Tuan volgen oketh ama*

*Literally means “Don’t put a spoon in your eye over it.” Siaru idiom meaning “don’t let it make you crazy”

I had to really take that advice to heart while slogging through this brick. It’s not that I won’t read loooooooong books (see Karl Ove Knausgaard). I have very little experience with the fantasy genre but one of my pledges to myself while undertaking this Cannonball Read was to try new writers and genres and mediums. Regular fans of the stuff may have an easier time getting into the world building and such but it was an adjustment for me.

Kote (not his real name), runs the Waystone Inn in a sleepy village, seeking the quiet life. One day that quiet is shattered and he is forced to resort to his old ways to take battle a horrible supernatural threat. While he took pains to remain anonymous, a scribe has happened on the scene and puts two and two together: he is really Kvothe, the Kingkiller. the scribe persuades him to tell his story, so over the course of three days he is to recount the many adventures of his life. This book covers the first day of the telling, going back and forth in time. As a child and early teenager her traveled with his family and a band of performers. When everyone in his troupe, including his parents, are killed by the supposedly mythic Chandrian, he has to set out on his own. After living on the streets of the big city for a few years, he finally pulls himself together to get to university where he wants access to the Archives so he can research the Chandrian and formulate how to take his revenge.

Rothfuss is a splendid writer and there were some lovely passages about love and art. Some of the elements of this book were interesting to me, especially the culture of the Edema Ruh, not ordinary mummers but court performers, Lord Greyfallow’s Men. But mostly it was a tough read for me because Kvothe is kind of a dick. I just couldn’t really get behind our boy there and spending over 700 pages with this dude got to be a bit of a chore.

NOTE: that I switched back and forth between the print version and audiobook and found the narration by Nick Podehl to be quite entertaining.