The Slow Regard of Silent Things

I'm somewhat ambivalent about The Name of the Wind, which I very much wanted to love but which I actually found something of a struggle. So I was a bit unsure about making The Slow Regard of Silent Things one of my travel books, but my chance paid off and I found it delightful and strange and engaging.

The story, as Rothfuss admits in his afterword, is basically a long vignette; a look into the life of Auri, a strange girl who lives under the university and allows herself to be befriended by Kvothe. Her life is ruled by strange patterns and rituals.

Day have particular purposes. Each place below the University has its own name and character waiting to be discovered. And every object has its unique, shifting place in Auri's underworld. Disasters can be sudden and unexpected. Precious soap can be eaten by an intruder. A lost bird can signal a disaster. A broken pipe can risk an intrusion by surfaces forces. Objects can become unhappy with the current place, requiring a new position to be found. And always, always, Auri is aware of the rhythm of her her only visitor and the complex preparations that need to be made to ensure that everything is perfect for him.

The book doesn't make a great deal of sense without Name of the Wind. Auri's life is completely solitary and her world is completely confined by the tunnels and rooms and passages, so some sort of external reference is required to put them into context. The story itself — although it's not really a story in the sense that it doesn't have a driving narrative — has a beautifully strange dream-like logic to it and Auri, for all the damage she has obviously suffered, is consistent, coherent with her own inner logic, and, occasionally, shows flashes of the alchemist she once was in the world above.