Control Review: The Name of the Wind

I, Dalton Lewis, read a book! That’s right, I read a book, and it only took me three or four years to read it. I remember taking the book from the old place to my new home, and I moved years ago. I read the book because a lawyer friend of mine suggested it. He really liked the book and its depiction of a well-crafted fantasy universe. Although it took me years to finish it I can safely say that it is an intelligent and passionate novel about art, revenge, beauty, and memory, and I can recommend it.

Low fantasy has become the better genre than high fantasy over the last twenty years, and this novel comes soundly in the low fantasy genre. Fights are desperate and realistic and muted and don’t happen nearly as often as one might expect. People die and don’t always come back right away. People end up poor and homeless and have to survive on the streets. This is also a novel about studying at a university — a college novel, if you will. I know that Harry Potter is the go-to about a boarding school education, but this novel shows an interesting and sophisticated world of a college taught by interesting teachers.

I think, coming in, that I expected a certain series of events, and most of them didn’t happen. Most of the story didn’t go in the direction I thought a revenge story would take. This story is mostly about the way one goes from youth into teenagedom into adulthood and figures out how to survive along the way. This is the story of a budding artist as much as it’s the story of a superhero trying to avenge the death of his parents. He is trying to avenge something, of course, but that’s for you to read and find out.

I also liked the way that Kvothe, the protagonist, isn’t the best at everything. He’s smart, and good with a lute, but he doesn’t automatically win at everything that he does. He can spend time failing at a lot of things, and he never fights hundreds of battles or saves the planet from a dozen dragons. He’s a smart, clever person who makes his way in the world with his wit and his lute and his voice, and he very much makes himself into an extraordinary look at a young artist.

He also loves a beautiful woman, Denna, who may or may not love him back. Their relationship becomes a significant point as the story progresses, and he inevitably wants the same person that everyone wants — and that becomes a real problem, as beautiful and important men also want her. He also fights against rivals at the university and struggles with the fact that very few people believe in the fae — in a world with humans and the fae.

The supernatural aspect — and the way people don’t fully believe in it — is handled quite brilliantly as something that requires discipline and practice and intellect. The fae people show up in interesting and surprising ways as the story develops. Also Kvothe’s story begins but certainly doesn’t end in this book — this is definitely an origin story of this character. This definitely shows the start of a career of someone who lives a full life.

I like the bard in the fantasy story, the guy who has lived a full and interesting life. This is very much that story, and I approve. This is also a revenge story, a story of moving on after tragedy, and the way that tragedy shapes a person. I also like the way the story shows a very real world instead of focusing on a larger plot that isn’t necessarily the point here. Maybe the point is to show a life in a fantasy realm, a real life, a person who studies, learns, and loves. I like the way that is the focus of the tale instead of the fight with the Chandrian. There aren’t the typical scenes of fighting the enemy forces, studying the right spell, and then confronting the enemy in a melodramatic scene at the end — it is about Kvothe as a character, not a plot. This makes it an effective and intelligent book. I recommend it to fantasy fans.

Thanks, and take care, friends.