Regarding “The Slow Regard of Silent Things”
As I write this, my daughter is demonstrating an amazing feat of excellence to my wife. Butt flops on her bed. The warning of possible breakage of said bed will not deter her from her goal. She lifts off. Sticks the landing. The sound of bottom impacting bed reverberates throughout the house.
How does the mattress feel about this interaction? Is it bored with its existence, its role in the slumber of a seven year old? Does it long for these moments when the monotony of being a child’s sleep place is broken? Or does it loathe such a disrespectful usage of its coils? These are the kinds of things I think about now, since reading The Slow Regard of Silent Things. What are the inanimate objects of our lives thinking, and are they properly placed within their existence?
I also worry for my daughter.
The main character of Slow Regard is a lovely girl, named Auri, who understands the world and its possessions in ways the rest of us are just not capable of. She’s unselfish and dedicated, making sure everything finds its proper place, and that she herself never oversteps her place within their place. She understands the importance of her role, not just for herself, but for the balance of the world. I marvel at Auri, her pursuits, her whimsy, which often times leaves me full of the same.
Unfortunately, things are not as pleasant as all that. There’s a darker subtext to Auri’s life. Some of it is revealed through Slow Regard, some of it understood from things learned in the first two books of The Kingkiller Chronicle. Before occupying the Underthing, she was a student at a very special university, a university that often left children utterly broken and unable to cope with the world, all in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Broken children were so common at this university that it had its own ward for such children. Right on campus. We don’t know much about Auri’s time at the university. There’s glimpses of the knowledge she gained during that time, but Slow Regard is not about that time. We don’t know if she’s one of the broken children. Maybe she just reached a level of understanding that far exceeds our own, and she truly knows her place within the world. I’m not sure. All I know is that when the whimsy stops, when the weight of misplaced things comes crushing down on Auri, its heartbreaking and I can’t help but to imagine my daughter in the same situation.
Where are Auri’s parents? Do they worry? Do they care? Do they even know her current situation? Why not?
The Slow Regard of Silent Things deserves your time. Patrick Rothfuss’s play with the language mirrors Auri’s view of the world perfectly. Sentence are beautifully non-sensical, or perhaps just beyond my understanding. Either way, they express exactly what they’re suppose to express.
And you’ll see a bit of yourself, and your work, in it too. I’m a software engineer. I can empathize with the frustration and anxiety Auri feels when things are not in their right place. When things don’t quite make sense. And I understand the exuberation when the truth finally reveals itself to you.
Auri should have a place in your life. That’s where she belongs.
