I think that in some ways Pat is his own victim when it comes to the "poorly paced" arguments. It may be part of what he's trying to do, but he (or Kvothe) isn't managing readers expectations well when it comes to the direction of the story. As readers we do speculate as to what we may come to down the road. In the case of these books, Kvothe dropped a number of plot points on us early on that he implies he'll be hitting upon (the "I have stolen princesses.....make the minstrels weep" paragraph is part of it, but also the question of kingkiller). All that's very vague, but it gives the impression you'll hit some of these things, that they're important things in his life. But Pat subverts that. They're often misunderstandings or misrepresentations of what actually happened. As such, these aren't the pillar moments of the book. They're not his life. They're the rare occurrences between his day-to-day living. And that may very well be intentional. But to someone looking for a certain narrative flow, this limping from one misunderstood legend to the next can feel disjointed and frustrating. In that case, whether someone likes it will depend on whether they like what he's doing with the book more than they actually like the book.
Then there's another camp that has extrapolated from the facts given that since Kvothe's family was killed by the Chandrian and he's looking for all this information on them that the end will be a big showdown of some sort with them. I don't think it will come to that. But I do see that Chandrian/Amyr/faerie split/moon/etc. as being a unifying idea. The parts of the story Kvothe decides to tell us about invariably come back to something to do with them. So he does feel those are the important bits. How it will turn out, I have no idea. But that's where his focus is. People have an issue with the Felurian section of the book as pointless, but I think the reason Kvothe tells us all of that is to get us to the moon story and the prophecy in the woods. Likewise with the Adem...so we can get that little kernel of information at the end.
And even as one of the people who have had less-than-fully-positive reactions to the "sidequests" I liked the plot throughout the book. I find it interesting in its entirety. But I did have a problem with the asides. And the problem I had was that they felt too detached from Kvothe's life. To me Kvothe's characterization dropped way down when he got to these sections. It seemed like all the things he had previously used to define himself disappeared, sometimes with mention (didn't have time for music) but other times just gone. No thoughts of his friends or nights at the Eolian or even "Hey, this situation with the Maer reminds me of what we talked about in such-and-such a class" or "There was a song about this." In these sections it felt like Kvothe became a cipher, a vehicle to get us to the next dribble of information about Amyr or Chandrian or Lockless...
And for me, that's where the illusion was shattered a bit. It's not that these sections existed. It's that we (or I, at least) saw the man behind the curtain. That's when Kvothe disappeared and Pat showed up. I guess, in short, I feel Pat didn't succeed in keeping Kvothe well-drawn as a character through those sections.
I think some people are reading this book for what they hope will come. I think others are reading it for the history that's slowly being revealed. I think others find the subversions interesting. Others like the idea of a fantasy autobiography.
But I do agree with thirstyVan on something important: It's a novel. Whatever other things Pat's trying to do with it, it should be a good read. And I find that, for the most part, it is. But I don't think it's perfect...or even the best thing I've read this year.
One more thought on the autobiography and what-to-tell thing: Real autobiographies don't tell every little thing that happens to a person. They just can't. There's not enough paper to go into that much detail. But the things they choose are things that are important to them...the things they feel shaped them. But they do usually tell why they felt something shaped them. Taking the Felurian section that dsw13 mentioned in his edit above (go check it out if you haven't), a problem I can see readers having with it is not only the one I mentioned where Kvothe seems to lose himself a little but also the fact that there's no effort made to connect it forward, to take things from that into later sections. We don't see how that shaped him (not to say that we won't later). But as it stands, without feeling that going-forward I am left feeling like that section was there to essentially "haveSex=True" and "give out information points 145-147."
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Originally Posted by Erfael
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