The book nobody wanted, years after not wanting it
I bought The Slow Regard of Silent Things back when everyone bought it, which is to say, the week it came out somewhere in 2014, along with every other person waiting for the obvious next thing after The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear. The Slow Regard of Silent Things was never going to be that thing, Rothfuss said so up front, before I handed over my money. I heard him say it, I bought it anyway, started reading for a few pages, and then set it down. That's where it's been for the last few years, silently watching me, maybe a bit hurt. Last week, I took it out again, for no particular reason.
So. Auri. She's that character from the other two books, a friend of Kvothe's, but never quite central to the story. So in this small book, she gets her own story. She lives in the Underthing, a web of ancient tunnels and abandoned rooms deep below the University, forgotten by almost everybody.
Auri has left her old name and her old life behind, somewhere, anywhere, and has built a much smaller life underground. And then, this book itself does exactly that, it is exactly that small strange thing, instead of being the actual thing that people care about, living quietly in a tunnel under everyone's feet (or standing rejected on my bookshelf for years). The book does what she does. I think this wasn't as funny back when the book was released, when we all still had hopes for the real thing, but now, I think it is fitting.
I didn't like the book at the time, I wanted the other one. That was my problem, not the book's. It is brief, a small adventure of its own, a chance to see this world again, through another person's eyes. It's a story about a broken girl living in a broken world. I'm not yet finished, not even close. But there's a bit of melancholy for the book and the world that could have been, but likely never will.
It's by the bed now, just a few pages per night, no hurry.