The Library, Osterley Park. Middlesex.

The Library, Osterley Park. Middlesex.

Book Review: The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

My Review in a Tweet:

I haven't been this enraptured, this mesmerized, this captivated by a book in years, and I don't say that lightly. It's great on every aspect you could think of, and then some other you couldn't even conjure. Can't believe I neglected it for so long. Highly recommended if you like fantasty of any kind.

My Full Review:

I had it sitting on my bookshelves for months before I decided to start reading this book. It felt menacing, despite it being the pocket edition. The sheer volume, the brickness of it felt like a challenge I hadn't the courage to face.

But once I did, I realized the real danger was being unable to let it go: I was prisoner of the author, being held by his marvelous ability to thread the story of Kvothe in seamless chapters, that natural the flow of the story felt, you couldn't even tell where he jumped from present to past and back.

The vivid images still dance in my mind hours after I finished reading the book. I rushed past the other reviews I had pending so I could write this one because I neded to talk about it. My copy of the book was a present from a friend so I texted her inmediately, but that didn't suffice, I had to write longer than all caps screaming to each other.

The rich world the author builds feels vast and mysterious, with a lot of hidden things lurking just beneaht the surface waiting for both the writer and the reader to discover them. I really hope (haven't looked it up yet) that there are books in the vein of the Silmarillion and Tom Bombadil where the myths and tales of this universe are further expanded.

The prose of Rothfuss is so elegant, filled with clever descriptions and unexpected analogies that not even the most fictitious elements of his story remain ungraspable to the reader.

The characters are so diverse and interesting: each and every one of them leaves a perdurable memory, no matter how brief and casual their impact and presence on the story is.

Kvothe is our main character, but he gets to be a narrator of his own story whenever we dive into his past, becoming a somewhat unreliable narrator. The whole book feels like that: we as readers submerging in the story narrated by Kvothe himself, gasping for air during the interlusions where the omniscient narrator takes the job back to move the story in the present time.

A wonderful work of worldbuilding, characterization and narration only hindered by the bittersweet taste of finishing the book eager for more. I hope to get my hands on the sequel soon, but I probably should let this world rest a little before diving in it again.

9/10.

My other 2023 Readings.

Well, I was planning on reading Dracula for Halloween/October too but it was a little more dense and longer, I had to work and then I had a trip for a week, so I didn't manage to finish it on time. Maybe I'll read it in-between other stuff this month, but I'm also preparing for final exams so I don't know haha

I didn't have time for pics either this week, I'll see what I come up with

I like my men clingy and very affectionate

Meanwhile, I offer you this (?

Well, I was planning on reading Dracula for Halloween/October too but it was a little more dense and longer, I had to work and then I had a trip for a week, so I didn't manage to finish it on time. Maybe I'll read it in-between other stuff this month, but I'm also preparing for final exams so I don't know haha

I didn't have time for pics either this week, I'll see what I come up with

Book Review: El Juguete Rabioso, Roberto Arlt

My Review in a Tweet:

It felt like reading The Catcher in the Rye but from Argentina, tinged with the economic and social issues of the early 20th century. Silvio Astier is a boy too old to be called a man and a man too young to be called a boy (no mistake made there).

My Full Review:

I read this book because of a sack of small reasons: it was short, I was one book shy from 30 in 2023, I wanted another argentinean author on my list and I had a physical copy of it.

El Juguete Rabioso (literally: The Rabid Toy) is the first novel of Roberto Arlt and, according to the copy I read, one of the founding books of the modern novel in our country. Commonly given as a mandatory reading in high school, I often saw this book here and there, postponing it indefinitively.

Now that I have finally read it, I think Arlt's place in our literary pantheon of writers is rightfully earned. The short novel is a quick glimpse into the life of Silvio Drodman Astier, a poor young boy from Buenos Aires, living in Floresta (at least from the second part on), fighting to stay out of the street and help his mother and sister.

The problem is, Silvio is too smart, too culturally cultivated for any of the jobs he can get as a poor boy from Floresta. He struggles with a feeling of entitlement to a better life in contrast with a sense of defeat while facing the circunstances he lives in.

The novel is carefully written, with a mix of refined language and old local slang that reflects on the dual nature of the character: a street rat at worst, a curious and smart young man at best.

His inner monologues are some of the best and most interesting parts, as his feelings of guilt, resentment and fear clash against each other.

The secondary characters function as common figures of Argentina's society from the early 20th century, when inmigration and poverty were high and people struggled to stay afloat. Their jobs, their cultural background, their relationships with one another highlight Silvio's own characteristics.

7/10.

My Other 2023 Readings.