The Name of the Wind

[lightreads]

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
The hero in hidden exile tells the first part of his story to a scribe, from gypsy to street urchin to student of magic to musician, while a largely obscure threat menaces the land.



I read the first hundred pages of the book and went oi, because it's about a red-headed, green-eyed infamous orphan genius bard magician swordsman, and I was just not in the mood for that particular shovelful of clichés. But I came back because I kept thinking about it. It is, in fact, exactly that shovelful of clichés, though some of them have been subverted or outright broken, which I appreciate. And it's a beautifully written book, with multiple turns of phrase that made me stop and go 'ooh.' At least once I'd forcibly tuned my ear to the purposely overblown language. And it's a bit meta around the edges in ways that work for me, because the hero relating the story is an opportunity for him to pick it apart a bit and look at each of the required pieces – tragic childhood, great genius, star-crossed love.



Still, I'm . . . hmm. Okay. I have this huge turn-off for stories where the protagonist is repeatedly wronged and repeatedly unable to make anyone in authority believe him. This isn't one of those stories, but it made me feel like it was, you know? I think because it's doing the same trick of . . . validating through suffering, maybe? Explaining greatness with pain without letting us actually see the magic of turning one into the other. And as engrossing as this book is, it also was like nails on chalkboard that way sometimes, which I qualify by saying that's a very personal, lizardbrain response.




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Comments

[readerjane]

(I have this huge turn-off for stories...)

Oh, THANK YOU. I'm so glad someone else feels the same way. No wonder I love your writing. *g*

I almost tossed Harry Potter for that very same reason. Because the beginning seemed like such a cheap grab for our sympathy: poor defenseless hero gets whumped every day by his cruel stepfamily.

It's such a dismal contrast to Beekeeper's Apprentice, in which Laurie King turned that cliche on its ear by having Mary Russell declare that she isn't going to talk about her abusive aunt, and then KEEP that promise.

I think many writers, not trusting themselves to snag our sympathy for their protagonist, take this route as a way of keeping us engaged until they can teach us who the character really is. They're only hurting themselves, because then they've got to earn the sympathy they've already tried to filch, and it's much harder to earn when we're suspicious and on our guard.

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

You know, I'd even completely forgotten that aspect of the King books until you mentioned it. (I'm reading the fourth right now, btw). And, I mean, forgetting it entirely might also be problematic, if you really think about it. I'm with you on HP, though. My friend ellen_fremedon wrote a great essay on child abuse in HP that I can't find now, frustratingly, but it made a similar point, tangentially. Also I think it was in response to the minor wank we had a few years back about how the tone and POV of the books treted the child abuse as a sort of given. Harry clearly knows it's wrong, but it's also just the way things are for him, and it doesn't ever seem to touch him in the ways you'd think. Leaving the question of what it's for, and sympathy is the least appealing answer.