I listened to the first book in Rothfuss’ “Kingkiller Chronicles”, and I reviewed it here. As I predicted there, I did eventually decide to give the second book a try. I got it as an audio book again, which was probably for the best. I’m not sure I would have finished it had I not been a captive audience.
The second book is titled “The Wise Man’s Fear” by Rothfuss, and subtitled “Patrick Rothfuss discovers sex” by me. I’ll admit I’m a prude, but I’d at least prefer that it add something to the book if you’re going to put something like that in, let alone to the extent it was here. It was oddly concentrated, too. It was as if he knew that one section of the book was going to be rather dull, and thought that he might liven it up with some nudge-nudge-wink-wink. I doubt I’m in the majority of his audience when I say that it just made me bored and uncomfortable–and by the time that section was over, a little resentful.
I liked the book for all the reason I mentioned last time, and I disliked the book for the same reasons I mentioned there as well. He’s a great storyteller, and an incredible world-builder. He writes very well, very poetically. And I continually lost interest in situations and events long before he did. It’s somewhat ironic listening to this book on audio. The frame-story for this entire series is a man dictating his memoirs over the space of three days. This book was the second day, wherein he dictates for at most eighteen hours–and yet the telling of it adds up to 40+ hours of audio book. And that’s how it felt sometimes–like there was eighteen hours of plot stretched out to 40 hours of prose.
And yet I’ll likely pick up the next book too. In spite of everything, Rothfuss is able to end the book in such a way that I’m still curious to see if Kvothe pulls his head out and puts things right, even though I’m pretty sure the third book ends with his sending Bast on a trip to Ademre to return his sword while he goes off to the woods to die at the hands of Felurian. On the other hand, this might all be just an enormous introduction to the real series, of what happens when a washed-up hero decides it’s time to right all the wrongs he evidently caused. Having set the stage of who Kvothe is and who he was, it could be interesting to see him try to tackle the world while managing to find his way back to someone in between.
Though I’m sure he’d take his sweet time doing it–and it would be quite beautiful prose.