Part of Tarbean's vastness is the fact that it is divided into a thousand small pieces, each with its own personality. There was Downings, Drover Court, the Wash, Middletown, Tallows, Tunning, Dockside, the Tarway, Seamling Lane. ... You could live your whole life in Tarbean and never know all its parts.
But for most practical purposes Tarbean had two pieces: Waterside and Hillside. Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves, and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicans, and courtesans.
- Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Phraselet No. 125
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4 comments:
Good excerpt from a good book. I love his use of juxtaposition and rules of three.
There are so many great similies and metaphors in that book, but I particularly liked this section. Such great structure.
Interesting, if infuriatingly short, interview with the author:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/45944-exploring-the-edge-of-the-fantasy-map-pw-talks-with-patrick-rothfuss.html
"But the endless possibility of the genre [of Fantasy] is a trap. It's easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you're supposed to be doing: telling a good story. Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be."
Good interview. It also explains why The Name of the Wind feels far more intimate than epic. It's a different riff on the genre.
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