![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: The Slow Regard of Silent Things
Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: High fantasy (ties into The Wise Man’s Fear
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: A week with Auri.
Thoughts: Not everyone is going to like this book.
Rothfuss is actually very upfront about this, in the foreword as well as the afterword. A lot of people will probably hate this book, and be entirely justified in hating it. Almost nothing happens. There’s essentially no dialogue and extremely little plot. It makes no sense whatsoever without having read the series it branches off from, and there is no need to read it to understand the series.
I, however, loved it. I suspect this is very much a love it or hate it kind of thing.
The novella is entirely inside Auri’s head, with her sweet but twisted worldview. Auri is immensely powerful, but extremely broken, and very much aware of both of these things. She lives according to a stringent set of rules designed to bring what she perceives as balance and harmony to a world in which inanimate objects have feelings and desires as legitimate as any person’s, and acting on her own desires is deeply selfish and forbidden. The story, such as it is, follows her as she goes through a normal week, trying to find a suitable present for Kvothe. She explores the Underthing, discovering new rooms and trying to figure out what their names are and what would make the various objects inside them happy. She spends eight pages making soap.
I found it charming, poignant and altogether delightful in a gently sad way. Auri’s off-kilter perception of the world is fascinating. The writing is lyrical and evocative. I’m also the kind of person who much preferred the parts of Robinson Crusoe and The Boxcar Children in which they explore their environment and try to solve conventional problems when under unconventional restraints to the parts in which actual plot happens, so I was on board with the soap-making adventure. Some books are enthralling but feature characters you would never want to meet. This is more like spending the day with a slightly nuts but still beloved friend, not doing much of anything, but simply enjoying their presence.
Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: High fantasy (ties into The Wise Man’s Fear
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: A week with Auri.
Thoughts: Not everyone is going to like this book.
Rothfuss is actually very upfront about this, in the foreword as well as the afterword. A lot of people will probably hate this book, and be entirely justified in hating it. Almost nothing happens. There’s essentially no dialogue and extremely little plot. It makes no sense whatsoever without having read the series it branches off from, and there is no need to read it to understand the series.
I, however, loved it. I suspect this is very much a love it or hate it kind of thing.
The novella is entirely inside Auri’s head, with her sweet but twisted worldview. Auri is immensely powerful, but extremely broken, and very much aware of both of these things. She lives according to a stringent set of rules designed to bring what she perceives as balance and harmony to a world in which inanimate objects have feelings and desires as legitimate as any person’s, and acting on her own desires is deeply selfish and forbidden. The story, such as it is, follows her as she goes through a normal week, trying to find a suitable present for Kvothe. She explores the Underthing, discovering new rooms and trying to figure out what their names are and what would make the various objects inside them happy. She spends eight pages making soap.
I found it charming, poignant and altogether delightful in a gently sad way. Auri’s off-kilter perception of the world is fascinating. The writing is lyrical and evocative. I’m also the kind of person who much preferred the parts of Robinson Crusoe and The Boxcar Children in which they explore their environment and try to solve conventional problems when under unconventional restraints to the parts in which actual plot happens, so I was on board with the soap-making adventure. Some books are enthralling but feature characters you would never want to meet. This is more like spending the day with a slightly nuts but still beloved friend, not doing much of anything, but simply enjoying their presence.
