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Guy Gavriel Kay breaks my heart - he chooses wonderful settings, can write memorable and believable characters (granted most of them are from history), and he always has some memorable insight into life, culture, history, whatever. His work has a deeply humanist bent to it, and he can explore mankind in its best, its worst, and in its most middling. But he's lousy in the actual act of putting one word after another. And he's obsessed with underlining the significance of his own writing, about how impressive something is or how legendary something will be. This also leaves out any room for subtlety or ambiguity: if Kay wants you to feel or think something, he tells so very bluntly. Out of the books I've read, I can recommend Sarantine Mosaic because i have a soft spot for the setting, and Last Light of the Sun, which was actually really decent. Tigana is a weird transitional work, the book blew my mind out when I was young, but now reads extremely clumsy. I just read David Malouf's Ransom. I don't know about the author's other works, but he manages to do in 200 pages what Kay has struggled to do for decades. It seems like Kay's weakness is that he tries to be too realistic with his prose, whereas Malouf is poetic. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 09:40
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Avshalom posted:Oh hello I didn't see you there. I'm Pendrick Rufus. A handsome modern man. I write a book. The sexy hero who can just gently caress gently caress gently caress for weeks at a time and all his partners squirt like a supersoaker, all his life he's just been a sinewy implication in the shadows of the bedchamber but now he's a white-hot reality who kindles a mighty inferno in the heart of her womanhood. He has a sword with a name. He's drop-dead gorgeous and he sings like a nightingale. The sexy hero is me. Sometimes I squeeze my lamb-shank appendage in a book until it turns blue. I keep all my beard shavings in case I ever need them. I tried twenty-six times to learn to pick locks but never succeeded. What I call a woman's secret passage, she calls her navel. I have never been loved. I've always been loved. I am a brain. I am love.  You are entering my brightplace.
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Feb 12, 2016 15:51
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If you don't like the quality of the books or their criticism being discussed, there's plenty of nerd forums where you can sing paeans to a fascinatingly bad series. Also, theorycrafting is the dumbest possible method of artistic analysis. Like that whole blog post series seems to miss such important questions like "is any of this well written"? Does it actually have anything substantial to say about the writing or -- quote:The prologue, “A Silence of Three Parts” is in an omniscient and distant “fantasy style” narration.  e: quote:The innkeeper—still nameless—brings stew and bread. I can’t imagine why John Scalzi has a problem with this, but then stew is one of the staple foods of my culture. What Diana Wynne Jones complained about in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland wasn’t the existence of stew in fantasy but the way people eat it around the campfire, when in fact it takes hours to cook. But they’re in an inn, they’ve had hours, and goodness knows it’s a cheap and filling way of feeding people. Scalzi might think it’s a terrible cliche when I eat it as well. (Last summer when I was in Britain the weather was awful, and I ate stew twice, in an inn and in a castle—if you’re ever in Castell Coch, near Cardiff, order the stew. It may be a cliche, but it tastes great. You can have apple pie for dessert, unless that’s a cliche, too.) This person can only communicate literary criticism in the form of cliches and tropes. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Feb 15, 2016 |
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Feb 15, 2016 07:51
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Uranium Phoenix posted:gently caress, sorry, I forgot that having fun with books is not okay, and we can only look at them as Art and compare them to classics like A Tale of Two Cities so that we can maximally belittle them. I actually have lots of fun with Kingkiller Chronicle. It's an almost inexhaustible source of fun for me. I could probably make whole essays about a single paragraph or even sentence Rothfuss has written. If some snide dismissal of theorycrafting is enough to ruin your day, aren't you the one unable to have fun?
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Feb 15, 2016 08:18
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Coming soon: Let's critically read the Kingkiller Chronicle
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Feb 15, 2016 09:21
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ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this. VLADIMIR: That's what you think. ESTRAGON: If we parted? That might be better for us. VLADIMIR: We'll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes. ESTRAGON: And if he comes? VLADIMIR: We'll be saved. - Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Preface (aka A Shitpost of Three Farts) This is a critical read-through of Patrick Rothfuss’s The Kingkiller Chronicle series of fantasy novels. It will critically examine The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear. This will not involve theorycrafting or whatever. We’re looking at what matters: the writing. Attentive readers of this thread are aware that I loathe Rothfuss’s books and how they are written, and no doubt expect this reading to be biased and unfair. My defense: I am also an attentive reader. In this critical series, I hope to move beyond simplistic readings of The Kingkiller Chronicle. I will show, by discussing each chapter of the books, the principles and effects of their writing. Hopefully by the end we will have exorcised the ghost that haunts us all. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jul 14, 2016 |
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Feb 15, 2016 14:21
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LET's READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY PART 1: “In fact there were none of these things...” The saga of The Kingkiller Chronicle begins with a map. It’s of little interest, especially when the story starts dully enough after this promise of faraway lands and adventure. The Name of the Wind posted:It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts. This sets the stage rather aptly. Fantasy stories set in imaginary worlds must establish their setting and what makes it interesting. The motifs used to draw in the reader are natural forces ("night"), the hint of cycles (“again”), the setting (the Inn), and awkward stab at poetic form (“silence of three parts”). Consider the rhythm of these sentences, and how it relates to the principal objects of interest. Everything simply pops up: the night, the Waystone Inn, the silence, the three parts. The point-counterpoint repetition of the two clauses doesn't add anything. We begin with the cyclical image of day and night, which segues into this bizarre division. The result is rough. Compare to how the Gormenghast trilogy introduces its setting: Titus Groan posted:Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. This is forceful, yet careful and precise. The faux-awkward halt of “that is” allows for a pause after "Gormenghast". It's followed by an almost antiquarian description that then veers back into grotesque (“those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic...”). This interplay of grotesque and antiquarian sets the tone for the whole novel masterfully. The principal idea of the motif of silence is that the object of interests in the scene (the outside, the two men, the innkeeper) are all separate and exude an overwhelming pressure on the scene. This ends up being self-defeating: the defining motif is supposed to be absence, yet the prose itself works to fill any possible void. “Silence in three parts” ties the paragraph up instead of leaving some emptiness. “Things that were lacking” is vague. Instead of the simple allure of the “the clamour and clatter of a drinking house” we get “the clatter and clamour one expects from a drinking house” with the awkward bridging words in the middle. Poetic word choices like “deep and wide as the autumn’s ending” are simply too broad, they end up filling the reader’s imagination instead of working it. You can observe the rhythm of the writing by reading it aloud. Look at something like the awkward pairings of Anglo-Saxon and Latinate, like “serious discussion of troubling news”. This is tautological, and the two parts end up hampering each other (“They avoided serious discussion” or “They avoided troubling news”). The passage from Titus Groan is worlds apart. Notice how the more monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon gives way to the Latinate here: “Gormenghast... taken by itself would have displayed certain ponderous architectural quality”. This shows how important rhythm is to prose. The Name of the Wind posted:His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes with knowing many things. I suggest that the best way to describe Rothfuss's writing is “plodding”. His prose is stuffed with nonsense like “the subtle certainty that comes with knowing too many things”. Whenever there’s some poetic fancy, he overloads it with significance and oxymoron. Again, think about it: his character moves in a way that betrays his knowing many things. Of course, the reader probably quite can’t imagine what this means, so this vagueness stays to haunt them. This might be the principal reason why anyone would admire Rothfuss's writing:. What sets the tone for this fantasy world is vague, pressing tension. For better and for worse. quote:It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Feb 15, 2016 17:17
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LET'S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY PART 2: “’Hush now, you’ll get all the answers before the end,’ Jake said. ‘Just let him tell it.’”. So. Let's talk a bit about tone with Chapter 1: “A Place for Demons”. quote:It was felling night, and the usual crowd had gathered at the Waystone Inn. Five wasn’t much of a crowd, but five was as many as the Waystone ever saw these days, times being what they were. It’s an abrupt change of scenery and tone from the prologue. The register switches from poetic and portentous to realistic and conversational. That a different scene may require a different register is understandable, but this is not so much a stylistic choice as it is two literary influences struggling for space. I'll have to elaborate on this at a later date.. The action starts with five men of the village in a storytelling session, with the mysterious innkeeper, Kote, listening in on them. We’re introduced to the menace of the Chandrian, legendary figures for whom no description can do justice. And the talk of demons is dramatically interrupted by another man of the village, who brings in the corpse of a monstrous creature that attacked him. Kote knows more than he lets on, and there’s tension over how to handle the creature. The principal failure of this chapter (and how sad is it that I have to concentrate on principal failures) is the inability to maintain tone. The men bickering is too straight-laced to be comic or build up the nervousness of the scene. Carter’s dramatic entrance is deflated by dialogue, which incidentally illustrates Rothfuss’s uneven realism: quote:A moment of serious silence followed the news. The smith’s prentice laid a sympathetic hand on Carter’s shoulder. “drat. That’s hard. She was gentle as a lamb, too. Never tried to bite or kick when you brought her in for shoes. Best horse in town. drat. I’m…” He trailed off. “drat. I don’t know what to say.” He looked around helplessly. Rothfuss does his best to undermine this segue into horror. The object of horror expired before it even entered the narrative properly, and the focus is on the rustics' nervousness. This is how the scene shifts: quote:Everyone startled, then relaxed when the black thing remained motionless. Cob and the others exchanged shaky smiles, like boys spooked by a ghost story. Their smiles went sour as the room filled with the sweet, acrid smell of rotting flowers and burning hair. The tension is defused as Rothfuss describes vague restlessness rather than the aftermath of horror. I found The Last Unicorn through this thread, and this chapter reminds me of this scene in the beginning: The Last Unicorn posted:“Unicorns are long gone,” the second man said. “If, indeed, they ever were. This is a forest like any other.” That is consistent tone: fairy-tale dichotomy of naivety and cynicism. And we’re not quite done with this topic. We’re introduced to Bast, Kote’s odd student-partner in a baffling scene. These quotes are all from the same conversation: quote:“Today, master, I learned why great lovers have better eyesight than great scholars.” quote:Bast opened his mouth, but Kote continued before he could say anything. “Yes, I made sure the pit was deep enough. Yes, I made sure there was rowan wood in the fire. Yes, I made sure it burned long and hot before they buried it. And yes, I made sure that no one kept a piece of it as a souvenir.” He scowled, his eyebrows drawing together. “I’m not an idiot, you know.” quote:“Begone demon!” Kote said, switching to a thickly accented Temic through half a mouthful of stew. “Tehus antausa eha!” This again shows the inconsistence of tone. First we have playful irony, then confrontation, and then farcical irony. And notice the return to playful irony at the very end! And each of these tones is presented straight: there is no contrast between Bast's playfulness and the seriousness of the situation. Kote's comic outburst is off-putting. And this is after the scene of slight horror. This would be the perfect time for characters talking portentously about how the storm approaches or the days are growing dark. There is no driving motif here except for the mystery surrounding Kote. But this suffers from the conflicting tones already mentioned. After this, we find more about Kote’s disquiet and the mysterious chest in his room. The scene then shifts again, and we’re treated to the village’s worries over farming and taxation to distract from further portents. quote:Still, each of them bought a piece of cold-wrought iron from the smith, heavy as they could swing, and none of them said what they were thinking. Instead they complained that the roads were bad and getting worse. They talked about merchants, and deserters, and levies, and not enough salt to last the winter. They reminisced that three years ago no one would have even thought of locking their doors at night, let alone barring them. Catalogue of Rothfussian attributes quote:He pulled more beer for Jake, Shep, and Old Cob, moving with an air of bustling efficiency. quote:Old Cob tucked away his bowl of stew with the predatory efficiency of a lifetime bachelor. quote:He washed the tables and the bar, moving with a patient efficiency. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Sep 21, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2016 18:28
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LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY PART 3: “The worst had happened, and it hadn’t been that bad.” Chapter 2, “A Beautiful Day”, introduces Chronicler, the third major player in the framing story. He actually has a proper name, but the insistence on his title tells me that he was originally supposed to be more of an abstract, typified character found in fairy tales and the like. Kingkiller’s form is however too realistic to work with something like that for long, so I assume that it’s an artefact from earlier drafts. In the chapter itself, Chronicler is introduced being robbed by courteously professional bandits. Chronicler is fully compliant, as he is an experienced man of the world. He continues on his journey with most of his money intact to further establish this. It’s no great failure, but the chapter is simply tepid, and the Chronicler is left thinly characterised. Since the scene starts in the middle of the robbery, there’s no real action to exploit, but there’s also no willingness to emphasize the absurdity of the situation as someone like, say, Jack Vance would do. It’s one of those uncomfortable middle grounds that seem to be becoming a rule as I read along. But again, this is not really bad, but tepid. What it does contribute is following on the motif of ignorance versus knowledge with the opposition of the soldier-bandits and Chronicler. Chapter 3, “Wood and Word”, returns to Kote at Waystone Inn, with an extended scene of his wondrous sword being attached to an immaculate mounting frame. The sword is named “Folly,” and in principle this is characterisation yet the immediate takeaway is the sumptuousness of the objects involved. There is in fact little explanation why this was ever undertook in this scene, and the scene lurches anruptly to the next as the silence of Waystone Inn is shattered by the arrival of more guests. There’s a scene with children reciting ominous playground songs while a tinker is at work and Kote tends to the guests. We also see some inconsistency of viewpoint: quote:Kote guessed the travelers had been together a month or so, long enough to become comfortable with each other, but not long enough to be squabbling over small things. They smelled of road dust and horses. He breathed it in like perfume. Here Kote both serves as the point of view, but after one paragraph is an object of interest to an omniscient observer. One of the guests drunkenly recognises as a figure of no little renown: quote:"Kvothe the Bloodless.” The man pressed ahead with the dogged persistence of the inebriated. “You looked familiar, but I couldn’t finger it.” He smiled proudly and tapped a finger to his nose. “Then I heard you sing, and I knew it was you. I heard you in Imre once. Cried my eyes out afterward. I never heard anything like that before or since. Broke my heart.” This is where the obscene hero-worship of the protagonist begins. Kote is not merely an innkeeper with secrets, he is Kvothe, hero of legend. The purpose of every subsequent chapter is to elaborate on what makes him exceptional. I’ve elaborated on this elsewhere, and I will do so again towards the end. For now, let’s say that his character is written hollow, and Kvothe has the young man drugged to cover for himself. He also prepares to act against the scaels, the spider-like monsters introduced in the first chapter. quote:Kote shrugged. “My granda always told me that fall’s the time to root up something you don’t want coming back to trouble you.” Kote mimicked the quaver of an old man’s voice. “‘Things are too full of life in the spring months. In the summer, they’re too strong and won’t let go. Autumn…’” He looked around at the changing leaves on the trees. “‘Autumn’s the time. In autumn everything is tired and ready to die.’” Again, this seems like confusion of view-points. It’s not so much that it’s really on the nose, but it’s strange that we hear this narrated by Kvothe specifically. That would imply that we were not privy to the Kvothe's thoughts and feelings already. Umberto Eco’s Baudolino is a good comparison, where characters vocalize the ideas and themes around which the story revolves, because the narrative voice (whether Baudolino or in the framing story) cannot do it alone. In the quote Kvothe vocalizes an ominous one-liner, which granted, follows up on that old autumn motif. It also further characterises Kvothe as deceptive and ruthless, as his character is still a mystery. Something fundamentally wrong with Rothfuss’s fantasy world is also becoming evident: there is simply little done to justify The Name of the Wind being a fantasy story. Fantasy is literature of the impossible, yet The Name of the Wind is so far utterly prosaic. The otherworldly has appeared, but is robbed of any imaginative or metaphorical force. Even the poetically charged prologue establishes nothing fantastical. The country types that haunt the novel are the most banal types instead of characters. The world exists elsewhere, and a chance at an establishing moment has been lost. The counterpoint to this is that the prosaic framing story serves as a contrast to the fantastical elements, but this is undermined when the story proper begins. The question remains: what is the purpose of this fantastical world? ROTHFUSSIAN ATTRIBUTES [quote] And while it was obviously a sword, it was not a familiar shape. At least no one in this town would have found it familiar. It looked as if an alchemist had distilled a dozen swords, and when the crucible had cooled this was lying in the bottom: a sword in its pure form. It was slender and graceful. It was deadly as a sharp stone beneath swift water. [/quote BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 22:52
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The imagery is contradictory. The passage emphasises how unnatural the sword is, so why use imagery of nature? A sharp rock reveals something primitive and unnatural what we can see through clear water, which in turn is contradicted by the fact that it's swift water as opposed to clear. The movement of water does add to the sword being graceful. But it's ultimately missing the worst line in the passage, the one with the alchemist. I was going to write about more chapters, but I wanted to get something out of the way. LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY PART 4: “’God, I never know how much to tell you people.’” . In Chapter 4, “Halfway to Newarre,” Chronicler stumbles upon Kvothe on the road, where he is luring in the spider-like demons (scraels) from earlier. Chronicler is left unconscious in the ensuing fight, while Kvothe disposes of the scale. It highlights what I discussed earlier: there is little fantastical to this fantasy. It’s a scene of tension and horror to establish the dangers of the world, but the danger is particularly violent vermin. It’s here that the influence of Dungeons and Dragons shines through. While he writes about the impossible and the supernatural, Rothfuss’s prose is realistic and concerned with mostly objective description. The scrael are almost a random encounter. quote:They came into the light, moving low across the ground: black shapes, many-legged and large as cart wheels. One, quicker than the rest, rushed into the firelight without hesitating, moving with the disturbing, sinuous speed of a scuttling insect. The great irony at work here is that a lot of the classic literature we would call “realistic” is more outlandish and imaginative than something like Kingkiller. D&D demands the fantastical to be considered in objective, quantifiable terms, which of course ends up undermines its enchantment. And you can go back and see the long historical development that led to this. D&D was made under the influence of authors like Tolkien, Howard, and Vance. Robert E. Howard is probably the most important of these, because he comes at the tail-end of broad movement. The 18th and 19th Centuries see the rise of the novel as a form. The romance, as Northrop Frye defines, is a form of fiction concerned with stylized figures and situations and the power of individuals. The novel, in contrast, is occupied with “real people” in particular social environments. Anyone who reads Robinson Crusoe expecting a stirring adventure will be shocked, because it’s a ruthlessly rational account of survival with no pretensions of romance. The novel is more aligned with the spirit of the rising bourgeois society, so simple social development leads to its primacy- But romance never disappears and instead becomes enmeshed with the novel. You can’t find a “pure” example of either novel or romance in modern literature, as Frye says. Even the most imaginative fiction tends to give credence to psychological realism and characterisation. Even Tolkien, who champions the romance, uses hobbits as a kind of bourgeois window to the fantastical. Kingkiller is written in a very realistic, somewhat objective form, and references to Robinson Crusoe are going to become apt. It's part of the logical development of fantasy in relation to the development of the novel. This pairing of realistic form with fantastical content seems to be a tendency in post-Tolkien fantasy, with George R.R. Martin as one of its champions. Realism isn’t superior to fantasy, because it doesn’t necessarily make fiction more authentic. Rothfuss takes the wrong lesson in making fantasy more realistic, because the result inhibits its revolutionary potential and renders it rather staid. Howard is no less revolutionary for his racism or sexism, because he never diminishes the transgressive power of pulp in his Conan stories. Joe Abercrombie of First Law fame seems to have learned this. His stories are "realistic" in the sense Spaghetti Westerns or Tarantino movies are, that is to say, not at all. But he finds something authentic in pulp violence and dripping cynicism that A Song of Ice and Fire eventually lost and which Kingkiller never had. And what we call "realistic" literature is rarely bound by objective limitations - consider Dickens or Dostoevsky, champions of literary realism, who never met a coincidence they didn't like. Zadie Smith's NW is a good contemporary counter-point: despite the bleakness of her setting, she's not bound by the limitations of "objective" prose. But fantasy authors, ironically, often end up limiting themselves because they need to quantify the strange and the supernatural. Oh, and there's also some important continuing characterisation: Kvothe is confrontational and aggressive with the "ignorant" like Chronicler. In Chapter 5, “Notes,” Kvothe brings an unconscious Chronicler to the Inn and is tended to by an angry Bast. We learn that Bast is indeed some sort of supernatural being himself, and that he has some sort of obsession with Kvothe. It's off-putting (putting aside the homoeroticism), but I actually like it because it rings authentic. It’s exactly in tone for fantasy, unlike writing such as this: quote:Bast stood in the doorway, practically dancing with irritation. When he spotted the approaching figure he rushed down the street, waving a piece of paper angrily. “A note? You sneak out and leave me a note?” He hissed angrily. “What am I, some dockside whore?” It’s actually in line with his characterisation: Bast is a terrible person, but a comment as as ugly as this isn’t given proper weight. quote:Hours later, the door to Kote’s room cracked open and Bast peered inside. Hearing nothing but slow, measured breathing, the young man walked softly to stand beside the bed and bent over the sleeping man. Bast eyed the color of his cheeks, smelled his breath, and lightly touched his forehead, his wrist, and the hollow of his throat above his heart. The last two lines of the poem are separate sentences, which completely breaks the rhythm. No Rothfussian attributes this time. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Sep 21, 2017 |
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Feb 18, 2016 14:28
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I associate swords with the dangers of kayaking.
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Feb 18, 2016 14:41
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This is why a critical read-through is necessary. Again, it's contradictory. First it looks like artificial in an otherworldly way, then it symbolizes the irresistible power of nature. And it's called "Folly," so it's also a symbol of vainglory. What is it then? There's no consistency.
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Feb 18, 2016 18:48
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jivjov posted:It has aspects of many things all at once. A Mary Sueword. Kvothe in a microcosm.
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Feb 18, 2016 19:30
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It is not a good metaphor, but for a different reason, and this is observable through a critical reading. It's counterproductive to latch onto a single thing (what is silence in three parts, is Kvothe a Mary Sue, is this book double-ironic subversion of heroism) and debate it back and forth, because it distracts from the larger context. Careful reading will reveal all things. In this case, the sword ends up serving as a microcosm of the deeper failure of the book, where the confusion of signifiers conceals a lack of meaning.
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Feb 18, 2016 20:22
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LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Part 5: “’If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way.’” In Chapter 6, “The Price of Remembering”, we begin the story proper. Chronicler has recovered, and reveals he knows Kvothe through a mutual acquaintance. Kvothe is intent on staying in hiding, while Chronicler wants to set down his story. quote:“You don’t get it, do you?” Kote shook his head, stuck between amusement and exasperation. “That’s the whole point. People don’t look for you when you’re dead. Old enemies don’t try to settle scores. People don’t come asking you for stories,” he said acidly. While the myth of Kvothe is central to the narrative, it is never properly explained, and in fact acknowledged as lies and half-truths: quote:The stories are saying ‘assassin’ not ‘hero.’ Kvothe the Arcane and Kvothe Kingkiller are two very different men.” Stories and storytelling are recurring motifs. Stories are told, stories hold truth, stories lie, and so on. The story of The Kingkiller Chronicle is Kvothe recounting his life and adventures. What’s odd is the hero-worship of Kvothe: every effort is made to emphasise that Kvothe is exceptional, which is why he’s the subject of the story. I’ve explained what inescapable problem this presents to the narrative, and I’ll return to it later. For now, the narration establishes that Kvothe is exceptional, even when it contradicts his present characterisation. Kvothe embodies no ideal that sets him apart: he is merely an angry and bitter man in hiding. This is not used to create interesting contrast between the man and the legend, and the narration instead states Kvothe to be exceptional as he is now: quote:Kote turned. “What can any of them know about her?” he asked softly. Chronicler’s breath stopped when he saw Kote’s face. The placid innkeeper’s expression was like a shattered mask. Underneath, Kote’s expression was haunted, eyes half in this world, half elsewhere, remembering. This is utterly ridiculous. It's also again is in that uncomfortable middle ground between realism and fantasy, the result of an inconsistent tone and style. Robert E. Howard can handle something as ludicrous by keeping an elevated tone throughout his stories: The People of the Black Circle posted:‘The king dares not trample a worm in the road? Little fool, do you not realize that your royal pride is no more than a straw blown on the wind? I, who have known the kisses of the queens of Hell! ...” It is bombastic and ridiculous, but that is the appeal of the Conan stories. The other way Rothfuss underlines Kvothe’s sheer exceptionalism is with constant references to his physical features, primarily his eyes and hair. Sometimes changes in expressions constitute dramatic action, even. quote:Chronicler’s serious expression returned. “Three days is quite unusual. But then again—” Some of the self-importance seemed to leak out of him. “Then again,” he made a gesture as if to show how useless words were. “You are Kvothe.” By the end Kvothe reluctantly agrees to tell his story and tell “truth of things”, which will take three days. In Chapter 7, “Of Beginnings and the Names of Things,” the framing story is finally giving way to the main narrative. While preparing, Kvothe reveals his mental abilities by decoding Chronicle’s system of short-hand. While this again is supposed to characterise Kvothe as exceptional, it is too mechanical to register as impressive. quote:“Wonderfully efficient system,” Kvothe said appreciatively. “Very logical. Did you design it yourself?” Kvothe has a bombastic speech to start his story. It includes his list of names, which was soundly trashed on the very first page of this thread. I don’t feel the need to add more than what a goonsay does, except for one small observation: we are never told what the story of Kvothe is about. Obviously Kvothe is the subject, but what does Kvothe represent in the larger scheme of things? Heroism? Exceptionality? Multiplicity? It's a self-referential nightmare. This would be the most obvious moment for the story to smuggle in its programmatic statement. There is no mention of a central theme, a matter of no small concern. The closest is the implication that Kvothe restlessly moves through different roles, but this is not a theme as much a motif, and not one used in the story. Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, on the other hand, does not hesitate to justify itself and its themes The framing story is set during the sack of Constantinople in 1204, which provides the perfect thematic impetus for a search of meaning in chaos. Baudolino, the hero, has rescued statesman and historian Niketas Choniates, and desires to tell his story as the world has fallen apart. Baudolino posted:“You will tell me what you remember. I receive scraps of events, fragments of actions, and I extract a story from them, woven by a design of Providence. In saving my life you have given me what little future remains to me and I will repay you by giving you back the past you have lost…” Baudolino posted:“Master Niketas, the problem of my life is that I’ve always confused what I saw with what I wanted to see.” In both quotes we can discern the theme of the story: the nature of meaning. Now I don’t actually consider Baudolino to be the greatest novel ever written despite the impression I may have given, but I wholeheartedly recommend it. And here the novel is doubly important because it reads like a deliberate response to Kingkiller. The connections will be explored more as our read-along proceeds. For now we can take another look at the quotes again. Eco’s dialogue is decidedly unrealistic, but he uses it to his advantage: the characters can speak freely of themselves and their ideas. In Kingkiller, on the other hand, characters speak fast and rough, but still need to communicate their characters, ideas, and themes. Then we reach Kvothe’s monologue, which characterises him as self-obsessed and vainglorious. quote:I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. ROTHFUSSIAN ATTRIBUTES quote:Inside the Waystone, the light fell across Chronicler’s face and touched a beginning there, a blank page waiting the first words of a story. The light flowed across the bar, scattered a thousand tiny rainbow beginnings from the colored bottles, and climbed the wall toward the sword, as if searching for one final beginning. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Dec 5, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 01:44
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Oxxidation posted:The participle phrases in this man's dialogue attributions are overlong and overwrought, and it discomfits me. What about the adverbs? Patrick Rothfuss posted:“Imagine my relief,” Kote said sarcastically.
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Feb 19, 2016 01:51
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DISCLAIMER I don't actually hate D&D. LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Part 6: "My father made a face. 'Not a very good play.' I shrugged. 'They won’t know the difference.'” In chapter 8, “Thieves, Heretics, and Whores,” the story proper begins. Kvothe begins narrating with his childhood in a band of gypsy performers. And when I say “gypsies,” I mean no slur. They are romanticised outsiders by the way of Romani people. Here we can start discussing Kingkiller's bizarre positions on class and race: quote:
quote:Now you have to understand that twenty pennies might be a good bit of money for some little ragamuffin troupe living hand-to-mouth. But for us it was simply insulting. He should have offered us forty to play for the evening, free use of the public hall, a good meal, and beds at the inn. The last we would graciously decline, as their beds were no doubt lousy and those in our wagons were not. quote:That was the hardest part of growing up Edema Ruh. We are strangers everywhere. Many folk view us as vagabonds and beggars, while others deem us little more than thieves, heretics, and whores. It’s hard to be wrongfully accused, but it’s worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born. Several factors combine to create this baffling portrait of “gypsies”. First, there is the traditional romantic view of the “gypsy” lifestyle as free and full of wonders. Second, there is the removal of anything to mark “gypsies” as outsider or cultural Others besides their employment as itinerant performers. Thirdly, there’s the removal of anything to mark the “gypsies” as a marginalised class, because this band is styled after an Elizabethan/Jacobean acting troupe that looks down on parochial villagers. Rothfuss’s failure in portraying a marginalised group is that he insists on making them modern and liberal, which means removing any conflict save for between liberalism and parochialism. Kvothe’s mother is, in fact, a former noble seduced by Kvothe’s father to join the “gypsy” lifestyle! Kvothe is also insistent on how his father and mother were not married because they felt themselves free to decide about their own lives. The gypsy band also includes occasional tag-alongs. This again confuses “gypsy” communities with traveling performers. In contrast, kinship and marriage ties are hugely important parts of real Romani cultures. Kvothe’s troupe has arrived in a town whose mayor is trying to turn them away, but Kvothe’s father threatens him with the name of their lordly patron. They triumph over the bullying mayor and are allowed to stay in the town. But the town officials also try to turn away Abenthy, or Ben, a travelling wizard who in response scares them by controlling the wind: quote:“Shut your clepper, you old poo poo-fire,” the constable said. He snatched at the arcanist’s arm as if he were sticking his hand into an oven. Then, when nothing happened, he smiled and grew more confident. “Don’t think I won’t knock you a good one to keep you from working any more of your devilry.” This is again inconsistent tone, where dull realism (“poo poo-fire”?) and whimsy are forced to occupy the same passage. Contrast the simple brutality of the constable bullying the wizard and the wizard’s overblown threats. Kvothe observes this and joins the wizard. Kvothe’s and Ben’s meeting is the first example of  actually good writing so far:quote:I brought my hand out of my pocket. “Can you sell me anything for a penny?” This is a good back and forth - dialogue. There’s a contrast of fanciful ideas and reality, an interesting character relationship, and the clarifications serve as comedy. “Filled my young mind with intrigue and assassinations” and “touted as an infallible cure-all” are all excellent phrases. If it was trimmed to flow better, it could have come out of Jack Vance’s pen: Cugel’s Saga posted:The clerk returned. He started to go to his ledger, then noticed Cugel. "Did you want something?" Kvothe, intrigued, wants to study under Ben and invites him into their troupe. It’s only later that Kvothe understands that Abenthy was wielding “the name of the wind”. So the central motif of the book is thus mastery, the ability to control one’s environment, which is at odds with the story so far. The imagery of mastery and controlling the wind imply power, authority, and hubris, while Kvothe is primarily an outsider-figure. His character exemplifies anger and bitterness, but not towards himself. This is because the book doesn’t exploit the metaphorical power of this device properly: as we learn, controlling the primal forces of nature is a skill, like short-hand. It's treated with only the bare minimum of mysticism, even if the logic behind it is quite intriguing in principle. This, again, speaks of the influence of D&D, where magic is mechanical and quantifiable. This in turn was appropriated from the Dying Earth stories of Jack Vance (hence the term “Vancian casting”), where magic becoming a series of strict, quantified rote actions was used to show how decayed and impoverished the world was. Rather fitting, I suppose. In Chapter 9, “Riding in the Wagon with Ben,” we’re treated to an explanation of what makes a wizard such as Ben different. Ben was trained to become a wizard at the University, which qualifies him to dismiss petty conjurers and frauds: quote:He took a deep breath. “Just because someone knows a trick or two doesn’t mean they’re an arcanist. They might know how to set a bone or read Eld Vintic. Maybe they even know a little sympathy. But—” One might assume at first that such class pretension from an itinerant salesman is meant to characterise him as a blowhard, but Ben’s pride is not satirical. Kingkiller also treats the notion of an academic degree in sorcery very seriously. The Harry Potter series always treated its magic school with satire and whimsy. The fabled Scholomance was a hidden and forbidding place. For medieval scholars it was a tradition of fraud. But for Kingkiller, academic magic is not satirical or fantastical at all. There’s also a brief discussion of how people may be born with mutant abilities that are magic. Ben begins teaching Kvothe, who starts on his road to becoming a polymath: quote:This was levels beyond the simple memorization I had practiced for the stage. My mind was learning to work in different ways, becoming stronger. It felt the same way your body feels after a day of splitting wood, or swimming, or sex. You feel exhausted, languorous, and almost Godlike. This feeling was similar, except it was my intellect that was weary and expanded, languid and latently powerful. I could feel my mind starting to awaken. Chapter 10, “Alar and Several Stones,” is brief and shows Kvothe learning a technique to hold two beliefs simultaneously, which is necessary for practicing magic. The problem is that this completely spurious exercise is part of a novel that tries to be realistic. quote:He also taught me a game called Seek the Stone. The point of the game was to have one part of your mind hide an imaginary stone in an imaginary room. Then you had another, separate part of your mind try to find it. ROTHFUSSIAN WISDOM quote:I learned the sordid inner workings of the royal court in Modeg from a…courtesan. As my father used to say: “Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.” BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 14:53
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BananaNutkins posted:Is this Rothfuss's failure to use good attribution, or did you accidentally forget to hit enter before "I nodded"? It's how it reads in the e-book edition I have.
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Feb 21, 2016 08:37
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BananaNutkins posted:What are your feelings on it? It's a stylistic choice, but again is indicative of a larger problem rather than the problem in itself. Rothfuss emphasises certain things to visualise a scene, which smells of writing classes. I was busy this weekend, will update later.
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Feb 22, 2016 08:32
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LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Part 7: "I think making you sit and listen to the rest of my story should be punishment enough." Chapter 11, “The Binding of Iron,” is where Ben start teaching magic to Kvothe. First their teacher-student relationship is explored with some fictional history: quote:
Two things to take away from this chapter: first, despite characters talking about representational currency as part of the fantasy world, this is not satirical or humorous. Second, like mentioned in the discussion, Rothfuss visualizes characters too much. Every gesture, shift in expression, and physical movement is described whenever possible. quote:“Good enough,” Ben broke in, startling me. “So these two drabs,” he held a pair out for my inspection, “Could have come from the same bar, right?” I suspect this is a straitjacket of English classes or fiction writing courses. Characters must act constantly, and speak and tend to speak in short lines unless outright lecturing. There’s little room for abstracted action or monologues. This would imply a story where every minute detail was relevant, but the main story of Kingkiller is about remembrance. The story should abstract and summarise more, and focus on the themes and ideas it presents in Kvothe’s development. Mika Waltari does exactly so in The Egyptian. Like Kingkiller and Baudolino, The Egyptian uses the same device of the protagonist recounting their life. Notice how the descriptions always underline what’s most important about the character and the situation: The Egyptian posted:“There will never be war again,” declared the heir to the throne. Horemheb laughed. After this the nature of magic is explained: the first brand of magic is named after the principle of Sympathy, coined by George Frazer in The Golden Bough. To sum it up, wizards create a mental connection between to similar objects, and can then manipulate them by affecting one of the objects. The second brand is Naming, which involves controlling something by knowing it's "true name". quote:I was rather disappointed. At least as disappointed as I could be in the Heart of Stone. I lifted the coin in my hand, and the coin on the table lifted itself in a similar fashion. It was magic, there was no doubt about that. But I felt rather underwhelmed. I had been expecting…I don’t know what I’d been expecting. It wasn’t this. The intention is here is to reveal a prosaic truth behind magic by making it a scientific discipline. In contrast, Naming is “true” magic in the sense that it’s a mysterious, liminal force. Yet it’s also an academic subject, and ends up being as prosaic as Sympathy for reasons that I described in the previous part. There’s a clumsy segue into Kvothe singing a song that offends his mother, which shows that his childhood was sometimes rough even before his family was murdered by a band of supervillains. The reason it was inserted is that it’s very likely foreshadowing about Kvothe’s mother’s identity. What really sticks out is that Rothfuss uses the words “sexual innuendo” in this novel, which Is a stretch for even satire (which Kingkiller isn’t). quote:It seemed mostly nonsense rhyme. But when I ran it back through my head, I saw the rather obvious sexual innuendo. Chapter 12, “Puzzle Pieces Fitting,” involves Kvothe’s parents more. I haven’t talked about them too much, mostly because they’re uninteresting aside from the stuff I’ve mentioned. He’s a dramatist, she’s a runaway noblewoman, they have a playful relationship, and they’re called Arliden and Laurian respectively. Arliden is gathering material about the Chandrian, legendary boogeymen whose true nature is shrouded in mystery (yet which I have inferred and will reveal later on). The Chandrian are a complete mystery, a group of seven demonic figures who perpetrate atrocities seemingly at random, and without “rhyme or reason”. Superstitions about them exist for a reason, and even Ben hesitates to mention their names. Then the scene shifts to everyone talking about how intelligent, capable, and in every way exceptional Kvothe is. Ben wants for him to go the University to get a degree in wizardry. quote:“If he decides to become an arcanist, I bet he’ll have a royal appointment by the time he’s twenty-four. If he gets it into his head to be a merchant I don’t doubt he’ll own half the world by the time he dies.” Chapter Thirteen, “Interlude—Flesh with Blood Beneath,” per its name returns to the present of the Waystone Inn. It also has three revelations. Chronicler meets Bast, who he reveals to be a Fae creature by using iron. Chronicler, in turn, is also revealed to be a wizard who can control iron. This is an incredibly prosaic way to introduce supernatural elements. Kvothe gets angry with the two, and is revealed to be twenty-five years old or at least look twenty-five. quote:Kvothe’s voice grew quiet, “If you do not stop this foolishness, you may both leave now. One of you will be left with a slim sliver of story, and the other can search out a new teacher. If there is one thing I will not abide, it is the folly of a willful pride.” If this is true, any hope for authenticity in Kingkiller is lost, because Kvothe being a figure of legend and subject of a thousand stories recounted across the world is simply at odds with him also being twenty-something. Here, for example, Kvothe is supposed to a menacing and authoritative because of his dark and violent past, but he is also twenty-five years old. And in general Kvothe the innkeeper is written as a bitter and world-weary old man. His youth simply does not fit his characterization. There is repeated emphasis on how dangerous Kvothe seemed for a moment: quote:Kvothe poured something from the green bottle into the glasses. This simple gesture changed him. He seemed to fade back into himself, until there was little left of the dark-eyed man who’d stood behind the bar a moment ago. The dramatic action in this scene is anything but. Chronicler remains a thin character, while Bast’s true nature is revealed in a wholly prosaic manner. quote:As Chronicler gathered his paper and quills, Kvothe studied the angle of the sun through the window, a pensive look on his face. Eventually he turned to Bast. “How much did you manage to overhear?” JUST ROTHFUSS THINGS Remember this part from Part 5? quote:Chronicler found himself thinking of a story he had heard. One of the many. The story told of how Kvothe had gone looking for his heart’s desire. He had to trick a demon to get it. But once it rested in his hand, he was forced to fight an angel to keep it. I believe it, Chronicler found himself thinking. Before it was just a story, but now I can believe it. This is the face of a man who has killed an angel. For some reason Rothfuss slips it in again: quote:Then he saw Kvothe’s eyes. They had deepened to a green so dark they were nearly black. This is who I came to see, Chronicler thought to himself, this is the man who counseled kings and walked old roads with nothing but his wit to guide him. This is the man whose name has become both praise and curse at the University. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Feb 22, 2016 21:38
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Oxxidation posted:Does aggrandizing a character to this extent ever end well? I haven't seen a case this severe since the Drizzt Forgotten Realms books (I was eleven and I got them out of my dad's attic, don't judge). I've cut out most of it, even when discussing it.
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Feb 22, 2016 23:58
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LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Part 8: “There was an outcry and a great deal of complaining, but everyone knew they had been lucky to hear as much as they had.” In chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind,” Kvothe is intent on discovering the “name of the Wind” from Ben. They debate on how to get a bird down out of the sky, and Kvothe ends up almost killing himself trying to mimic Ben. It’s not an effective scene because the scene emphasises Kvothe being reticient and pragmatic compared to Ben, and then moves into him making a mistake because he couldn’t really think it through. There’s not proper continuity here. The scene is also suffers from Rothfuss being unable to summarize, so you get a detailed scene of Kvothe almost choking to death. quote:I sensed he might be ready to finally tell me the secret he had been keeping all through the winter months. At the same time I was struck with an idea. This is followed by a domestic scene with Kvothe’s parents, and this again is thematic discontinuity. There’s no reason to Kvothe narrate it when he can simply summarise and detail it elsewhere. And consider the register Rothfuss uses for a scene of adult intimacy. it changes from exposition to irony and philosophy to slight comedy without ever properly bridging them. Arliden’s and Laurian’s dialogue seems like it’s from two different conversations: quote:“It’s an old name for loden-stones,” my mother explained. “They’re pieces of star-iron that draw all other iron toward themselves. I saw one years ago in a curiosity cabinet.” She looked up at my father who was still muttering to himself. “We saw the loden-stone in Peleresin, didn’t we?” Ben is regretting teaching Kvothe so fast, even if he is an exceptional prodigy, and Kvothe has dialogue completely unfitting for a twelve-year old, prodigy or not. quote:Realization started to dawn on me, and I closed my eyes. “More, much more. I understand, Ben. Really I do. Power is okay, and stupidity is usually harmless. Power and stupidity together are dangerous.” In Chapter 15, “Distractions and Farewell,” the troupe stops in a town where Ben is seduced by a widow woman who wants him to run her brewery. This is all recounted in a few short paragraphs. It’s also kvothe’s birthday, and the narration emphasises how bittersweet this is. There’s also emphasis on how happy and joyous everyone is, but it’s also very abbreviated, which again is inconsistent. Why is this so summarised when so many words were dedicated to exposition about magic “systems”? The other members of the troupe are at best sketches of characters. Despite all this magic and storytelling, the setting itself remains strikingly non-fantastical in both form and content. quote:I remember the evening as a wonderful blur of warm emotion, tinged in bitter. Fiddles, lutes, and drums, everyone played and danced and sang as they wished. I dare say we rivaled any faerie revel you can bring to mind. quote:I don’t remember starting out that morning, but I do remember trying to sleep and feeling quite alone except for a dull, bittersweet ache. Kvothe’s father also presents part of the historical play he’s been researching in a dreadful bit of poetry: quote:“Sit and listen all, for I will sing When Kvothe wakes up in the morning, Ben has left a book as a present, with an encouragement for him to join the University. Kvothe is conflicted over leaving the troupe, which would be more pressing if this whole sequence had focused on fleshing out the troupe instead of exposition. In Chapter 16, “Hope,” the troupe is slaughtered by the Chandrian. quote:It was my habit to wander away from the troupe in the evenings. I usually had some sort of errand to run while my parents set up for dinner. But it was just an excuse for us to get away from each other. Privacy is hard to come by on the road, and they needed it as much as I did. So if it took me an hour to gather an armload of firewood they didn’t mind. And if they hadn’t started dinner by the time I came back, well, that was only fair, wasn’t it? The Chandrian are otherworldly and demonic. The problem with the scene is that it focuses too much on their bickering instead of what Kvothe does or thinks. This of course could work as a device to show how Kvothe tries to downplay the terror of these memories, but the narrative is completely subsumed by high-fantasy nonsense. Avoidance becomes a moot point. Kvothe becomes an object of secondary interest in the story about his development. quote:He was two dozen feet from me, but I could see him perfectly in the fading light of sunset. I remember him as clearly as I remember my own mother, sometimes better. His face was narrow and sharp, with the perfect beauty of porcelain. His hair was shoulder length, framing his face in loose curls the color of frost. He was a creature of winter’s pale. Everything about him was cold and sharp and white. quote:
The leader of the Chandrian, Haliax, disciplines Cinder for toying with Kvothe. quote:“I am a tool in your hand, Lord Haliax,” Cinder amended as he crumpled, trembling, to his knees. Haliax senses something and the Chandrian run off with no time to dispose of Kvothe. After the tense build-up, the Chandrian are decidedly disappointing. They act according to a vague but menacing agenda, and speak like comic book supervillains. Thematically, they seem to represent oblivion that threatens stories, so there’s a meta-aspect to their vagueness. This is squandered because the book is occupied with trivialities like the complexities of its magic “system”. Despite quite explicitly being the hinge of the story, the conflict and themes it presents are not given even a cursory treatment. The Chandrian are ultimate evil, but what is that evil? Even if it is a mystery, there is still no proper establishment of theme and conflict. They're a complete outside element to the story, and not in a constructive manner. Chapter 17, “Interlude—Autumn” has Bast and Chronicler reconcile while Kvothe is absent, and reveals that telling the story is breaking Kvothe’s uncaring facade quote:As he continued to load the barrow, he moved slower and slower, like a machine winding down. Eventually he stopped completely and stood for a long minute, still as stone. Only then did his composure break. And even with no one there to see, he hid his face in his hands and wept quietly, his body wracked with wave on wave of heavy, silent sobs. JUST ROTHFUSS THINGS quote:All the flames were tinged with blue, making the scene dreamlike and surreal. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Feb 23, 2016 21:03
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Oxxidation posted:I'm just going off the excerpts, but it seems to be this weird half-and-half situation where he wants magic to have the typical wizardy mystique but also a firm empirical basis and winds up with neither. My only thorough experiences with the fantasy genre were Discworld, where the question of "what is magic" is usually met with a glare and an answer like "something you don't muck about with if you know what's good for you," and the Bas-Lag series, where it's approached with an earthy blue-collar attitude that emphasizes the weirdness of the setting instead of making it more prosaic ("oh yeah those are just the little fat water goblins making a liquid into a solid, it's a thing they do, handy for dockworkers, best not get too close"). it is partly intentional: quote:It would be wrong to say that I was disappointed with sympathy. But honestly, I was disappointed. It was not what I expected magic to be. But I've already mentioned that the actual storybook magic is also without mystique. e: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is the only successful instance of this that I can recall. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Feb 23, 2016 |
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Feb 23, 2016 22:26
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I meant it in the sense that there's a system of magic which tries to explain it in a technical, scholarly manner, while still retaining a sense of mystique. Tolkien and Gaiman don't really do that. LET'S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Interlude - The True Nature of the Chandrian    
BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 08:10
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Ohvee posted:What are the chances of having this chronicled ( Rather small, I prefer to contain my shitposting in one place. LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Part 9: “The next span was an ordeal.” Chapter 18, “Roads to Safe Places,” begins with Kvothe reciting fictional pseudo-psychology about the “four doors” that allow humans to cope with pain. It’s not particularly insightful or poetic. quote:
I gather that it’s a poetic metaphor, but there’s no charm in it. Just look at sentences like “when a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious”. This is just dull. The third and fourth doors are madness and death, and just as dull. As a device to illustrate Kvothe’s detachment it deflates rather than distances. It would have been better if it hadn’t been explained and the allusions afterwards could have been kept. We return to young Kvothe, wandering in the wilderness. He falls asleep and has a dream about the things he was taught in his troupe, but it’s rather too profound. The troupe’s death was so overshadowed by the Chandrian that it reads like an attempt to balance it out. It’s not terrible, but I think it should have been moved forward to emphasise the troupe’s absence. After this, there’s an almost good scene where Kvothe forages and prepares shelter. The prose illustrates his shock and despair well: it reflects how mechanical and spiritless he is in is actions, but the prose relies on sentences that are too short and frequent to flow well, and too long and frequent to be laconic. quote:Rather than refreshing me, all my drink did was make me aware of how hungry I was. I sat on the stone by the edge of the pool. I stripped the leaves from the stalks of motherleaf and ate one. It was rough, papery, and bitter. I ate the rest, but it didn’t help. I took another drink of water, then lay down to sleep, not caring that the stone was cold and hard, or at least pretending not to care. Chapter 19, “Fingers and Strings,” underlines this by talking about how he acted like an automaton. Kvothe spends his days in the wilderness playing his father’s lute. It’s good imagery, but gets overwrought towards the end. quote:Somewhere in the third month I stopped looking outside and started looking inside for things to play. I learned to play Riding in the Wagon with Ben, Singing with Father by the Fire, Watching Shandi Dance, Grinding Leaves When it Is Nice Outside, Mother Smiling…. The strings of the lute break one by one, and Kvothe decides to set off, avoiding villages and towns for fear of people. On a road a wagon ridden by an old man and his son, comes up upon him. Kvothe joins them, and eats bread for the first time in six months. You didn’t misread that. Everything I summarised just now, two short chapters, described six months of time. In Chapter 21, “Bloody Hands into Stinging Fists,” we return to that old problem that this story is decidedly not fantastical. This is how Rothfuss describes an entry into a great city: quote:IT WAS AROUND NOON when the wagon turned onto a new road, this one wide as a river and paved with cobbles. At first there were only a handful of travelers and a wagon or two, but to me it seemed like a great crowd after such a long time alone. Again, as a device to illustrate Kvothe’s detachment it’s lacking, because it’s not even a sketch of a scene. It’s not used to illustrate Kvothe’s state of mind at all. Actual description will follow, but it’s established in a vacuum: quote:Tarbean is big enough that you cannot walk from one end to the other in a single day. Not even if you avoid getting lost or accosted in the tangled web of twisting streets and dead end alleys. A more skilled author would have begun with the menace, fear, and alienation a city presents to a solitary child. First impressions are everything. The whole setting remains a confusion. That this is not an artistic device can be gleaned when we skip further and observe how Rothfuss describes another settlement: quote:The University lay at the heart of a small city. Though truthfully, I hesitate to call it a city at all. It was nothing like Tarbean with its twisting alleys and garbage smell. It was more of a town, with wide roads and clean air. Lawns and gardens were spaced between small houses and shops. Simply, Rothfuss doesn’t describe a city, but what’s in it. Like the rest of the setting, it seems more like a bare stage for the story, instead of a way to further the story. Compare to Dickens sets the scene in something as prosaic as Barnet: Oliver Twist posted:Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, Oliver limped slowly into the little town of Barnet. The window-shutters were closed; the street was empty; not a soul had awakened to the business of the day. The sun was rising in all its splendid beauty; but the light only served to show the boy his own lonesomeness and desolation, as he sat, with bleeding feet and covered with dust, upon a door-step. Not in his right mind, Kvothe departs hastily from the men who helped him, and wanders aimlessly through the city of Tarbean. He’s ambushed by street children, and this is where the prose drifts back into brutish realism: quote:“I’m looking for the Woodworks,” I muttered, slightly stunned. While not bad in principle, the problem with Rothfuss’s portrayal of poverty is that there’s not much nuance or insight in it. There’s a fight, which is enjoyably visceral if needlessly extended for a street scuffle between children, and Kvothe’s lute ends up broken. Rothfuss also retcons the previous two chapters: quote:After my troupe was murdered, there were times when I would dream of my parents, alive and singing. In my dream their deaths had been a mistake, a misunderstanding, a new play they had been rehearsing. And for a few moments I had relief from the great blanketing grief that was constantly crushing me. I hugged them and we laughed at my foolish worry. I sang with them, and for a moment everything was wonderful. Wonderful. This didn't occur at all during the previous two chapters, even when there was all the time in the world to describe it. This is not a reminder, as these events are mere pages behind. There is no special vocabulary of criticisms for such instances of bad writing. It’s just bad. A member of the City Guard intervenes, and rifles through Kvothe’s pockets while he’s unconscious. Kvothe tries returning to the wagon, but it’s left since. The pathos is pretty effective, but it’s beset by the same problems of tone and setting I’ve mentioned repeatedly throughout these entries. quote:I thought of leaving, but it would take me hours of walking in my current condition. Besides, there was nothing waiting for me on the outskirts of the city except miles upon miles of harvested farmland. No trees to keep the wind away. No wood to make a fire. No rabbits to set traps for. No roots to dig. No heather for a bed. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 18:14
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) outside the forums on a blog or something like that? I'd like to share this takedown.
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Oxxidation posted:Is this some colloquialism known only in your heathen herring-stained native tongue, because even Google doesn't know what to make of it. I'm terrible at proofreading anything I write myself.
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Feb 26, 2016 19:18
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Thoren posted:BravestOfTheLamps will you give your thoughts on the interlude chapters as well? Very curious to read them. I've only examined one of them in detail. I chalk them up as another instance of narrative confusion, because they're not used to mimic oral story-telling. They're almost cinematic, with clear "scene breaks," like in the the film version of Princess Bride. But that movie uses narration to unify the story. With Kingkiller you have to parallel stories that interrupt each other. This is an example of how an "interlude" is handled in Baudolino. It's in the form of two paragraphs at the end of a chapter: quote:“And so,” Niketas said, “this was your first journey to Byzantium. I wouldn’t be surprised, after what you saw, if you considered what’s happening now a purification.” You can also see the movie Amadeus for how this is handled cinematically. The Egyptian never interrupts its first person narrative, because Sinuhe can comment on his past as the narrator. What's common with Baudolino, The Egyptian, and Amadeus is unity of narration. When the Princess Bride movie interrupts its story, it's a clear separation. Kingkiller has the same principle, with two parallel narratives that influence each other. But it loses the benefits of unity in narrative, and since the frame story is and will remain incomplete, there is no clear benefit to it existing. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 27, 2016 11:38
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LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Part 10: “Oh, the pieces of the pageantry were all the same.” The memorious among you may recall that Kvothe is a “gypsy”. And you may have noticed that I have not mentioned any instances of Kvothe trying to seek out his people for shelter and protection. I do not recall Kvothe ever trying to seek out his own people, even if it is an obvious course for the character and the story to take. Granted, I haven’t re-read very far ahead, so my own memory might have failed me. The obvious question is why this course hasn’t been taken. The equally obvious answer is that the story is supposed to continue with Kvothe as a street urchin. But there is not even a token effort to stop Kvothe from joining other gypsies. The possibility is completely ignored as far as I recall. The ultimate conclusion is that Rothfuss is completely ignorant when it comes to race and class, even of the idea that somebody might seek out their own kin-group when left alone in the world. I've already observed how Rothfuss does his best to confuse the concept of a "gypsy" and to portray itinerant performers as educated liberal cosmopolitans. It seems that Rothfuss is afraid to portray Kvothe in any way as a foreign figure to a modern Western audience. It's a pivot in Kingkiller's strange politics. In Chapter 21, “Basement, Bread and Bucket” Kvothe is trying to survive by begging, and the prose takes a detour into Lankhmarian: quote:It was just after lunchtime. Rather, it would have been after lunchtime if I’d had anything to eat. I was begging in Merchant’s Circle and so far the day had profited me two kicks (one guard, one mercenary), three shoves (two wagoneers, one sailor), one new curse concerning an unlikely anatomical configuration (also from the sailor), and a spray of spittle from a rather unendearing elderly man of indeterminate occupation. The shift into high register is obviously for comedic effect, but again, it’s a case of inconsistence in tone. I’ve mentioned how Rothfuss seems to struggle between literary influences. I’ll tentatively identify them as “high” and “low”. Note that this isn’t a judgement on any works that influence Rothfuss, just a way to describe their literary styles. “High” literary influences are works like The Last Unicorn and classic fantasy which employs elevated or poetic registers, and more abstracted form. The prologue, for instance, is Rothfuss using a poetic register and more abstract as opposed to realistic form. “Low” literary influence is the province of modern literature and fantasy, which employs more realistic form and visceral registers. Scenes like Kvothe’s fight with other street children are one example. Kingkiller vacillates between these two influences, but not for any artistic purpose. It’s no death sentence on a novel, but it simply leaves an impression that Rothfuss is never quite sure what he is writing. Three Men in a Boat features a similar problem where Jerome’s comedy is jarring next to his sentimental passages. On the other hand many writers successfully switch between high and low registers. I recommended Hillary Mantell’s Wolf Hall earlier: Wolf Hall posted:Inch by inch. Inch by inch forward. Never mind if he calls you an eel or a worm or a snake. Head down, don't provoke him. His nose is clotted with blood and he has to open his mouth to breathe. His father's momentary distraction at the loss of his good boot allows him the leisure to vomit. ‘That's right,’ Walter yells. ‘Spew everywhere.’ Spew everywhere, on my good cobbles. ‘Come on, boy, get up. Let's see you get up. By the blood of creeping Christ, stand on your feet.’ Kvothe follows other beggar children, who somehow have found plenty of bread in a suspicious basement of a burnt-out building. Entering the basement, he finds it housing a number of children: quote:There were six cots in the room, all occupied. Two children that were hardly more than babies shared a blanket on the stone floor, and another was curled up in a pile of rags. A boy my age sat in a dark corner, his head pressed against the wall. The moment is successfully deflated with poorly-timed world-building. The basement is actually a Russian orphanage and the restrained children are all disabled. The caretaker has had help from street children, and Kvothe carries water in exchange for bread. Kvothe recalls medical know-how from his past, and there’s an odd use of more modern medical terms. quote:Palsied, crippled, catatonic, spastic, Trapis tended them all with equal and unending patience. I never once heard him complain of anything, not even his bare feet, which were always swollen and must have pained him constantly. This is almost a good scene. That this is an uplifting scene is delightfully grim. I say “almost” because Rothfuss still struggles with prose, and... well, whatever good one finds in Kingkiller ends up highlighting its flaws. In this case, the entire Tarbean sequence is flawed because it is narrative and thematically pointless beyond providing some exposition. In Chapter 22, “A Time for Demons,” has started to adjust life on the streets, and even has a hiding-place for his meagre possessions. It’s also time for the ‘Midwinter Pageantry,’ which was first mentioned when Kvothe was disparaging the less educated. It’s a religious holiday of the ‘Tehlin’ faith, where perfomers dress as demons to harass passers-by. Kvothe tries begging at an upscale neighbourhood, but after some success he’s assaulted by a hired guard. Like the other street scuffles, it’s a delightfully visceral scene, but there’s something disjointed about it. quote:I hardly noticed. The air hummed before his club cracked against my leg. He snarled at me, “Don’t come Hillside, understand?” The club caught me again, this time across the shoulder blades. “Everything past Fallow Street is off limits to you little whore’s sons. Understand?” he backhanded me across the face and I tasted blood as my head careened off the snow-covered cobbles. When I say that these kinds of scenes are delightful, I’m not being facetious. These are the most affecting parts of the book. Kvothe digs through snow bare-handed and bleeding for his money, and it’s good. Kvothe is saved from freezing to death by two of the demon performers. He watches the pageantry alone, and eventually finds an inn with sympathetic servants. Kvothe insists on staying away from them after getting inn because he still wishes to avoid people. But this insistence begins to feel hollow. For the reader, mind you, not Kvothe. quote:She looked at me. “You can have a corner by the fire in here if you want it.” ROTHFUSSIAN ATTRIBUTES quote:His voice was old and tired around the edges, but at its center it was patient. Patient as a heavy stone or a mother cat with kittens. Not the sort of voice I expected a Duke-of-Gibea type to have. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Feb 27, 2016 22:38
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HELLO LADIES posted:The problems with Rothfuss's writing are fundamentally down to his personality and character as a human being, not any technical flaw. The prose is bad, but it's not the problem. His gooniness is the problem. The technical flaws make for good discussion as opposed to Two Minutes Hate.
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Feb 28, 2016 00:34
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LET'S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY Interlude - The Reviewers ChickenWing posted:I think the problem is that a whole lot of you are coming at this from a very high-minded eng lit sort of perspective. There's not much different between an average and trained reader, and little that would stop them from enjoying book the other enjoys. I have the same experience reading Kingkiller that everyone else does, I simply have the vocabulary to discuss it better. Who does "Joe Average" represent here? Who are the people enjoying the books? SFF World review posted:Rothfuss is working from a bottomless well of raw talent. You don't have to get much more than half a dozen pages in before acknowledging that you're looking at a natural born writer. His ease with language and unpretentious, flowing prose are a joy to behold. Such craft makes this lengthy novel fly by. Indeed, his writing is so good that unattentive readers may overlook a few glaring plot flaws, as well as the fact that at the end, quite literally nothing is resolved. Of course, in series fiction, one expects much to be left open for resolution in subsequent books. That's the point. But I have this kooky idea that good series novels still ought to work in the same way good stand-alone novels do. Each book ought to have its own set of conflicts that achieve narrative closure, the resolution of which acts as the springboard for the next book's conflicts. A great example would, as usual, be Martin (with the general exception of A Feast for Crows). The unforgettable climactic battle in A Clash of Kings settles that book's major plot issues, but opens up all new conflicts for A Storm of Swords. Gemmel's Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow resolved its narrative, and Shield of Thunder built its narrative upon that. Et cetera. There's no closure to anything at all, really, in The Name of the Wind. It's all a 660-page preamble. Top review on Goodreads posted:As for the characters and their growth, I am so impressed and so in love I will no doubt do a bad job of expressing it. While Kvothe's story is told in his voice, first person, the present day interludes are told in third person omniscient, but usually from certain characters' points of view. You get a mix of other people's impressions of characters, and a gentle showing that tells us even more. The genius is in how Kvothe is portrayed: while telling the story, himself as a young boy, already having experienced tragedy and sorrow and despair, and already feeling the weight of worldly concerns, but still with a lot to learn, comes across strongly. This is counter-balanced with Kvothe as a man, having been through all that and more and had it shape him into something subtly different, yet still very much the same person. If it had been written poorly, there would have been discord between the two Kvothes, but there isn't. He has so much charisma, and is such a complex sort, that I really felt for him. I may even have a bit of crush, actually. He's not good or evil, but he's suffering from a conscience: he's very human, and lonely, despite the friendship of Bast. At the same time, he's a god-like figure, an amazing musician, a skilled fighter, and a powerful magician. One moment he's commanding and chillingly masterful, the next he's doing Bast's bidding and fetching food and cutting wood for others. I expect it's his contradictions and complexities that draw me to him. Onion AV Club review posted:The Name Of The Wind is quite simply the best fantasy novel of the past 10 years, although attaching a genre qualification threatens to drat it with faint praise. Say instead that The Name Of The Wind is one of the best stories told in any medium in a decade. Author Patrick Rothfuss teaches English at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and he describes himself in self-deprecating terms as a perpetual student, role-playing geek, and connoisseur of rejection letters. That's all about to change. His debut novel combines the intricate stories-within-stories structure of The Arabian Nights with the academic setting of the Harry Potter series, and transforms it all into a brooding, thoroughly adult meditation on how heroism went wrong. More entries in the series, dubbed "The Kingkiller Chronicle," are promised; they can't appear fast enough. These are all interesting, because the reviewers don't actually seem to enjoy the books in themselves. It seems like the opposite of enjoyment, because each has their own fantasy around the book that's the main draw. The first reviewer is convinced that there is a special relationship between them and the author. The second is attracted to imaginary people. The third spents a quarter of the review talking about how clearly monumental and mature the book is. Critical discussion is mostly limited to plot summaries. Are these "Average Joes"? I doubt it. These people are nerds. Your Average Joe will probably put the book down as nerdy crap, because that's what it is. Even in this thread, the goons who like the book seem awfully reticent to actually say why they enjoy the books. Even in perfunctory way. Instead they just say they like it, Kvothe is awesome, etc. Anyone can talk about why a book is good, you don't need training in critical reading to do that (anyone can do a critical reading). Anyone can point to the writing and say what parts they enjoy. So why won't they? BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Dec 5, 2016 |
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Feb 28, 2016 08:45
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"I have a read a book ten times, yet I am unable to say anything substantial about it." This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Reading something mechanically and passively for 10 times isn't enjoying something. In fact, it's only reading in a technical sense. "The right way of reading" indeed shows that the books are bad, because there is and has always been only one way of reading: active as opposed to passive. The pleasure ascribed to Kingkiller is merely a synonym for "distraction". There is little enjoyable in the books themselves. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Feb 28, 2016 |
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Feb 28, 2016 13:21
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BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Aug 18, 2016 |
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Feb 28, 2016 13:45
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jivjov posted:I enjoy the fictional history Rothfuss created; he commits fully to the concept of a living world; mundane things like currency conversions, folktales, or the difference of customs from one kingdom to the next are brought up. This makes the world feel less sterile and artificial than some fantasy I've read. I enjoy learning about various corners of the world. Most what you've described is paraphernalia. What's enjoyable about Kingkiller is reading about a man narrating his life and exploits. Currency conversion is only interesting in how it furthers that. The rest (like the prose) can be chalked up to simple bad taste.
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Feb 28, 2016 14:14
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jivjov posted:Again, you do not exist in my head; you cannot tell me what I enjoyed. On the contrary my friend, you are making your thoughts and emotions clear through this very discussion. According to you, the Kingkiller series are containers for objects you appreciate. You enjoy the prose by how you don't notice it, and it distracts you from the real world. "Silence of three parts" is no metaphor; how may you enjoy Rothfuss's metaphors if you do not know what they are? Again, you cannot express the unitary pleasure that comes from reading.
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Feb 28, 2016 14:26
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When it comes to genre fiction I remember enjoying this snippet from Joe Abercrombie's Red Country:quote:Sworbreck had come to see the face of heroism and instead he had seen evil. Seen it, spoken with it, been pressed up against it. Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods. jivjov posted:Are you seriously this loving dense? YOU. CANNOT. TELL. ME. WHAT. I. ENJOY. I have no power over you save for what you have now granted to me. jivjov posted:Is that in small enough words and presented clearly enough for you to understand? You're the self-proclaimed goddamn expert of reading things so properly. You are not me. You enjoy different things than I do. Correct, I enjoy different things, like reading Kingkiller.
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Feb 28, 2016 16:25
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Oxxidation posted:I dunno, the sentiment's pedestrian and while I like the use of repetition I've seen it done better elsewhere. Though my genre-fiction...genre...of choice is horror, not fantasy/sci-fi, so our standards probably differ. It's true that I'm more forgiving when I find resonance in the ideas. Here's something more refined from one of the greatest works of fantasy ever written, John Crowley's Little, Big: quote:Striving like the Meadow Mouse to disbelieve in Winter, Smoky gorged himself on the summer sky, lying late into the night on the ground staring upward, though the month had an R in it and Cloud thought it bad for nerve, bone, and tissue. Odd that the changeful constellations, so mindful of the seasons, should be what he chose of summer to memorize, but the turning of the sky was so slow, and seemed so impossible, that it comforted him. Yet he needed only to look at his watch to see that they fled away south even as the geese did. The interplay of celestial and mundane is terrific. Like how the awkwardness of pointing out a star is associated with "the billions of mile of parallax," and becomes a symbol of the vast chasm between all people. The vast sky of stars is perfect to illustrate the confusion of meaning, where the trivial and the divine are intertwined. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Feb 28, 2016 |
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Feb 28, 2016 17:16
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ulmont posted:Oh, what the hell. A nonexhaustive list of bits Ulmont liked from chapter 2: This is again the problem of describing a book as a container for things you like instead of appreciating reading the book as whole. Anyone can gather up bits up from the book that are effective - but this is missing the forest for the trees. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 06:28
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RentACop posted:I enjoy your posts but I'm unsure what example could satisfy your criteria at this point Showing why the main body of The Name of the Wind or Wise Man's Fear is enjoyable, and preferably also why that can't be chalked up to bad taste. For an example of not just picking apart a list of things, I'm bringing up passages and sequences in preparation for a final thesis. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 07:12
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Nakar posted:Or perhaps nothing will satisfy him. I dunno. You're correct except for this. People can prove that they find reading Kingkiller to be enjoyable. it's however a Catch-22, because unless you enjoy critically reading something bad, being entertained by Kingkiller requires a measure of bad taste. Fans of Kingkiller have contributed to this discussion with what they like, but it's rather disjointed. They're entertained by aspects of the novels, but struggle to say anything meaningful about them. They liked the little touches, they liked that conversation, you don't notice the flow of time for how well prose flows. None of them have actually said what Kingkiller is about and how that might make it good and enjoyable. I suggest this is because even Kingkiller is not sure what it's about. jivjov posted:He's pre-ordained that Rothfuss' novels are Objectively Bad and anyone who enjoyed them is Reading Wrong or whatever. That Rothfuss's novels are bad is my subjective opinion - but just because it's a subjective opinion doesn't stop it from being completely and totally right. Subjectivity is not at all incompatible with truth. That Rothfuss's novels are bad is not objective reality - it is truth. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Aug 18, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 13:18
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ulmont posted:I'm not understanding your asserted problem here. I enjoyed the Name of the Wind in the same way I enjoyed Baudelino (or The Book of the New Sun); I can't say as I've ever read a book without finding portions that were less powerful or entertaining than others. I confess, I've been unfair with this. So I'm going to try to illustrate what makes some books enjoyable and good. With "enjoyable" I mean entertainment-value, and with "good" I broadly mean the literary merits that elevate them above simple distraction. Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories are enjoyable because they're satirical adventures of thieves in a world both close and dream-like. They're good because they're as cunning as fantasy gets, as the satire will suddenly reveal something dark and abyssal within it. Mika Waltari's The Egyptian is enjoyable because it's a stunning epic, filled with anecdote and adventure that covers the breadth of human experience without ever straining. It's good because this epic scope allows for a profound meditation on human folly. George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire was enjoyable because it's a complex and lurid story of intrigue and war, always kept moving by something new and exhilarating. It was kind of good because it's polyphony and pithy wit made it authentic. Zadie Smith's NW is enjoyable because it's account of London life crackles with the anxieties of class, race, and urbanity. it's good because it gives voice to the fears of the working class, the limitations of the middle classes, and to the brutal street criminal that we fear and hate despite our liberal pretences. But what can one sum up as being enjoyable and good about Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicle? ulmont posted:This is an odd criticism. Kingkiller is a coming of age story so far. It has hints that it might turn into something better - or worse - but, to date, we have a child growing up into an adult. Call it Harry Potter, Magicians, or Taran Wanderer if you want; there doesn't need to be more than that. There are only two stories, after all; this one is a man goes on a journey. It's not odd at all - Kingkiller has no proper story beyond "things happen to Kvothe that made him exceptional". It's no coming-of-age story or Augustinian confession, because Kvothe starts the the story as fully developed and mature as he is ever going to get (there are no psychical differences between Kvothe as a child, Kvothe as a teenager, and Kvothe as a young adult playing at being a bitter old man). It's no journey through a fantasy world, because the setting isn't used to tell a story; it's simply there to provide impressive motifs and environments (which is why a secular university coexists with the Inquisition). It's no adventure because there is no plot. One might then say that Kingkiller is a bold post-modern story that exploits and defies storytelling conventions to create something new... but it's still about a scrappy hero trying to track down Voldemort and his Death Eaters while bedeviled by Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape (and that's a generous description). It's story is neither epic nor focused, neither fantastical or realistic, and it's too conventional to be subversive. All that remains is that the story is about Kvothe. But what does Kvothe represent? Nothing but his own exceptional nature. Granted, the series hasn't completed yet. If the third book is against all odds released and reveals what the story is, Kingkiller is, if nothing, else one of the most impressive feats of legerdemain ever conceived. What else can you call hiding the story for two whole books? Nakar posted:In theory, a person who hates some work of great importance (pick your favorite here) could do a textual analysis of it in some depth and conclude that for as much as that critic loathes the work for moral or philosophical reasons or for the way characters think and behave, there is something of merit in the construction of the work and what it sets out to do that justifies the conclusions it reaches even if the critic disagrees with them. You have encapsulated my position perfectly. e: But it goes the other way around too, doesn't it? What I enjoy in Kingkiller, incidentally, are the occasional elements of brutal realism and grim satire. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Mar 1, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 17:29
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