Second
Part the Third
Part the Fourth