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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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I wasn't planning on reading this, but Emmett said that it was good, so I went for it, and I'm very glad I did.
Rating: 5/5
Started: 2 April 2022
Finished: 2 April 2022
Summary:
The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a lyrical novella following the mysterious Auri in a week of her life in the Underthing, the vast labyrinth of rooms and tunnels under the university, as she tends to her her world and prepares for a visit from Kvothe.
Thoughts:
This novella was stunning. There was no plot and no dialogue, yet somehow it was incredibly engaging. Auri is so alive and so relatable. For how distant she feels from society--almost fae--she is very human, and her emotions are very understandable. She is definitely coded as neurodivergent, probably on the OCD spectrum, since she believes that she is protecting the world by making sure all the objects in the Underthing are happy and in their right place, which is always cool to see in fantasy.
I can't really figure out what about the story was so interesting, but I was absolutely enthralled while reading it. Every object had such character, and Auri had so much emotion. The settings were super cool, and definitely reminded me of the labyrinth described in Rick Riordan's The Battle of the Labyrinth, because of the non-matching rooms tied together in strange ways. I loved it. Auri's delicate care over everything was super cool, and made me really jealous of the life she lives: in her own world, with her own set of rules for how everything should go.
There was also a bunch of hints and foreshadowing in the story that got me super excited. For one, it cemented the idea that Auri was a student at the university. Even that is super exciting, because it was shown that Auri is a talented alchemist, and there was lots of hinting that she would, at some point, be invaluable to Kvothe. When that comes up in TDOS I'm going to get so excited. The fact that Auri plans to gift Kvothe a bed in her precious room is also amazing, and when that comes up in TDOS I'm going to freak out as well. I love their relationship, and I can't wait to see where it goes.
My final idea is about Auri's age. I could be completely wrong, but I think Auri might be Fae. She talks about things that happen "so many years ago," for one. She's supposed to look no older than 20, so unless she was admitted to the university at a super young age, she must age in some peculiar way. The way that she feels a little less bogged down by reality also suggests that she might be fae. There's a long history of people believing that neurodivergent children were fae or changelings (Pearl in The Scarlet Letter, for one), and Rothfuss might have played into this idea on purpose.
I suppose I will have to wait for TDOS to find out if my predictions are right, but in the mean time, I am going to read Rothfuss's short story on Bast, and I'm going to see if I can buy this novella somewhere. It's too pretty to not be able to read on a whim.
Words
Incarnadine (n) a bright crimson on pinkish-red color
Garrulous (adj) excessively talkative, especially on trivial matters
Triune (adj) consisting of three in one
Coruscant (adj) glittering; sparkling
Askant (adv) with an attitude or look of suspicion or disapproval
Effulgent (adj) shining brightly; radiant
Scintillant (adj) sparkling
Quern (n) a hand mill for grinding grain. typically consisting of two circular stones, the upper of which is rotated or rubbed to and fro on the lower one
Frangible (adj) fragile; bitter
Tenebrific (adj) causing gloom or darkness
Athwart (adv) across from side to side; so as to be perverse or contradictory
Apetalous (adj, of a flower) having no petals
Caustic (adj) able to burn or corrode organic tissue by chemical action; sarcastic in a scathing and bitter way
Inviolate (adj) free or safe from injury or violation
Palimpsest (n) a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain