Please note: There is a section with spoilers marked with ***. Feel free to skip if you'd like.
Let me preface my review by saying I loved Name of the Wind.
Love, love, LOVED it.
Name of the Wind is without a doubt the best fantasy novel I've read in the past 15 years (*Edit: That distinction now belongs to Anthony Ryan's Raven Shadow Book I: Blood Song. I highly suggest you check it out.*). The personal, gripping, intimate nature of getting inside Kvothe's head was a true joy in Kingkiller Book I.
As a result, my hopes were incredibly high for the sequel, maybe a little too high. And don't get me wrong, being with Kvothe again was for a time enjoyable, like putting on a comfortable pair of jeans you haven't worn for a while. Believe me, nothing would have pleased me more than for Wise Man's Fear to be a bravura, 5-star outing for Rothfuss.
But as much as I wanted to undyingly, unabashedly love this book I just ... couldn't. Rothfuss' genius with prose and demonstrable wit remain intact, but due to some inexplicable plot and character structuring, the Wise Man's Fear simply falls flat. Even worse, however, it subverts our ability to enjoy the epic Story of Kvothe at all.
When it's all said and done, a three-word review of Wise Man's Fear could be put down thusly:
"Huh? What the...?"
That, in a nutshell, is the experience of reading the second novel of the Kingkiller Chronicles. Though occasionally exhilarating and intriguing, too often The Wise Man's Fear simply leaves you scratching your head. As readers it feels as if we're no longer "living" in the world Rothfuss creates; instead we're "peeking behind the curtain," watching the author pull the strings--"Oooh, look how cool this story is! Isn't this story neat? Kvothe's amazing, isn't he amazing?"
Other reviewers have complained that the biggest problem with Wise Man's Fear is that "nothing happens" in terms of the "big picture" of the story. That accusation is accurate, but only a symptom of the broader, overarching problem: Rothfuss' "vision for the narrative" now overrides the need for a coherent, engaging plot and believable character motivations. The result is not unlike watching a film by a famous director run amok, indulging in personal whims because they know their studio / editor won't get in the way.
This sensibility from Rothfuss is baffling, because the Name of the Wind had virtually none of it. If there are two words I would use to describe The Name of the Wind, they would be "immersive" and "organic." From start to finish, you FEEL that you are a part of the world, watching "real" events happen within it.
In Wise Man's Fear, on the other hand, the opposite is true--a pervasive, not-quite-unseen "contrived-ness" underlies almost everything.
Too often Kvothe seems to do things because "the story" requires it, not because the character himself would be internally motivated to do so. Elements of his psychology are stripped away and tossed by the wayside, with barely an afterthought or explanation. As a result, our emotional connection with Kvothe wanes; we are far less, not more invested in our hero, increasingly ambivalent to whether he succeeds or fails. Kvothe is still "the Story," but it's no longer clear whether he's a person or plot device--Kvothe the Character, or Kvothe the Deus Ex Machina.
This is not to say that Wise Man's Fear has no redeeming qualities. Rothfuss's prose remains strong as ever: lyrical, subtle, intensely, lovingly crafted. Not all of the plot is wasted either; Kvothe's struggle to earn the respect of his peers, and for himself continues to resonate--when contextualized by the author. Rothfuss seems to forget that we like Kvothe not because he is super-human, but because he is altogether TOO human, and the scenes relating to that struggle--with Devi, Ambrose, the Maer, and up to a point, with Denna--continue to compel. It is in these scenes we come to see ourselves through Kvothe.
Sadly, there's not nearly enough of them, and they come so sporadically that pacing and continuity, the book's sense of purpose, suffers. Too often we're asked as readers to suspend belief, plausibility, and authenticity so the author can "tell his story the way he wants it told."
*** SPOILERS HERE ***
The most egregious offense to internal consistency is without question the Felurian sub-plot. Its sole purposes seem to be to heavy-handedly tell the reader, "Kvothe is now the most sexually experienced human being in the history of this, or any other world," and to introduce Deus Ex Machina Extraordinaire (there's that phrase again) the Cthaeh. The problems with this section are numerous, and for an author of Rothfuss' stature and formidable talents, it's frankly an embarrassment.
"Running off to the Faerie realm to discover the undiscoverable" is hardly a fresh fantasy trope, but since Rothfuss gives zero context before or after for what transpires, the entire instance feels superfluous, a waste of time. To make matters worse, the handling of the sexual content is eye-rollingly facile at best, and as others have commented, could be construed as outright offensive to women at worst. (As a side note, I just can't figure out Rothfuss's aversion to letting Kvothe remain nuanced. It wasn't enough for him to be a world-class mage, scholar, and musician, but now has to be world's greatest lover as well? Kvothe the Deus Ex, it seems, has to either be the "greatest ever," or nothing at all.)
"Surviving an encounter with Felurian" is supposed to be part of Kvothe's mystique, but as a reader it comes across as just straight-up bizarre (and not in a good way). But since Pat hinted at this whole Felurian thing on the cover sleeve of Book 1, um, well, guess we have to do it anyway, no matter how nonsensical and out of character it feels. From start to finish, it's a bad concept horribly executed, and to add insult to injury, it's not even really necessary. Both "Kvothe learns to get some" and the Cthaeh could have been thrown in just about anywhere--"Hey Bast, remember the time I banged Random Chick #77, and then blah blah blah and met the Cthaeh?"
On the whole I'm a little more forgiving of the Ademre sub-plot--though it also dragged on too long--because at least it arose from the actual in-character development of Kvothe's friendship with Tempi. But even then, the sexual content feels more indulgent than internally motivated by the character, and the effects of Kvothe's time spent with the Ademre are inconsistent with what we see later, during his interactions with the fake Edemah Ruh troop and back at the University.
*** END SPOILERS ***
In the end, for all of Pat's talent, mind, heart, and wit, as readers we end up questioning his intentions. There's no substantial character growth, plot arc, or sense of how or why any of this actually MATTERS--to Kvothe, or to us.
It's a supreme paradox, to see such well-crafted, delicious prose mixed so brutally with a meaningless plot and incoherent character structuring. As much as I love the author, and wanted to gloss over The Wise Man's Fear's significant issues, ultimately I realized that I was no longer invested in the fiction. I simply no longer BELIEVED what I was reading, and the world and Kvothe had ceased to be plausible or compelling.
The end result for this reader has been similar to George Lucas' ill-conceived Star Wars prequels: The Wise Man's Fear now taints, rather than enhances, the entire Rothfuss experience.
To be sure, if you're a Rothfuss fan, the enduring intrigue of the protagonist and the author's remarkable wit are enough to propel the book to an above-average read. But there's a part of me that thinks, no, KNOWS, that there's a better story in here than the one Pat put to paper. For good or ill, this is clearly the product Pat wanted us to have--and like movie director Baz Luhrmann at his worst, Rothfuss' excesses get in the way of the enjoyment, rather than add to it.
