Summary: Kvothe embarks on his second day of story-telling to the Chronicler as things at the inn grow more dire.
Rating & Recommendation: 5/5; recommend for lovers of fantasies and epics, hero-worshippers
Review: Once when I was in college, my professor split our class into dueling factions - one side defending the existence of unicorns, the other side refuting it. The former won. I was on that team, but I stayed silent, because I wasn’t sure I understood the position. They argued that the mere idea of a unicorn confirmed the reality of it. In other words, that a unicorn is fiction doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Ideas have weight. They take up space. This book is like that. The mere existence of a story confirms its reality. I get it now.
Patrick Rothfuss is obviously enamored by the concept of storytelling. I think he believes that stories are alive and dynamic and fluid, that a myth is a living entity.
“No story can move a thousand miles by word of mouth and keep its shape.”
Stories are fragile, but not like glass. Maybe more like clay? It’s what’s so wonderful about language. You can tell someone a thing, hand them a narrative. But then in the handling of it, it’s molded and remolded, which means there’s a thousand and one ways for it to take shape. Sounds sort of like the telephone game, but it’s less about gossip and more about the nature of words.
“I am no poet. I do not love words for the sake of words. I love words for what they can accomplish.”
The Wise Man’s Fear feels like if someone wrote a comic book with only beautiful words. It’s so much more than an adventure, so much more involved and colorful and expansive. I admire good storytelling, and this one delivers in spades. It reminds me of The Odyssey. Not a poem, but equally lyrical. It’s a true epic.
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