The Slow Regard of Silent Things

This does include spoilers.Like everyone who purchased this book, I'm eagerly awaiting the third installment of the Kingkiller Chronicles. Saw this and thought: "Hey- a book by Patrick Rothfuss, why not?!"I was definitely put off by his warning that it wasn't a good book, and I probably wouldn't like it, so, I shouldn't get excited, and maybe shouldn't even read it, just in case I am disappointed.But I'd already bought it at this point so I wasn't going to NOT read it. Besides, Jane Austen assumed everyone would hate her character Emma, but we all know THAT isn't quite how it panned out. Anyhow, I digress.I'm the sort of reader who enjoys a thought-through plot line. But I need more than that to actually get into a book. I need believable, consistent, relate-able characters. Rothfuss gave me that in his other books. He gave me complicated, intricate, REAL characters that I fell completely in love with.Auri, however, confused the *&#$ out of me. She was just.... inexplicable. She fit into the story, don't get me wrong, but I didn't understand her. I certainly didn't relate to her. It didn't really matter though, certainly didn't affect my view of Rothfuss' writing or Kvothe's story at all.I was hoping to get to see Kvothe in this short story, as I'm sure many of you are/were... which may explain Rothfuss' hesitation to even publish this book since Kvothe is never physically present.There is one character. One. And she's perfect.I felt like the luckiest fly on the wall to see a week of Auri's life in her Underthing. She knows she has 7 days until He comes to visit, and you get to see her preparing for it like it's Christmas or something. It's adorable. She's trying to find a gift but nothing is QUITE right.God, I loved this story.Not only was the writing exquisite, the verbiage was so uniquely suited that now I want to hear Auri describe the entire world, instead of just her own.I can't possibly imagine being bored reading this book. I can't possibly imagine putting it down. In it's own way, it's better to me than his other works.Auri is so complex and so different and so refreshing.She's broken. And she goes through her life fixing things. Little things. Little, insignificant things. Things that, in anyone else's observation, don't need fixed. It's frustrating at first.What is she doing? Why wouldn't she do *this* in that situation. Why would she almost drown to dredge up trash from the bottom of a freezing pool of water?Because that is the proper way of things.Everything has a name. Objects, spaces, rooms, chemical reactions. If something doesn't have a name she feels sorry for it. Because He gave her a name, and with that name she isn't as lost or as lonely. The name He gave her is her constant positive throughout her bizarre ups and downs.Every day has a type. A doing day or a making day... and Auri knows because she can feel what sort of day it is.The moon has it's own personality. Sometimes she needs to avoid stepping in the moonlight because it's in a bad mood.As she describes it, you can see the moon she means, even though she uses words that don't exist.She's so clever and resourceful! But you know she doesn't even have to be resourceful. She just is... because that's the proper way of things. Even when she wants something to be different, she won't break out of her own definition of what is proper. Even though there is no one there to see her, no one there to hold her responsible, no one there to chastise her. She's one of the strongest characters you'll ever meet. She doesn't think well of herself. She forgets to eat. She berates herself for being selfish. But she thinks even less of the people who don't understand the proper way of things.Throughout the story you see her warring with herself. In our world she would be termed bipolar, and autistic, and maybe even schizophrenic. But she's created a life that works for her. And she focuses all her energy on what she perceives to be the happiness of objects in her care. She ignores her own needs. She won't change or bend the proper way of things. The only time she'll step out of her self-imposed rules is for Him.Even when I'm screaming for her to take some food from a full larder she finds herself in, I'm secretly hoping she won't. That she'll stick to her own rules, and be rewarded for doing things the proper way.She does everything in her power to keep her Underthing to herself, but then creates a safe space down there for Him too. She knows the name of Alchemy. Of Chemistry. But she won't use it. She won't bend the world. You just get this feeling that she's broken from a loss. Broken from doing something that now, through caring for the world in the proper way, she is doing penance for. But when she knows she needs the third and final gift for Him, it's okay for her to use her power to bend the world a bit. She's connected to Him. Like she's connected to everything. She's amazing.I could seriously write a book about how much I like this book.I'm going to re-read the others just to re-visit her character from a whole new perspective.I can see how some people won't like this book. It requires a lot of interpretation. It requires a lot of patience. It requires a desire to UNDERSTAND a complex character. If you don't care to learn about Auri, don't read it.If you're fascinated by the world Rothfuss has created and want to see a whole other aspect of it through the eyes of an incredible, albeit very strange, little girl, it's definitely for you!

Strangely beautiful and bravely unorthodox.I hesitate to rate/review something so very experimental and artistic, but Rothfuss' work deserves discussion. The author does give fair warning in the Forward, proclaiming this is an odd book—one you may not want to read. (That's not just some reverse-psychology gimmick. The man is being honest!) If you haven't at least read The Name Of The Wind and share this reader's interest in the enigmatic character of Auri, you really shouldn't read this story. Not only will it not make sense, but you won't have the tender patience required to appreciate it.How is the book unusual? Lets start with the dialogue. That is to say...there is no dialogue. Readers begin, dwell, and end exclusively in the eccentric (and sometimes erratic) thoughts of a sprightly young woman who lives in almost complete self-imposed isolation. It could be said that this story has only one character, but that's not entirely true. Auri's disheveled state of mind is such that she spends her days touching, rearranging, and appeasing the collection of inanimate objects she seems to feel intensely responsible for.The best way to look at this story is in terms of a character study. The object of this study is a brilliant-yet-broken waif who teeters between near-clairvoyant insight and what this reader can only suppose to be tragic mental instability. From the very first page, you may note it takes some effort to adjust to Auri's mind. (Hint: Trying to make sense of her thought processes will only befuddle you. Just go with it.) Her thoughts are often lyrical, but also child-like and disjointed—following a logic all her own. Her behavioral patterns come off as a sort of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder meets frenetic Feng shui. And her gentle, well-intentioned nature is nothing short of endearing. This is a lovingly written character, unlike any this reader has encountered before. From very early on, I had the sense that she's special to Rothfuss. (The author's note at the back certainly backs this up.)I can't rightly explain it, but I have this nagging impression that Auri is sort of...the daughter of his heart. And with that in mind, I have to see it as an honor that Rothfuss was willing to share her with his readers.Side Note:Adding a vaguely Neil Gaiman sort of feel, this book includes an assortment of black and white illustrations. This reader found them to be a lovely bonus to the storytelling.My one dissatisfaction would be that we never come much closer to understanding WHY Auri is so broken. The nearest we come to a flashback into her past is the fleeting mention of Alchemy and Chemistry principles she was once taught.In The Name Of The Wind it became clear that Auri is not only reclusive in the extreme, but she has an aversion to sharing personal information. That's all fine and well. But to me, it seems dissonant to think a person—even a mentally ill person—could completely avoid sharing personal information with themselves. Granted you have things like Multiple-Personality Disorder that fragment the consciousness in the name of self-protection, etc...I'm certainly not arguing that this lack of backstory can and must be blamed on the unsoundness of Auri's mind. But it becomes clear that she isn't completely detached from whatever shattered her in the first place. (i.e. Auri at one point spends and entire day weeping, but we as the readers are never privileged with any explanation as to why.)Something awful must have happened to her—that much is clear. But this book was about showing Auri in her natural element, not explaining how she ended up there.

I love all the published books by Patrick Rothfuss and consider myself to be one of his people. I loved this story about Auri and her secrets and mysteries so much. It’s different and it’s perfect. Beautifully written and coruscant, it’s a story one reads because they love words, and they love the worlds created by Rothfuss. How anyone could not love Auri and her curious, unique way of looking at the world is beyond me. But I am one of the slightly broken people who spends too much time alone, and I think this story, The Slow Regard of Silent Things, is incandescent. Thank you Patrick Rothfuss for seeing people like Auri, and people like me.

genial compra!!! Un libro sumamente genial!!!

Livro comprado para dar de presente, o aniversariante adorou.

I read this with my daughter over the course of several evenings. There are some references in there that they won’t get because (I hope) they haven’t yet read Rothfuss’ larger works, the world of which this is based in, but the story is lovely and calm and odd and interesting in all sorts of ways that a child’s mind seems to love.I adore Pat’s writing anyway, but to be able to share this small part of the story with my little one was really lovely. To be honest, I probably enjoyed it more than she did!

Este es uno de mis libros favoritos. La historia contempla varios días en la vida de Auri, uno de los personajes más peculiares de La crónica del asesino de reyes. Narra tanto su vida cotidiana como sus peripecias en lo que ella llama La Subrealidad mientras eso espera la visita de un amigo muy querido.La edición que compré es preciosa en tapa dura e ilustrada, en inglés, y además trae la firma del autor. Es una delicia disfrutar de la prosa de Patrick Rothfuss en version original.