The name of the wind is not “Mariah”, just in case anyone still remembers that very old song.  A friend quipped that to me when I said I was listening to Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind a couple of weeks ago. 

Yes, I know, I should have read it when it first came out.  But that was 4 years ago!  See, I was patient and now I don’t have to wait for the sequel, since it’s finally out.  But dammit, he committed trilogy!  Who knows how long it will be until book 3?

And I’m not patient.  I’ve been listening to Name of the Wind.  It’s marvelous.  This is a great fantasy.  It’s storytelling.  Kvothe is telling his story to the Chronicler, and he emphasizes that he didn’t do things the way that he would have if he’d known it was a story, because he was living it.  It’s beau-ti-ful.

There is a symmetry in my listening to the audio and the fact that in the story, Kvothe is actually telling the story.  It’s as though he is telling me the story.  But, but, but, it is taking him forever and ever to get on with it.

Listening to a book, especially a 667 page book (yes, I have a print copy too, it’s an old Advance Reading Copy, I kept it) takes a long time.  28 hours to be precise.  I’m halfway done.  I could finish the book, if I read it, tomorrow sometime, or maybe Thursday at the latest.  And I could thumb to the end, if I wanted to see how stuff turned out.  Then I could start book 2 (Wise Man’s Fear) a LOT sooner.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.