Chapter One: Nasty Mushroom Spiders

I know nothing about Name of the Wind except that a lot of people love it. I haven't even read the back cover. I'm going in 100% blind, y'all!

First, I tried listening to the audiobook during my commute. During the scene where the bar full of men discussed the weird black spider, it dawned on me that I needed to read the physical book. I couldn't keep the characters straight or remember their names and it was only chapter one.

SO. INITIAL THOUGHTS FROM CHAPTER ONE

1) I like how the innkeeper went from mysterious guy without a name who is keeping secrets directly to “oh yeah he definitely knows what’s going on we’re not gonna try to trick the audience by keeping him a background character." Though Kote's and Bast's origins are still a mystery to me. Bad guys gone rogue? Good guys running away? Just scholars? It seems like Kote could be magically ageless based on his description.

2) Speaking of age, how old are these 4 friends in the bar? Jack and Shep and…. Graham and… I wanna say Carter? I can't decide if I want to see them as like my college friends in my mind's eye, or as my current 30-something coworkers.

3) A random mention of a farmer's sheep disappearing made me go “hmmmmmmm” like “this seems like a snuck-in clue to something for later." But I also felt that way about the crazy guy who’s trying to dig a well in his house. Let's be real, I don't know enough to actually speculate about anything. But I love me some speculating and trying to find clues, even if I don't know what I'm looking for.

4) Patrick Rothfuss uses the word "pull" a lot. Folks are always pulling drinks, pulling their eyes away from things, pulling chairs around. This isn't that interesting of a detail but it's a thought I had so I'm including it!

5) The nasty mushroomy-filled magic spider is legit freaky. At first—since I had no sense for the exact genre of the book—I wondered "is this spider actually some kind of future tech and these people haven't experienced it before?"

6) The description of "demons and angels and stories don't happen here, they happen elsewhere" feels so damned REAL. That's how we all feel, right?