Pink Slime: The Name of the Wind (Part 3)

Part the First

Part the Second

Based on Kvothe's existing characteristics I feel safe in predicting how the story goes. This was informed slightly from what I had heard from other people (the magic school, for instance) but mostly I'm going off of the modern cliches of mainstream fantasy writing.

IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE??

His family is killed by an evil overlord that is evil because that's cruise control for hack writing. He runs around homeless for a while to build sympathy for him and give him a “hard knock life.” Despite this, he will run into several people who will do everything for him, minimizing his street urchin suffering. Despite all this, he will speak lovingly of urban life and how it is superior to country living among the bumpkins.

He will get into not-Hogwarts, a school allegedly with very high entrance qualifications, on an absurd technicality because there's something special about him. Women will throw themselves at him, but he will awkwardly reject them, instead focusing on one particular girl that he fixates on to an unhealthy amount. They will probably have awkward teenage sex. Kvothe will rise quickly in his class, despite frequently neglecting his studies because he is “brilliant but lazy.” He will make friends easily because he's ripping off Harry Potter.

He will have a rival at the school. That rival will be equally as sociopathic and insane as he is, only he's the bad guy because Kvothe is the designated protagonist. He probably has dark hair. Maybe he's a little taller than Kvothe. He will come from a comfortable upper/middle-class life to contrast with Kvothe's hardscrabble origins. The two will go back and forth and Kvothe will kill him at the end of the story with unnecessary cruelty.

Kvothe will be unnecessarily cruel to many, many people. He will kill several innocents in the course of his studies and extracurriculars. He will then spend the next chapters justifying it to himself and the audience. It will always be written like that poor nameless mayor. Legitimate motivations described as malice. He will always dodge responsibility and self-reflection.

There will be a magical library. This is where all of the wonder and exotic magic will go in the book. It will be lovingly described and ultimately have no bearing on the plot.

The only other fantasy elements will be Kvothe learning the names of things (like the wind) to get them to do stuff. It will be subtle instead of flashy, and achieved through some combination of schizophrenia and dissociative disorder.

Sympathetic magic will be explained further, and it will be nothing like actual real-world Sympathetic Magic, which is found in tribal societies (and appears in Voodoo). Instead, it will be something brainy and lame like math.

There will be no standard fantasy creatures. There will be K-Mart brand knock-offs. Kvothe's Chekhov's Gun sword in the framing chapters will not be explained, saved for a second book.

He will save the girl/school/world, yet still be expelled because he's made powerful enemies along the way and also because he's a sociopath. The second reason will not be acknowledged.

It will end by going back to the framing device. Chronicler will be gushing about how great Kvothe is. It will end on a preparation/teaser for the next book. Maybe there'll be a bar fight or something to try and breathe some life into the ending. It will be anticlimactic and unsatisfying, thematically tying into the rest of this dreadfully dull waste of dead trees.

Pink Slime: The Name of the Wind (Part 2)

Part the First

Chapter 6

Chronicler wakes up and comes down to talk to Kote. Chronicler's real name is Devan Lochees. He prefers Chronicler. This means nothing. He's a scholar of some note famous for writing a treatise on a big lizard and debunking dragons as a myth. Both characters lament that dragons aren't real.

Yeah. Wouldn't want to have those in a fantasy story.

Chronicler keeps needling Kote about sharing his history since there are people back home who are starting to talk shit about Kvothe as a villainous assassin. A woman is brought up and she's a touchy subject for the totally heterosexual Kvothe whose dialogue with his apprentice up to this point hasn't read like the two are in a stable, loving, long-term relationship. Kvothe apparently killed an angel, or something. This is apparently a big deal.

Chronicler only wants to bother Kvothe for an evening to get his story, and Kvothe snaps at him about how that's not enough time and not enough preparation. It'll take three days to recount his life. Chronicler interviewed an 80 year old retired adventurer and that only took 2 days. But no, Kvothe is adamant about needing three days and screw whatever appointments with a local earl he needs to keep because Kvothe is an inconsiderate asshole. Never mind that he's not even thirty years old. Kvothe says he will start talking the next day.

Chapter 7

Yet another morning at the inn and Chronicler demonstrates that he can write really fast because he's got this form of shorthand that he's developed that's really fast and is basically Chinese because its a set of vertical and horizontal lines representing sounds because we're being oh so clever.

This shit doesn't matter to the story being told aside from Chronicler marveling that Kvothe can pick it up quickly without any prior exposure to it. Because he's that kind of character and won't pass up an opportunity to humble brag about it.

Kvothe preambles some blah blah blah, jokingly starting at the beginning of the universe before mentioning the many names he's accumulated because he has SO MANY NAMES AND THEY ALL MEAN IMPORTANT STUFF BECAUSE HE'S SO IMPORTANT.

Once he gets going its not so bad for this chapter, but the fact that we've had a prologue and then six actual chapters that amount to nothing but an even longer prologue is maddening. Everything except the last three chapters of what I've read so far could've been excised without losing ANYTHING. Its just aimless filler that reinforces a melancholy mood that is already established in the prologue chapter. Instead we get busywork and a detailed description of Kvothe's surroundings, while the side characters get almost nothing to distinguish them from each other: names and minimal descriptions, and virtually no personalities that differ from each other. They might as well have blank faces. They're interchangeable and can't even be considered actual characters.

Chapter 8

The story actually starts now. Kvothe started out as a kid in a family of “Edema Ruh” which will hereafter be referred to as gypsies because there is no difference. The family troupe was called Lord Grayfallow's Men, because Kvothe can't be from some poor circus of randos operating in cow towns to get by. No, they're official court performers. Who are operating in cow towns to get by.

Dad's an actor and musician, mom's a poet/wordsmith. “They were Ruh down to their bones, and that, really, is all that needs to be said.”

Except mom's not really a gypsy. She ran off from her life as a noble to be with his father. So the above sentence is a lie. And Kvothe is secretly part-noble as a result. Because of course he is.

He rattles off a few of his mentors and how he learned stuff from them real quick because he was a curious child. He mentions Abenthy, his first “real” teacher.

Then he recounts a mayor giving the troupe a hard time about performing. When they say they're officially licensed, he responds with a legitimate concern that the last time performers came to town the townsfolk got drunk, rowdy, and smashed up the public house that the town owns and maintains. He offers them some money as a gesture of goodwill if they'll leave town without performing. He is treated as an antagonist because to the troupe its an insulting pittance because they're entitled little shits.

Dad namedrops his noble connections instead of actually negotiating, which gets the mayor to reverse position out of fear. Kvothe calls him an ignorant blatherskate because that's how eleven-year-olds talk when their author has seen an episode of DuckTales. Dad makes it a point of calling the villagers “god-fearing folk.” You're in a medieval-style world where a farming community's entire fate can be decided by a single disastrous season. No shit they're going to be superstitious.

Blathering blatherskite!

There's a bunch of padded conversation, and Kvothe discusses Trip, the juggler and jester who can get away with saying just about anything because he's a jester. I'd rather follow his story, to be honest.

So anyway, Kvothe sees a wagon rattle into town and the Mayor and a constable are talking to the guy, who's trying to pass himself off as a peddler and a tinker without a license. (Tinkers were established in the prologue chapters as a respectable profession). He identifies himself as an arcanist and calls the mayor an idiot. Again with the God-Fearing identifier, only this time from the mayor himself. He doesn't want any meddlers with the dark arts messing up his town.

A bossy old man rides into town lying about his identity and coming across as incredibly shady, then tries to intimidate the mayor into letting him stay. The mayor threatens to jail him overnight for vagrancy and threatening behavior and let him go on his way in the morning. The constable bravely tries to arrest this spellcaster of unknown power while armed with little more than a stout stick, then the arcanist does some wind magic and the mayor and constable run off terrified. We are meant to sympathize with the insane vagrant.

This pushy bully is Abenthy, and Kvothe invites him to join the troupe after immediately bonding with him. Despite being eleven years old.

Chapter 9

We now get a description of Abenthy, a chapter after he's introduced, and he looks nothing like the hard-traveling vagabond Chapter 8 made me picture. He's portly, for instance, which indicates a comfortable, regular supply of food. This is not how you introduce characters.

“He spoke gently, laughed often, and never exercised his wit at the expense of others.” Chapter 8 proves this to be a lie.

Abenthy talks about arcanists and magic and “sympathy.” Sympathy is part of the magic system, only its not really magic. But knowing sympathy isn't enough to be an arcanist, you need to go to Hogwar—err, the Arcanum.

Abenthy shows his Arcanum guilder, which is a lead medallion that feels numbingly cold to anyone who's not the owner. This is the badge of rank of an arcanist.

We learn that Trip probably has a magical knack because he always rolls sevens with dice. Any dice. I'd rather read a story about Trip hustling gamblers.

Abenthy takes Kvothe on as an apprentice, and within two months the Gary Stu has learned how to do all sorts of advanced things, like distilling liquor, setting broken bones, and learning how to make a bunch of apphrodisiacs, contraceptives, fantasy Viagra, and something to help women...down there.

Keep in mind that this is an eleven year old learning how to make sex potions.

That's not weird at all.

Chapter 10

Magic lesson time. Abenthy (I refuse to call him Kvothe's nickname of “Ben” because he's already too much of a Kenobi rip-off).

Abenthy teaches him Alar, which is key to being an arcanist. He tells Kvothe to believe that a rock will fall upwards when he drops it. It falls to the ground. Teaching himself to believe this is the hardest thing Kvothe has ever done, and it takes him all of an afternoon. 

Poor baby.

“Finally Ben was able to drop the rock and I retained my firm belief that it wouldn't fall despite evidence to the contrary.”

Having successfully learned schizophrenia, he learns Heart of Stone, which is a mental exercise that compartmentalizes your emotions and prejudices into a Zen or Stoic state where you can think clearly and objectively and go to your sister's funeral without crying (his example, not mine).

Having successfully learned sociopathy, he learns Seek the Stone, which is a mind game where one part of your mind hides an imaginary stone inside an imaginary room and another part of your mind plays hide-and-seek trying to find it. The goal seems to be a split personality.

So an old man meets, then forms a close mentor relationship with an eleven year old boy and then teaches him a bunch of information about sex and a “magic” system that leaves him sociopathic, schizophrenic, and dissociative (the latter two frequently appearing in victims of childhood abuse). I genuinely and truly hope that this is purely coincidental because the alternative is sinister. 

I'm beginning to understand why they burned arcanists.

This is where I tapped out. 

This is the worst thing I've read since The DaVinci Code, which I also abandoned early on, but at least that had action. Stupid, nonsensical action, but stuff happened. 10 chapters and nearly 100 pages over the course of a week, and the only impression that I get out of it was that Kvothe is a self-righteous asshole mary sue protagonist and that an editor should've hacked off entire chapters in the beginning to make it readable.

This is a terrible book. Its not interesting. Its not well written. Its not even iconoclastic. Even by 2008 when it was published, Modern Fantasy had already established all new clichés for the genre and this reads like its ticking off the boxes. 1) Protagonist from a podunk who's actually hugely powerful and everybody who's “good” loves him and hands him things unquestioningly. 2) Power comes easily to him. 3) Edgy atheism. 4) Idiot locals that don't even get descriptions. 5) A magic system that isn't nearly as clever as it thinks it is. 6) Subversion that is only subversive if your frame of reference for fantasy is The Lord of the Rings, which was first published in 1954. The Name of the Wind was published 54 years after The Fellowship of the Ring. Its already been subverted. You're not bringing anything to the table that isn't identical to everything else being published in mainstream SF/F.

George R. R. Martin writes long books popular with the Modernist set, but at least things happen in them. Characters, situations, settings are introduced and shaken up. People die. There's magic. There's talk of monsters. Its not great, but at least stuff happens. Tolkien wrote long works too, but at least he's a master worldbuilder and an actual wordsmith, channeling ancient epics to create his own. He's also got setups, introductions, and characters that are instantly likable that you invest in their struggles. There is weight behind every chapter, even the Infodump at Rivendell.

Rothfuss' prose is universally praised, and I don't see it. Most of the text is basic, functional sentences (this is fine, this is the brick and mortar of writing). Dialogue is circular, banal and clunky, wasting huge chunks of time and is only occasionally interesting. When he does try to get fancy, it turns into a cringe-fest of the worst kind of purple prose that the Modernist crowd supposedly hates. (See the quote about the sword I included yesterday). The only characters who are described with any kind of detail are Kvothe and Abenthy. Everyone else is a mannequin lacking in personality (at least up to the point where I stopped reading). They are set dressing for the Kvothe show. 

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