The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss (Book 2 of the Kingkiller Chronicles)
Gollancz, Fantasy, 994 pages, paperback edition.
My copy: Purchased.
Pros: Outstanding, lyrical prose, an improvement on the debut of the decade, masterful heroic fantasy.
Cons: None whatsoever.
In a line: Fantasy is alive, worlds as beautiful as ours exist, heroes can still capture our hearts.
“I thought, why not let these two nice fellows rob me, then beat me to a pulp?”
Score: 10/10
(For the harrowing story of how I actually came to own my copy of Wise Man’s Fear, read Part 1 of this review.)
This review is long. So is Wise Man’s Fear. You’re going to end up reading it. So what I suggest you do, if you’re in a hurry, is print out a copy of “A Visual Guide To Reading Wise Man’s Fear”, settle down, and enjoy the book.
Now we’ve gotten rid of the lightweights, let’s begin.
Revelling in Prose
One of Rothfuss’ strengths is his narrative style. Exemplified in NoTW and his shorter fiction (Road to Levinshir, anyone?), Rothfuss writes in a style that’s hard to find and easy to appreciate. His voice has a melodic cadence, like each word is being whispered to you. When I read Wise Man’s Fear, I felt like I was a kid again, tucked up in bed with my parents reading me to sleep. I felt safe, warm, and comforted, even in the unpleasant parts of the book.
Rothfuss’ language is slow but precise. It’s no surprise that, along with making Tor.com’s Best SFF Novels of the Decade, I’m struck by similarities to another entrant in that list: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.
In Strange, Clarke builds her Napoleonic-era England not through description of the world itself, but by carefully chosen nuance. Both of their vernaculars are perfect. I have little interest in whether the maple trees of Rothfuss’ world are a particular colour. And, luckily, he and Kvothe don’t waste my time telling me.
One of the few complaints from other reviewers is the pacing of the book. I can see how this could throw you out if you were expecting a blazing series of explosions, magical duels, cryptic quests, clues, bits of treasure and the rest. Wise Man’s Fear was never going to be about that. It’s about seeing how a hero is made, experience after experience, mistake after mistake. It’s about having a window into a remarkable life.
I can’t wait for the audiobook of Wise Man’s Fear to come out. I can only imagine the challenge awaiting the narrator to do this justice. Another writer whose work is fantastic read aloud, Chine Mieville, does a similar thing in his books. Both talented authors choose their words carefully, but while Mieville delights in swoops and eddies of rhythm and timbre, Rothfuss hews closely to his chosen path. Majestic, solid, confident, Rothfuss weaves his world with simple threads, but the resulting tapestry is magnificent.
Reading Wise Man’s Fear is a departure from the experience we’ve had from NoTW. Kvothe stops being a child and grows into a young man. We are naturally sympathetic to him, after all, as he’s narrating the story as he wants it told. His professed honesty at the start of his story is, like a great narrator, clearly tempered by his own views.
“I’m giving you my story with all the grubby truths intact. All my mistakes and idiocies laid out naked in the light. If I decide to pasover some small piece because it bores me, I’m well within mt rights. I won’t be goaded into changing my mind by some farmer’s tale. I’m not an idiot.”
Kvothe has thought over the experiences he relates to Chronicler and chooses his words carefully. We are still left aware of the young Kvothe’s follies. His pride. His impetuousness. His temper, most of all, which drives him to rash actions more than once. Kvothe is a more empathic hero than most young-boy-does-good models we find in heroic fantasy. We see the thoughts that flash behind his eyes. Feel our hearts twinge in sympathy with him, even as he makes stupendous blunders.
Expanding Adventures
We left NoTW with epic expectations. Kvothe had called the name of the wind, temporarily beaten Ambrose, and defeated the (somewhat unusual) dragon at the end of the book. So what does Rothfuss serve up in Wise Man’s Fear?
The world gets expanded a little. We see more of the University, and not just from how it affects Kvothe’s life, either. His friends and fellow students are going about their lives, too. We get pulled into seeing the mundanities of the reality of Kvothe’s ascension. His constant worrying about money. His studiousness. His reckless thirst for knowledge. His prickly sense of pride, and his unpredictable anger.
Ambrose returns as the initial villain, and does a sterling job of making Kvothe’s life hellishly hard. He’s great to hate, and gets a more rounded fleshing-out than in NoTW, where he was a more one-dimensional bad guy. The seriousness of his attacks on Kvothe show just how powerful the young lord’s son is, and what an enemy Kvothe has made himself.
Kvothe gets to leave the University and town, and then the story falls into a more familiar story-within-a-story structure that regular fantasy readers will be familiar with. He is sent to serve a powerful man, the Maer, ruler of a neighbouring country and nearly as powerful as a king. His adventures while gaining the Maer’s trust and respect are what you’d expect of Kvothe – he gets into dire situations through ill luck and his own abrasive disregard for social status, and resolves them with a handful of luck and a pinch of skill.
Through these adventures we see more practical demonstrations of what Kvothe’s learnt at the University. In NoTW, we only saw hints, a glimmer around the edges of the Arcanist’s art. In Wise Man’s Fear, Kvothe and his friends are far more open about the magic they can harness, and even give a demonstrative lecture or two to interested bystanders. The exposition is nicely done and fits the story, and gives a wonderful feeling of completeness to the magic systems Rothfuss has created. Best of all, the rules that govern the systems are as natural to grasp and intuitive as, say, Newton’s Laws of Motion or basic geometry: marvellous in application, magical to the uninitiated, utilitarian to the regular user.
Kvothe’s adventures extend beyond the service of the Maer, though. He goes from treating essentially domestic problems – internecine strife within the Maer’s domain – to some far more exotic and shadowy locations. To say more of them would be to spoil the excellence that Rothfuss has stored up. I’ll speak smilingly of the Fae, and of a society of near-invincible warriors, and leave you to find out for yourself.
Through Kvothe’s narration we frequently break scene to come back to the current setting – Chronicler, Bast and Kvothe in their inn. The breaks show us a much darker mood falling over the characters in the present day. The outside world shown in NoTW was a grey afternoon, now, the mood has shifted to an unquiet evening. Something is very clearly not well within the world. Talk of war spreads through the tavern. Farmers mention demons and other ill things in their gossip. Kvothe, hero though we know him to be, seems frozen in his character as a simple barkeep.
We’re left at the end of Wise Man’s Fear both satisfied and longing. Satisfied from an excellent successor to the outstanding Name of the Wind. Rothfuss has outdone himself in weaving a story that’s near to unique amongst heroic fantasy. He keeps us grounded in the real and the mundane long enough and well enough that when he does show us the unexpected and the marvelous, it’s all the more magical. Longing, like the end of all good stories, for what comes next. Even if the wait is another half-decade, it will be worth it.
Searching for Flaws
It’s at this point that traditionally, in a review, I highlight what I see as the deficiencies of a book. There’s nothing for me to write here. Others may gripe about the lack of action. The slow, deliberate progression. The tropes that Rothfus gives us.
To which I say, approach this book differently than others you would read. Don’t look at Wise Man’s Fear like the literary equivalent of a Michael Bay movie. It isn’t all shaky-cam and special effects. What Rothfuss has given us is a story, and if it was told by mouth, it would be a legend.
The ‘lack’ of action is nonsense. Enough things happen to fill nine hundred pages of book. All of them superbly written.
The deliberate progression is a gift. Slow yourself down, and enjoy the book as it unfolds. Let the rose open itself; don’t clumsily try and force the petals.
Are some of the characters familiar? Are there moments of recognition and precognition? Yes. But even when there are, Rothfuss’ art as a writer rises him above the perils of cliche and predictability an portrays familiar themes with quality and grace.
A Masterful Performance
Patrick Rothfuss stormed onto the world’s stage five years ago, bellowing and waving an amazing book in his hands. We laughed, we cried, we fell in love. Then the curtain fell, and he’s returned for a second act. The performance has matured. The protagonist grows stronger in his skills, and fonder in our hearts. This is a play I will watch over and over again, and all I can do now is wait expectantly for the third day of stories from the red-headed innkeeper wrapped in the patient, cut-flower silence of a man who is waiting to die.
Wise Man’s Fear gets, deservedly, ten legendary swords.
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. That said, the center of the books is, and always will be, Eli. He’ll get the last word, make no mistake. Probably the last dozen words, knowing Eli…
