An obscure inn sits in a world ravaged by war and unholy creatures. Name anything, and it's "bad." But Kote, the red-haired proprietor of the Waystone, brings in a small crowd of regulars every night. The men eat, drink, tell stories, and complain about the state of the world while, behind them, Kote polishes bottles and his assistant, Bast, sweeps the floor. Even the late arrival of a regular who has been attacked by a strange, spider-like monster barely disturbs the inn's peace.
But one night, a new man shows up at the Waystone. His name is Chronicler, and he claims to know who unassuming Kote really is--Kvothe, the legendary hero. Chronicler offers to take down the story of Kvothe's life, to get the real version out there and dispel the rumors that have flown around the world for years.
And so we learn the truth of the humble Kote--how he was born the son of travelling actors, began his training in sympathy with an arcanist met on the road, moved on to the great University, and started to become the hero known by many names.
I love the idea of magic in this book--the sort practiced by the arcanists at the University is called sympathy, and it's based on forming links between objects to get them to imitate each other. There's actually quite a wide range of things you could do with it, from levitating pennies to killing people. But it's naming that Kvothe has always been fascinated with, the "storybook magic" of learning the names of things and having, for example, the wind, at your command. This is cool, but I must say that I like the idea of sympathy much better, because it seems actually attainable. If you could just believe with all your might that two things were the same, could you really make things happen from afar? It doesn't sound too far-fetched, does it?
Heroes in stories--both as main characters and otherwise--can come in different forms. There's the celebrity whose fame and accomplishments have gone to his or her head; there's the ordinary person who doesn't understand why they should be special (like Harry Potter); and then there's someone like Kvothe, who is not entirely ordinary, but doesn't quite fill the role of a hero except by being unusual. He's a genius and a prodigy, but he doesn't really go on great and dangerous quests; he's certainly not "chosen" for anything. A review from The Onion A.V. Club calls The Name of the Wind a "meditation on how heroism went wrong," and this is a perfect description. You get the sense near the beginning of the book that something went horribly awry at some point in Kvothe's life, but you have no idea how it happened, or even what it was. Exaggerated stories of his exploits created his greatness more than anything he actually did, and in the end, he somehow fell.
Not only does The Name of the Wind feature an interesting male main character, it also has a fabulous female protagonist--although you don't meet her until a good bit into the book. Kvothe remarks much on Denna's beauty, but her personality is much more apparent. It seems to be the default of some authors to create a "strong female character" (and I really hate that term) amongst a crew of guys by making her be a soldier or a street fighter or something similar. (Roderick Gordon did that quite well in his Tunnels series, but Elliott does not make much of a point of her rifle and explosives.) Rothfuss instead chose to make Denna smart, funny, mysterious, talented, independent, and not sword-toting. She does have a knife, but she hides it because, as she says, "'A woman who goes around wearing a knife is obviously looking for trouble. ... However, a woman who carries a knife is ready for trouble.'" (p. 575). Denna is such a real person; I could imagine meeting her in the real world. I respect her.
Other great characters include Kvothe's friends, Simmon and Wilem; Bast, who provides comic moments in the Waystone story arc as well as being a complex character; Elodin, the weird naming master who seems to teach no classes; Ambrose, the perfect archenemy; and Devi, a moneylender of an unexpected kind. For a bit of accent-puzzling-out, there's the farmer in the chapter entitled "Pegs," which is completely unremarkable until you've read it, and then you look back and realize what the chapter is called and laugh.
Before I move on to my complaints, let me say a word about the Chandrian. These enigmatic creatures--are they demons? Ghosts? Something unique?--are the true terror of The Name of the Wind. You'd have a hard time finding someone who says they've seen the Chandrian and who's not lying. They're not much more than a name, although their possible signs are listed in a children's rhyme:
"When the hearthfire turns to blue,
What to do? What to do?
Run outside. Run and hide.
When his eyes are black as crow,
Where to go? Where to go?
Near and far. Here they are.
See a man without a face?
Move like ghosts from place to place.
What's their plan? What's their plan?
Chandrian. Chandrian.
When your bright sword turns to rust,
Who to trust? Who to trust?
Stand alone. Standing stone.
See a woman pale as snow?
Silent come and silent go.
What's their plan? What's their plan?
Chandrian. Chandrian."
Eerie. Eerie. I don't want to spoil anything, but you can bet that the Chandrian are important in the story...
And now I complain. Honestly, I don't get how this book ended up with enough lengthy and stellar excerpts from reviews as are plastered all over the back cover and first few inside pages (in tiny type). The Name of the Wind has a lot of problems; it is by no means the stunningly expert first novel that so many of the reviews would suggest.
First, the mistakes. Rothfuss seems to have a shaky command of commas that has not been fixed enough by his editor. Yes, it must've been a massive manuscript to get through, but it shouldn't be this bad. I love fantasy, but I'm beginning to lose hope for DAW. I've seen too many of their books with atrocious conventions editing and huge amounts of technical mistakes to keep me from thinking that their editors are incompetent and lazy. When I was younger, it wasn't so much of a problem, since I didn't know enough about writing to really notice mistakes, but as a teenager, it's impossible to ignore them. It interferes with my enjoyment of an otherwise good book.
Another technical element that bothered me was inconsistency in names. Kvothe's two best friends from school, Wilem and Simmon, have nicknames: Wil and Sim. I have nothing against nicknames, but it's such a writing absurdity to use both names interchangeably in not only the dialogue, but the narrative. You are never supposed to do that! It sounds awful and informal. The bulk of the story may be Kvothe narrating for Chronicler, but he is a professional storyteller. He would know better than to mix names. It sounds perfectly natural when someone's talking ("Hey, Wil! Wilem, get over here!" for example). In the narration, it sounds absolutely dreadful, and I really hated reading "Simmon" and "Sim" in the same paragraph of blocking.
Also, the world-building of The Name of the Wind is really feeble. There's a map in the beginning, but it has almost no features on it, so I had no idea where half of the important places were in relation to others. There's also very little explanation of the history of this world, so the entire time, I felt like something was missing. You don't even know where the Waystone Inn is! I sort of assumed the Commonwealth, but how was I to know for sure? If you're going to make up a fantasy world, you must ground it and give it a long, exciting backstory. Most importantly, you must never abandon it and set places in an empty space, as the Waystone is. We need to know where we are at all times. It's easy in a book set in our world since we know it, but readers do not know anything more about a fantasy land than what the author tells.
As a final grumble (that reminds me--Rothfuss is over-fond of the verb "grouse"; he sometimes used it twice or thrice on one page), Kvothe is a bit annoying. Okay, I know that that's not much of a complaint, but some of the things he said were just downright rude to readers. In his story, there were instances of such snipes such as, "If you're not a musician, I don't expect you to understand." Often there would be narration implying that you are nothing if you are neither an actor nor a musician. I'm both, but I can imagine that some people would be quite offended by this insinuation. I found it completely off and distasteful. Kvothe may be a character, but all authors speak through their characters to some degree. How do I as a reader know which of Kvothe's thoughts and feelings are truly his and which reflect Rothfuss' own ideas? It does not feel good to think that the author you're reading dislikes your type.
In short, I would recommend this book to any fantasy fan looking for something new and original, but don't expect too much.