My heart is made of stronger stuff than glass. He’s a guy who has experienced extreme poverty but knows deep down that he is a superman, the kind of guy who would respond this way when warned that a woman might break his heart: This is not because Kvothe doesn’t have serious problems to overcome, but rather because his attitude is so fucking smug. Kvothe’s insufferable ability to weasel his way out of any tight spot––a quality that would usually endear a character to an audience––becomes a mockery of repetition and absurdity with each new episode. Having Kvothe tell his own story in the first person, instead of writing him in the third person, was a huge mistake being inside this prick’s head is just the worst.Ī friend of mine described this dynamic as “male power fantasy,” which I thought was spot on. Though Rothfuss works tirelessly to make Kvothe a sympathetic figure, he proves himself to be an arrogant, obnoxious jerk at every turn. Sadly, his best talent by far is being a complete sod. Kvothe (pronounced “Quoth”) is a prodigy in almost every imaginable fashion, a youth of many talents. One critical failure of this novel is that it’s all about one profoundly unlikeable person, and not in that he’s-not-so-bad-once-you-get-to-know-him sort of way.

In my haste to move on to a more interesting read, I will restrict myself to a few core complaints. I don’t often feel as if reading anything is a waste of my time, but I do genuinely feel like the time I put into this book could have been better spent doing something else–– anything else. Beyond those small strengths, I have nothing but enmity for this bloated mess of a book. That’s all I have to say in the book’s defense. In some ways, The Name of the Wind fits the definition of a fine yarn–– “a long or rambling story, especially one that is implausible”. The book contains some terrific descriptions of music (often difficult to capture with the written word) and musings on the nature of the musical mind. Rothfuss’s prose is ghastly on the whole, but he does occasionally manage to churn out a clever turn of phrase (this could perhaps be attributed more to statistics than to skill, given the story’s length). The worldbuilding is acceptable, even innovative in a few ways. I should acknowledge that this book does have a smattering of good qualities. In my view, The Name of the Wind is an overblown, boring piece of tripe that deserves almost none of the praise it has received from fantasy readers around the world.

But now that I have finally reached the end of this torturous novel, I can safely say it has been a long time since I loathed a book this much. After myriad recommendations from trusted sources, I had high expectations for Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind.

Name of the wind cover