“Her name was like an echo of an ache in her.” Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things
Some texts are memorable by a single, sublime sentence: “Call me Ishmael.” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” “Gregor Samsa awoke one day to find himself an enormous vermin.”
Rothfuss’ Auri story reads like a long prose poem, so lovely for the logophile in its wonderland of creative and created words (I looked them up) and specificity in naming things.
On to Book 2 of The Kingskiller Chronicle, a place I have enjoyed inhabiting almost as much as living in Middle Earth 40 years ago. Feels as good to wend my way through the words of this world as it was to learn to speak Elvish.
However, Rothfuss’ little side venture tale of one of the mysterious waif characters in the main plot appeals more to the poet in me than the entire lengthy two-volume story appeals to the fantasy-adventurer. And this from a Game of Thrones fan.
A short but delicately sensual read, I recommend the novella–an echo of an ache itself–to all the beautiful broken people the author addresses through it.
credit: sagacomic.blogspot.com
In the gaze of the other 