Chapter 7: Of Beginnings and the Names of Things (Part II)
In which Galatea enlists support from a galaxy far, far away...
Previously, in The Name of the Wind, Kvothe refused to start his actual story until Devan gave him an implausible lesson in an impractical shorthand.
The last we heard from Kvothe was this:
“Wonderfully efficient system,” Kvothe said appreciatively. “Very logical. Did you design it yourself?”
Repetition(epetition): 21
Kvothe already asked that in precisely so many words.
I already spent more words than I care to count on everything that's wrong with that statement (hello, Authorial Mouthpiece!) so I'm very grateful that Devan does me a solid and ignores it. Instead, he asks Kvothe about the part of his legend in which he learned an entire language - Tema - in a day. Kvothe laughs it off because learning a whole language in a day would be silly. He only learned "a rather large part of it" and it took him a day and a half.
Stu Stew: 17
You're hilarious, Kvothe. Obviously, this is still supposed to be monumentally impressive - hence the first Stu Stew count. But once again, I have to call Rothfuss out for writing something that genuinely isn't as impressive as he wants it to be. When I was fifteen I went to Italy for the first time with a school group and, because I was rather bored in the weeks leading up to the trip, I figured I'd teach myself Italian. Now, I'm not fluent by any means, but I did manage to learn "a rather large part" of the language in a very short space of time, and just like with shorthand, it wasn't that hard. True fluency in a language is difficult and takes time, study and immersion, but cramming up to a roughly conversational level is easy by comparison, especially if you use what you've learned pretty much immediately. It's no different than cramming chemical formulae so that you can solve the equations in an exam the next day. I had a couple of advantages going in: I was already rather fluent in Latin and I'm a musician, which gave me a basic and surprisingly useful vocabulary of Italian musical terms. Still, those aren't significantly greater advantages than it's safe to assume Kvothe had (we know he's a dab hand with languages and has a talent for Naming), and again: he's supposed to be much, much smarter than I am.
Kvothe rubbed his hands together. “Now, are you ready?”Is...is this a joke? Am I dreaming? Are we finally, finally going to get out of this framing narrative?
Chronicler shook his head as if to clear it, set out a new sheet of paper, and nodded.Stop shaking your head, Devan. You'll only confuse him and lead to more padding.
Kvothe held up a hand to keep Chronicler from writing, and spoke[...]What did I tell you?
Kvothe isn't actually stopping Devan; he's just issuing a warning. Because he is "Edema Ruh" - and we'll find out what that is and talk about everything that's wrong with it next chapter - he is a Storyteller among Storytellers. He has a long ancestral history of telling tales that apparently goes back almost to before there were tales to tell. Taken on its own and completely out of context, it's actually a pretty atmospheric passage. Then...
Kvothe nodded to the scribe. “I know your reputation as a great collector of stories and recorder of events.” Kvothe’s eyes became hard as flint, sharp as broken glass. “That said, do not presume to change a word of what I say. If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way.”Oh, fuck you. Whether he meant it this way or not, this is Rothfuss preempting all the complaints about bloat and meandering, and telling us "it's all crucially important and if you can't see why it doesn't matter because I'm the author". It's a Cover Your Ass line, and it's going to be about as effective as squeezing a size 22 booty into a size 00 bikini. Spoiler alert: there are an awful lot of words I wish Devan had changed, because even if you accept that the sequence of events of Kvothe's story are perfect in the order they occur (they aren't), we have to grit our teeth through hundreds of pages of amateur prose to get through them.
Simile Soup: 39
That's for "hard as flint, sharp as broken glass".
Stu Stew: 18
That's for Kvothe donning his Authorial Mouthpiece hat.
Chronicler nodded solemnly, trying to imagine the mind that could break apart his cipher in a piece of an hour. A mind that could learn a language in a day.
Alert The Editor: 22
Fragment: consider revising.
Repetition(epetition): 22
Kvothe's nodding, Devan's nodding...where's my line of Kingkiller bobble-head dolls? And once again Devan conveniently drops a few IQ points so he can tell us how awesome Kvothe is.
Stu Stew: 19
Kvothe gave a gentle smile and looked around the room as if fixing it in his memory. Chronicler dipped his pen and Kvothe looked down at his folded hands for as long as it takes to draw three deep breaths.Padding, padding, padding.
NaNoPadMo: 21
Then he began to speak.Fucking finally.
Of course, all my hopes that we're actually going to stop spinning our wheels and achieve some narrative momentum are dashed when it takes Kvothe five false starts to get going. First he tells us his story starts when a mystery woman sang a duet with him (via three overwrought similes and a fragment).
Alert The Editor: 23
Simile Soup: 41
"[S]weet and clean as clover" is pure nonsense. Clover is edible and has a mildly tart taste, and it's only as clean as any other plant you might pull out of the ground and shove in your mouth.
Then Kvothe stops and decides that the real beginning of the story is when he went to the University to learn Real Magic. There's a title drop, a fragment, and a statement that the University was not like it was in stories.
Title Drop: 2
Alert The Editor: 24
Is This The Real Life: 15
“But I expect the true beginning lies in what led me to the University. Unexpected fires at twilight. A man with eyes like ice at the bottom of a well. The smell of blood and burning hair. The Chandrian.” He nodded to himself. “Yes. I suppose that is where it all begins. This is, in many ways, a story about the Chandrian.”
Repetition(epetition): 23
That's for yet more nodding, but we seem, finally, to be getting to the meat of things. This makes sense, narratively: it's both our first confirmation that Kvothe's story is tied to Bigger Things, and the first apparent confirmation that the Chandrian are real - or at least, real enough to be a significant part of Kvothe's biography. This is proper fantasy, employing a proper fantasy trope: a character sets off on his own agenda and finds that his quest ties into something of massive and history-making proportions. I don't even mind the fragments and similes here, because they work to convey that the mundane really is going to bump shoulders with the epic; yes, it's been telegraphed like crazy that the Chandrian are real and are going to be important, but of all the things Rothfuss could be thumping on about, the Chandrian make a reasonable amount of sense.
Kvothe shook his head, as if to free himself from some dark thought.
Repetition(epetition): 24
Oh, for fuck's sake. Rothfuss, there are other gestures you can use to show that a character has thoughts bouncing around in their skull. If one does nothing but nod and/or shake one's head at every passing notion, one ends up looking like a fucking akabeko.
Also: stop holding my hand. Kvothe's "some dark thought" would be far more effective if Rothfuss didn't spell it out for us, and had a wider repertory of gestures from which to pull: I'd much rather see Kvothe give a small shudder, or lose the focus in his gaze, or momentarily tense his brow, and imply the dark thought for myself.
“But I suppose I must go even further back than that. If this is to be something resembling my book of deeds, I can spare the time. It will be worth it if I am remembered, if not flatteringly, then at least with some small amount of accuracy.
“But what would my father say if he heard me telling a story this way? ‘Begin at the beginning.’ Very well, if we are to have a telling, let’s make it a proper one.”I just...guys, this is so dull. We've been waiting for all of this chapter and half of last for Kvothe to start telling his story so Devan can start writing it down, and we're still waffling around with crap like this. I swear to God, every time it feels like we're finally going to leave the framing narrative for somewhere more interesting, Rothfuss decides to take us on a scenic detour - only the detour really isn't that scenic; it's just a drive around the nearest Wal-Mart parking lot. What I'm trying to say is this: a framing narrative and a story proper should not have a fucking no man's land in between them.
Kvothe sat forward in his chair.
“In the beginning, as far as I know, the world was spun out of the nameless void by Aleph, who gave everything a name. Or, depending on the version of the tale, found the names all things already possessed.”Fuck this - I'm out.
Okay, fine, I'm not. But it's shit like this that really has me questioning why I took this project on in the first place. Don't get me wrong: there is a ton in later chapters that I really want to unpack. There are sections of this book that, despite how much they frustrate me, I fully anticipate will be fun to spork, offering me plenty of opportunities both to talk about craft and to laugh my fucking head off at some of the patent absurdity of this universe and this narrative. But this? This is boring. It's boring to read, it's boring to write about and it's absolutely boring to analyse, because there is precisely diddly going on except delaying tactics to pad the word count.
There's a shit-ton of padding that goes on over the course of the rest of the book, but this, despite the relatively low word count added to the base storytelling, is probably the absolute worst of it. I never thought I would experience the literary equivalent of crawling up a down escalator on my hands and knees, but here it apparently is.
NaNoPadMo: 22
It's death by a thousand words.
Mother Tongue: 7
That's for "Aleph", which you'll have to trust for now is a fundamental linguistic fail. I'm saving the full explanation for Chapter 9, so please bear with me until then.
So apparently, the little bit about the beginning of the universe was Kvothe's idea of a joke, and we know this because Rothfuss makes Devan laugh at it.
Stu Stew: 20
I like to imagine that Rothfuss is doing this by sitting menacingly behind Devan with a switchblade and threatening to pare him like a potato unless he shows sufficiently convincing mirth at Kvothe's lame-ass joke. In a much better book I can almost imagine a scenario in which a joke about the beginning of the universe as an opening to someone's biography is actually funny, but with that dry prose and after this much bloviating it falls utterly flat. Rothfuss has to tell us it's funny by making a character who actually has a sense of humour laugh at it - remember, Devan's POV chapters were witty and light in tone - because informing us of a Stu's abilities is much easier than actually writing them, jokes included.
Kvothe continued, smiling himself. “I see you laugh. Very well, for simplicity’s sake, let us assume I am the center of creation."I was going to let this slide, but then it occurred to me that Rothfuss might be trying to be meta here. After all, as the protagonist of the book, Kvothe is literally the centre of creation. If Kvothe weren't such an insufferable ass, I think it would actually be quite clever.
"In doing this, let us pass over innumerable boring stories: the rise and fall of empires, sagas of heroism, ballads of tragic love. Let us hurry forward to the only tale of any real importance.” His smile broadened. “Mine.”It would be quite clever if Rothfuss didn't BEAT US OVER THE GODDAMN HEAD WITH IT. For fuck's sake, if it is impossible to tell with a line like that whether the author is being meta or the character really is that outrageously egotistical, the character might just be an asshole. And unless you are actually setting out to write a story about an asshole (Rothfuss isn't), that might just be a problem.
We are almost done. There is one more short section before the end of the chapter, and while it's still no man's land between the framing narrative and the story proper, we can at least tell we're getting close to the good stuff because we finally switch to first person. Depending on which version of the book you have, this section is either an expanded version of or just straight-up the blurb from the back of the book. I said I'd spork it when we hit it in context, and the context is...well, I'm not sure. The point, I think, is for a suitably epic tone to be set, the better to contrast with the actual story Kvothe's about to tell. It's the legend of Kvothe in its most distilled form; it's...
Well, here it is:
My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as “Quothe.” Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to.
Alert The Editor: 25
No "e" in "quoth". Aside from that, what Kvothe tells us about names is significant, mostly because he's about to rattle off a list of his and explain what they mean, without actually telling us anything about himself at all.
The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean “The Flame,” “The Thunder,” or “The Broken Tree.”
Alert The Editor: 26
Fragment: consider revising.
Now, this refers to something we'll find out about in Book 2. Kvothe's time with the Adem, when we get there, is rife with amateur fantasy problems, but it at least has potential. Certain things about the Adem are among the most original concepts Rothfuss has in this book, and it would be very bold of Rothfuss to plant this little seed of what's to come and then leave us hanging until we get there in-story.
Note: I said "would be".
“The Flame” is obvious if you’ve ever seen me.Stop holding my hand.
I have red hair, bright.Stop holding my hand.
If I had been born a couple hundred years ago I would probably have been burned as a demon.Stop holding my hand.
I keep it short but it’s unruly.Stop holding my hand.
When left to its own devices, it sticks up and makes me look as if I have been set afire.
Marry me, Rey.
Repetition(epetition): 28
Tell me, because I genuinely want to know: how stupid does Rothfuss think his readers are? Because in those last five sentences, he violated just about every cardinal rule of respecting readers' intelligence: he not only walks us through in dialogue things that should have been described, he does it for something (Kvothe's hair) that has already been described in such a way as to draw attention to it, and he does it after giving us a moniker (The Flame) that is entirely self-explanatory if you've been paying any attention to all the previous descriptions of Kovthe's red-as-the-reddest-of-red-things hair. This is shit any half-awake reader can - and should - work out on their own.
It also highlights a fairly major problem with Rothfuss's Naming magic and overall emphasis on the importance of names: they really aren't that clever. Fire has the potential to be an incredibly subtle metaphor: as well as colour, it can embody destructiveness, fragility, life, death, unpredictability, beauty, transience...the list goes on, but the short version is that there's a potential wealth of subtext in the nickname "The Flame". Beyond just insulting the readers' intelligence, that paragraph spent describing Kvothe's hair takes all that subtext and throws it out the window. Instead of letting us assume that "The Flame" refers to Kvothe's hair now and leaving it open to more meaning when we get to it in the plot, Rothfuss (via Kvothe) has just told us explicitly that the name refers to the redness of Kvothe's hair and that's it.
"The Thunder” I attribute to a strong baritone and a great deal of stage training at an early age.Nobody cares. Again: so many things "The Thunder" could mean, and Kvothe tells us explicitly to go for the most mundane.
I’ve never thought of “The Broken Tree” as very significant. Although in retrospect I suppose it could be considered at least partially prophetic.Is it possible Kvothe never thought of "The Broken Tree" as very significant because he clearly has shit for imagination? I mean, come on. Three nicknames is already too many (and we've barely even started), but they've all sort of had potential - at least until Kvothe straight-up told us to take them entirely at face value. Or, in the case of "The Broken Tree", at no value at all.
My first mentor called me E’lir because I was clever and I knew it.Spoiler alert: "E'lir" means "see-er", and is the title given to freshmen (sort of) at the University. Kvothe's first mentor basically called him "student" because he was literally a student.
My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it.Spoiler alert: Kvothe's "first real lover" never once calls anything "Dulator". I feel like rock-bottom for worldbuilding is when I have to tell a fantasy author to stop making shit up.
I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six-String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.Spoiler alert: the ways by which Kvothe acquires most of these names range from the mundane to the hilarious to the not-even-remotely-plausible.
Stu Stew: 31
Polyonymy is a classic Stu trait, made worse when the multitudinous monikers are much more mundane or pointless than the author wants us to think they are, so Kvothe gets one for every listed sobriquette.
It can be done well, by the way. George R R Martin gets a lot of mileage out of Daenerys' ever-growing list of titles, playing them sometimes for impact, sometimes for humour, and sometimes as an ironic commentary on how much less power she actually has than all her titles would suggest. He's also very consistent with what those titles mean and where they come from - unlike Kvothe's "'The Flame' is for my red hair, probably", Danerys' titles - "Mother of Dragons", "Breaker of Chains" - refer to specific and momentous events. For the ones that don't, GRRM doesn't hold our hands: yes, "Stormborn" is for Dany actually being born during a storm, but 1) it was literally the worst storm in Westeros' history and Danaerys was the only survivor of a fleet caught in it, so that's kind of worth remembering, and 2) GRRM writes it in such a way as to leave open the more metaphorical meanings of "Stormborn", such as the political storm that ousted the Targaryens and caused Dany to be born a refugee.
Blah blah blah, "Kvothe" means "to know", Kvothe has some ruder nicknames he thinks he probably earned (spoiler alert: he did), and then we get this:
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.I know I said I'd spork this in context, but the context is Kvothe straightforwardly saying all of this about himself to a near-total stranger he threatened to kill a few pages ago for knowing too much already, so really all I have to say is this: Kvothe, you arrogant narcissist.
You may have heard of me.Correction: Kvothe, you arrogant, narcissistic asshole.
Ladies And Gentlemen: 8
For "stolen princesses" (ugh) and "spent the night with Felurian". They just aren't heroic exploits without women as property or sexual conquest.
NaNoPadMo: 23
That's for the chapter. The glass of Scotch in my kitchen is for my sanity. Cheers!
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