# The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss



## Werthead (Mar 18, 2011)

Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, Kvothe the Kingkiller. He is a  legend but the real man is an enigma. A man named Chronicler is trying  to find out the truth behind the legend by convincing Kvothe to tell him  his life story, a task so long it will take three days to complete.

On  the second day, Kvothe relates more of his time at the Commonwealth  University, his ongoing feud with another student named Ambrose and his  increasingly proficient studies in various areas. He also tells of his  time spent in Vintas, serving a nobleman seeking to woo a lady, and  learning the arts of combat in far Ademre. But how much of Kvothe's  story is truth and how much is his own fabrication?

_The Wise Man's Fear_ is the sequel to _The Name of the Wind_ and the second in *The Kingkiller Chronicle* trilogy. Since the trilogy was originally one extremely long novel split into three parts, _The Wise Man's Fear_  has little preamble and not much of the climax. It starts, we follow  the story for a time, and then it ends with little resolved. For a novel  that is 1,000 pages long in hardcover, that should be a fairly damning  comment.

Rothfuss's saving grace is his immense writing skill. He  could make the telephone directory sound warm and interesting, and  whilst the book is extremely long most of the chapters are short and  snappy. The narrative is divided into two distinct sections, basically  Kvothe in the University and Kvothe out in the world, and these sections  are themselves fairly episodic. Whilst Kvothe's hunt for information  about the Chandrian, the mysterious creatures that killed his family,  provides a narrative spine of sorts, sometimes dozens of chapters pass  without this plot element being as much as mentioned.

As a result _The Wise Man's Fear_  feels less like a novel and more like a collection of tightly linked  short stories (a feeling added to by the fact that one episode in the  novel, _The Road to Levinshir_,  was previously published as a separate short story almost a decade ago).  This dichotomy - a very episodic book presented as a single novel -  creates problems for pacing and consistency, with some of the episodes  and stories being fascinating and others being tedious, whilst several  more interesting-sounding incidents (like Kvothe standing trial for a  misdemeanour) are skipped over in a couple of paragraphs. _The Name of the Wind_  suffered from this as well, such as the incongruous and dull draccus  incident towards the end of the book, but due to its much greater length  _The Wise Man's Fear_ is even  more prone to it. Kvothe's dalliance with a famous Fae temptress goes on  for far too long and winds up feeling a bit like the porn version of  Tom Bombadil, whilst Kvothe's training montage with the Klingon Aiel  Dothraki Vikings of the far north-east is just plain dull. Those who  found Kvothe insufferable and Gary Stu-esque in the first novel will  likely plain hate him here, as he picks up a ton more skills (including  unarmed and armed combat, more magical skills and several more  languages) with ease.

But Rothfuss does seem to be more overtly  pulling the wool over the reader's eyes here. Kvothe reports on his  badass fighting skills but then in a 'present' incident is unable to  effectively defend himself from attack. Is this because he overrated his  combat abilities, or because he's rusty, or because he deliberately  holds back? The reader is invited to decide. Anomalies in Kvothe's story  are also pointed out by Chronicler, and Kvothe admits to occasionally  sprucing up his story. He's not exactly an unreliable narrator on the  scale of Severian in *The Book of the New Sun*,  but Rothfuss is at least letting the reader know that Kvothe himself  might not be the best person to tell his tale, but he's all we've got to  go on.

Elsewhere,  plot elements are carefully alluded to rather than being spelt out,  such as the motivations and identity of Denna's mysterious employer, or  the relationship between Kvothe and a minor character that Kvothe  himself is totally oblivious to. There is an impressive degree of  subtlety running through this brick-thick tome that will no doubt raise  questions and discussions that will keep fantasy forums busy until the  final volume is released.

Rothfuss's powers of prose and  characterisation remain highly impressive. The writing is rich and  atmospheric, setting the scene perfectly, and Rothfuss has a keen eye  for detail, humour and warmth (though in this book slightly more  undercut by bitterness and cynicism), but those hoping for the story to  explode into life, become bigger and more epic, will be disappointed. In  a way Rothfuss is writing an anti-epic fantasy, with the focus narrowly  on one character and the ordinary events that have been inflated out of  all proportion. This forces the reader to keep downplaying  expectations, since Rothfuss isn't playing the same game as a lot of  other epic fantasy authors.

_The Wise Man's Fear_  (****) is a difficult book to review, as it's well-written, sometimes  compulsively page-turning and features some extremely well-played and  subtle storytelling. On other, briefer, occasions it's tediously dull,  cloying and prone to attacks of purple prose (particularly in the frisky  fairy section). The book is also monstrously overlong and could have  been split into two or three more focused, shorter books without too  much of a problem. But Rothfuss is too good a writer to let the book's  many issues sink it, and the book ends with the reader left wanting to  know what happens next, which is the key thing. The novel is available  now in the UK and USA.


----------



## Boneman (Mar 21, 2011)

A very fair review, Werthead. For those of us who've been waiting for years for the sequel, I know that we do overlook its shortcomings as we are true fans (short for fanatics), so I feel yours was a very balanced view.

And it went straight in at Number 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for hardbacks, which is pretty amazing for a fantasy book!!  Okay, I helped, by buying two copies - one to read and one for 'Sunday best'. All I've got to do now is get them signed...


----------



## assasin (Apr 28, 2011)

i definately prefered the scenes at the university. I also did in the first book. That said I still find it to be a masterpiece.


----------

