{"id":455,"date":"2015-02-27T09:15:07","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T08:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/?p=455"},"modified":"2025-09-07T00:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T22:03:10","slug":"die-musik-der-stille-patrick-rothfuss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/2015\/02\/the-slow-regard-of-silent-things-patrick-rothfuss\/","title":{"rendered":"The Slow Regard of Silent Things \u2022 Patrick Rothfuss"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

I was delighted to see that a new book by Patrick Rothfuss is finally appearing. Like so many others, I first thought we were at last continuing with Kvothe and The Kingkiller Chronicle<\/em>. First disappointment: the book is not a continuation. Second disappointment: it isn\u2019t really a book at all in terms of length, more of a slim booklet. For the price of \u20ac17.95, the sheer amount offered here is not much. Anna Karenina<\/em> at only \u20ac16.90 for nearly 1,300 pages of the finest literature is the other extreme, but it does show how absurdly little one gets with The Slow Regard of Silent Things<\/em>. Granted, the comparison limps a bit, but I can\u2019t make sense of the pricing here.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The book itself is, as we\u2019ve come to expect from Klett-Cotta, very handsome and also features several high-quality illustrations by Marc Simonetti<\/a>. In that regard, hardly anyone can compete with Klett. I own numerous books (mostly hardcovers) from Klett-Cotta<\/a>, my absolute favorite publisher when it comes to fantasy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019ve read all the books in The Kingkiller Chronicle<\/em> and found them very entertaining. However, it\u2019s been quite a while since I read them, and I\u2019ve already forgotten a lot. I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s because of that, or because I have a quirk that simply doesn\u2019t match the quirk this book has. I think it\u2019s true: either you think the book is brilliant, or you consider it complete rubbish. I fall into the latter camp.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Patrick Rothfuss is someone who, in terms of narrative elements, pulls every lever a storyteller can. He creates a lack and baits the reader with it throughout, flatters a reader\u2019s narcissism, grants the reader knowledge advantages, and uses all the other small, dirty tricks to make a story exciting. That came through so clearly in his earlier books that it made them even more fun to read. Sometimes you love being seduced, misled, and dragged through all the valleys and peaks of human existence.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

From that standpoint, I can understand why Rothfuss wanted to do something completely different here. So he wrote this short story in which he equips a side character from his books with every psychological compulsion a normal person can imagine\u2014from obsessive need for control to compulsive washing to panic attacks. In doing so, he forgoes all the tools he otherwise uses to the fullest in his other books and writes a story that consists almost exclusively of actions, with the person defined only by her distorted, emotionally tinted view of a sparse environment. The central driving force of the story is an utterly exaggerated anthropomorphism.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This purist style may please some as a brief interlude. When it comes to literature, however, I\u2019m anything but a minimalist. I like things grand; I want people who feel so real that they don\u2019t present me with their simplistic otherness but, with all the facets of the multilayered personality every human being possesses, show me something remarkable. It doesn\u2019t always have to be thrilling, but it has to feel real.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The whole framework annoyed me. The story doesn\u2019t really have the 173 pages claimed. Numerous blank and half-blank pages at chapter breaks, plus the illustrations, shrink the text down to a very short story. And that sketch portrays a young woman who may captivate through her attractiveness and her distinctive way of seeing the world, but beyond that the story has nothing to offer. Some may find the naivety, simplicity, and purity fascinating. The whole concept couldn\u2019t convince me in the slightest. And the fact that such a short book has a 9 (!!!) page afterword in which the author apologizes that his story turned out so poorly and that he hadn\u2019t really wanted to publish it\u2014but everyone thought it was so great\u2014leaves a very sour aftertaste on yet another level.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019m deeply disappointed in Klett-Cotta. I know the concept of releasing such a short booklet from Tad Williams\u2019s The Burning Man<\/em>. There, it worked quite well; the brief story feels like a condensed overture. The central melody, the feeling, the boundless depth of Osten Ard are palpably suggested again; it touched me and reminded me of the magnificent saga. But even that effect didn\u2019t materialize for me with The Slow Regard of Silent Things<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Conclusion: <\/strong>For me, this book is the flop of the year. I\u2019m bitterly disappointed and will look very carefully in the future whenever a new Patrick Rothfuss title appears. Given the story, the single young woman who appears in it, and the completely stripped-down content, I can only advise against reading it\u2014fully and emphatically.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Book information: <\/strong>The Slow Regard of Silent Things<\/em> \u2022 Patrick Rothfuss \u2022 Klett-Cotta Hobbit Presse \u2022 173 pages \u2022 ISBN 9783608960204<\/p>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was delighted to see that a new book by Patrick Rothfuss is finally appearing. Like so many others, I first thought we were at last continuing with Kvothe and The Kingkiller Chronicle. First disappointment: the book is not a continuation. Second disappointment: it isn\u2019t really a book at all in terms of length, more … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Slow Regard of Silent Things \u2022 Patrick Rothfuss”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Die Musik der Stille \u2022 Patrick Rothfuss - lesestunden","description":"Mit gro\u00dfer Freude habe ich gesehen, dass endlich wieder ein neues Buch von Patrick Rothfuss erscheint. Wie so viele habe ich erst gedacht, es geht endlich weite"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,20],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fantasy","category-reviews","tag-patrick-rothfuss"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/rothfuss_musik_der_stille.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}