Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Rothfussy

Patrick Rothfuss presents me with a conundrum.

Longtime Fabulist readers will remember that I took a somewhat dim opinion of his debut novel and took to the blog to voice said opinion. I stand behind my previous conviction – The Name of the Wind is sloppy, indulgent and highly overrated.

The more I hear about the actual man, the bearded legend, however, the more I start to admire him.

It's things like this, this and this, that make me feel as though I've personally insulted someone's who's a fast-growing and power stable in the nerd community. Every time I catch an appearance by the man, I want to follow his career all the more, despite the fact that, so far, the only work of his I've actually read I openly detested.

Is it possible to hate the book, but love the man? The reverse is certainly true of Orson Scott Card and Ender's Game – perhaps Wise Man's Fear will somehow surprise me and I can call his work a wash.

Man, am I replete with nerd world problems as of late.

2 comments:

  1. I regret to inform you that I found Wise Man's Fear much more self-indulgent than Name of the Wind, although I still enjoyed it despite its flaws. Rothfuss... I don't know. I admire many things about him, but in both work and life he seems to have this nerd-common trait of putting the feminine half of the species on some sort of worshipful pedestal. Not sexism exactly, he's certainly very positive about women, but mystical and exoticizing in a way that makes it hard to relate to them as fellow human beings.

    Other than that, I agree about admiration of him.

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    1. That's not something I've personally observed in his behavior, the pedastaling of women, but moons know it's common enough in the industry. Unfortunate, if true.

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