176 pages
English language
Published Oct. 28, 2014 by DAW.
Deep below the University, there is a dark place. Few people know of it: a broken web of ancient passageways and abandoned rooms. A young woman lives there, tucked among the sprawling tunnels of the Underthing, snug in the heart of this forgotten place.
Her name is Auri, and she is full of mysteries.
The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a brief, bittersweet glimpse of Auri’s life, a small adventure all her own. At once joyous and haunting, this story offers a chance to see the world through Auri’s eyes. And it gives the reader a chance to learn things that only Auri knows...
In this book, Patrick Rothfuss brings us into the world of one of The Kingkiller Chronicle’s most enigmatic characters. Full of secrets and mysteries, The Slow Regard of Silent Things is the story of a broken girl trying to live in a broken world.
I will preface this by saying that you should probably read 'The Name of the Wind' first. While Auri is somewhat of a minor, elusive character in The Kingkiller Chronicle, she's my absolute favourite. This book is entirely focused on her-- I loved delving into her world and understanding how she views and interacts with it. My go-to comfort read.
It was quite a few years ago when I read this. (updating my book list) My recollection was I liked this quite a bit. But since it's a small bit in between the main series it might not be for you.
Below is a bit from the author on this book:
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD
You might not want to buy this book.
I know, that’s not the sort of thing an author is supposed to say. The marketing people aren’t going to like this. My editor is going to have a fit. But I’d rather be honest with you right out of the gate.
First, if you haven’t read my other books, you don’t want to start here.
My first two books are The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear. If you’re curious to try my writing, start there. They’re the best introduction to my world. This book …
It was quite a few years ago when I read this. (updating my book list) My recollection was I liked this quite a bit. But since it's a small bit in between the main series it might not be for you.
Below is a bit from the author on this book:
AUTHOR’S FOREWORD
You might not want to buy this book.
I know, that’s not the sort of thing an author is supposed to say. The marketing people aren’t going to like this. My editor is going to have a fit. But I’d rather be honest with you right out of the gate.
First, if you haven’t read my other books, you don’t want to start here.
My first two books are The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear. If you’re curious to try my writing, start there. They’re the best introduction to my world. This book deals with Auri, one of the characters from that series. Without the context of those books, you’re probably going to feel pretty lost.
Second, even if you have read my other books, I think it’s only fair to warn you that this is a bit of a strange story. I don’t go in for spoilers, but suffice to say that this one is ... different. It doesn’t do a lot of the things a classic story is supposed to do. And if you’re looking for a continuation of Kvothe’s storyline, you’re not going to find it here.
On the other hand, if you’d like to learn more about Auri, this story has a lot to offer. If you love words and mysteries and secrets. If you’re curious about the Underthing and alchemy. If you want to know more about the hidden turnings of my world...
Well, then this book might be for you.
This is absolutely not for everyone, but it does make that pretty clear up front. The pacing is very slow and it focuses a lot on Auri's internal world and thoughts in relation to the desires of the world around her. I liked in in large part because Auri's mind works in a similar way to mine, other people could very easily not like it at all for the same reasons I love it.
this story works, but only if you have read the first books in the Kingkiller Chronicle
That was not enjoyable.
The Underthing is mysterious and all things are personified by quirky Auri. Objects are picked up, given apologies or kissed and then put back down.
I appreciate Rothfuss taking a chance on telling a story of Auri in her own voice but this wasn't well met. Auri will be a neat little sideshow for me in the Kingkiller stories but feel she may be better suited for the Haven/Rookery.
Auri! I am so glad Patrick gave her a moment in the moonlight. During the other books, I would tell my wife how much I enjoyed this girl/woman who would take the inanimate and give them something more. Not quite a life, but a place in the world. It delighted me to read this novelette.
Auri is a confused but very bright young woman. She has a past, and it eats at the edge of her but for the most part, she keeps it at bay, and we stay in the dark over what it was. Which is fine, that's not for this tale. Here we get to romp around the understructures of the academy and explore her world and quirkiness and the very strange and derelict structures that exist.
I liked this book. Patrick says it is not for everyone and I can nod my head to that. It's …
Auri! I am so glad Patrick gave her a moment in the moonlight. During the other books, I would tell my wife how much I enjoyed this girl/woman who would take the inanimate and give them something more. Not quite a life, but a place in the world. It delighted me to read this novelette.
Auri is a confused but very bright young woman. She has a past, and it eats at the edge of her but for the most part, she keeps it at bay, and we stay in the dark over what it was. Which is fine, that's not for this tale. Here we get to romp around the understructures of the academy and explore her world and quirkiness and the very strange and derelict structures that exist.
I liked this book. Patrick says it is not for everyone and I can nod my head to that. It's a life study of someone who is not quite right, or maybe they are right, and we are all wrong. Regardless, Auri is a treasure and the way she finds what goes where and the study of those objects makes me continuously smile. I take a lesson from her and want to give gifts that have a bit of magic inside them. I'm not just giving you a pen but a story trapped in a vessel. Not just flowers but a spring smile on the lips of a child.
I hope Auri has a good life and we see more of her. She has some rough edges, and a good part of me wants to see her grow and have a life well lived.
I thought this was a brilliant, beautiful little book, but I can see how many readers would be infuriated with it. It is nothing like Rothfuss’ other more traditionally-plotted fantasy books, and there’s an introduction where he says in so many words that it’s a vignette, nearly plotless, with only one very strange character, and little conflict. In many ways it’s almost experimental fiction. If you like that kind of thing this is the kind of thing you will like. I found it completely captivating.
To be clear it can’t really be read as a stand-alone book — it relies on plot and characterization from the Kingkiller series. But by the same token if you read and loved that series (so far) you also don’t have to read this book at all; there’s nothing here that changes Kvothe’s story in the main series.
I really enjoyed this, in spite of the "you probably won't like this book" message in the introduction.
This book is a combination between a prose poem and a character study. Don't expect any action, but the writing is beautiful, and Auri is an interesting and different person.
(I've read "The Name of the Wind", but not yet "The Wise Man's Fear".)
This was a very odd book, that even the author says shouldn't work. it's almost a fairy tale, but not quite. in many ways it reminded me of Neil Gaiman or Charles de Lint.
Honestly at this point I am so impressed with Patrick Rothfuss that I would read his rendition of a phone book.
If you haven't already been warned, this is about a side character, and it might be difficult to understand not having read the first two books of the Kingkiller Chronicle. To which the author actually warns you in the preface. That being said, I LOVE IT, and I think a lot of joy could be had from reading it without the previous two.
Read this. Do it.
I read this about a month ago, but it is sticking with me.
Patrick Rothfuss has spun a tale that, at first glance, feels like cotton candy. It is light, sweet and beautiful. As time goes on, it feels so much more real, with true depth. Auri feels like a fully fleshed person, not someone in the pages of a book. It's the best character study I have ever read.
I identified with Auri more and more throughout the story. I don't see myself as broken but simply as seeing the world in a unique way. It feels wonderful to be able to connect with a character in this way and to feel a sort of kinship with them. Even a month later, I find myself thinking or saying things and then laughing, because it was something Auri would understand.
As said in the book, everyone seems to have the …
I read this about a month ago, but it is sticking with me.
Patrick Rothfuss has spun a tale that, at first glance, feels like cotton candy. It is light, sweet and beautiful. As time goes on, it feels so much more real, with true depth. Auri feels like a fully fleshed person, not someone in the pages of a book. It's the best character study I have ever read.
I identified with Auri more and more throughout the story. I don't see myself as broken but simply as seeing the world in a unique way. It feels wonderful to be able to connect with a character in this way and to feel a sort of kinship with them. Even a month later, I find myself thinking or saying things and then laughing, because it was something Auri would understand.
As said in the book, everyone seems to have the opinion that while they loved it, they aren't sure someone else would. I found myself saying the same exact thing. I thought it was excellent.
Example: I had boiled potatoes and them left them in their hot water as I was busy with the rest of dinner. I commented that potatoes were friendly, easy going things that were happy to be left to their own devices. They tasted fine.
I thought this was an interesting read and overall a good novella that takes the reader inside the mind and daily activities of Auri who features as an intriguing and mysterious character in Rothfuss's book series. I do agree it's not for everyone and there is a pretty steep price on the book given that one can probably read it in about an hour or two.
Patrick Rothfuss is a fresh wind blowing into the Fantasy genre anyhow, where tropes have all but replaced original writing for decades now. This he doesn't do by "reinventing" the genre, but by going back to the roots: examining how Fantasy relates to myth-making in in culture, and then telling a myth-in-the-making in his Kingkiller Chronicle.
The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a "spin-off" from the Kingkiller Chronicle, and a departure from both the protagonist, Kvothe, and from this myth-making exercise. In it, the focus is on Auri, a strange girl that Kvothe finds living underneath the university, and it is a look at her world through her eyes.
The result is a heartbreakingly empathetic look at a mentally ill person's world. Though, after reading this book, it'll probably feel uncomfortable thinking of Auri as "mentally ill".
Make no mistake, in our world, Auri would be diagnosed with... I …
Patrick Rothfuss is a fresh wind blowing into the Fantasy genre anyhow, where tropes have all but replaced original writing for decades now. This he doesn't do by "reinventing" the genre, but by going back to the roots: examining how Fantasy relates to myth-making in in culture, and then telling a myth-in-the-making in his Kingkiller Chronicle.
The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a "spin-off" from the Kingkiller Chronicle, and a departure from both the protagonist, Kvothe, and from this myth-making exercise. In it, the focus is on Auri, a strange girl that Kvothe finds living underneath the university, and it is a look at her world through her eyes.
The result is a heartbreakingly empathetic look at a mentally ill person's world. Though, after reading this book, it'll probably feel uncomfortable thinking of Auri as "mentally ill".
Make no mistake, in our world, Auri would be diagnosed with... I don't know what. I'm no psychiatrist. But I can recognize obsessive behaviour, and I can recognize that Auri doesn't function in the normal world, which is one of those indicators psychiatrists will use to classify someone as ill. It's also the reason she lives underneath the university: there, she can interpret the world as she wants, and doesn't have to conform to other people's expectations. In our modern world, Auri would be found in a psychiatric ward. In a Fantasy world, her only choice is isolation.
But Auri doesn't suffer from this, precisely. She is lonely, and appreciates Kvothe - perhaps even loves him. Still, her world, explained in her own terms, makes sense and allows her to survive because she understands it, and it's the "normal" world that is scary and confusing.
The entirety of this novella describes her navigating her world in preparation for meeting with Kvothe, an event described in the Kingkiller Chronicles. She forages for gifts, finds food, explores parts yet undiscovered. She experiences the underbelly of the university as a living, breathing entity that she sometimes has to avoid, sometimes placate, but which is largely either indifferent or benevolent towards her.
That's all you're going to read. There is not much plot to speak of, not much character development - unless you view her world as a character, and your exploration of it through Auri's eyes as development. As you learn about how she views the world, you begin to understand this strange girl, and all her weirdness becomes... well, still weird, but at the same time utterly relatable. You were a little bit like that as a child. You might not learn in this book why an adult girl would still be like that, but you can imagine that something breaking happened to her.
I'm not sure whether Rothfuss meant to portray a mentally ill/in-need-of-support person here, or just wanted to explore the character as she existed in his head. But the result is a profoundly personal and empathetic exploration of a character that manages to stand in for that really odd person you might notice if you pay attention, like the lady who lives out of the plastic bags in her shopping trolley at Munich airport.
And because of that, this book transcends any trappings of genre or relation to the Kingkiller Chronicle it might have, and is "just" one of the best things I've read in my life.
I very much enjoyed this story. I listened to the author read it and his love for Arry shows in his voice. I listened to some passages multiple times just to hear the words. This story was proper.
Beautiful.
