So I'm still at Durham at the moment, finishing my exams. I have one more to do and that is Ancient Epistolography, taught by my completely balmy German lecturer who likes to stalk me in his spare time and laugh manically when it sounds like someone might be failing his course. To be honest, the revision would probably be going better if I had gone to more than half the lectures, but this module is boring. I only took it because all the Classics lecturers decided they were going to wander off abroad this year, giving me a very small choice of modules to choose from. Oh well, revision is actually going okay despite the absolute lack of care I possess about Ancient Epistolography Theorists...(brevity in a letter is good, yes, I get it...)
As well as revision, I have been sorting out what to do next week - I am going to the AEGON tennis championships in London with my good friend Tom and my mother, and in the few days between sessions I will be attempting to get a job. Or at least give CVs out. Ahahaha. So I've booked myself into a hostel called Pickwick Hall (which I actually found on Hostelworld.com - absolutely the most indespensible website know to internet-kind) - I have no idea if it is any good, but it's cheap, small and central. I'm hoping the apparently 'kind, friendly and knowledgeable' staff will have some handy tips about places looking for work...I would say that I'll do anything but that's a lie - I'll do anything that pays me enough to actually live in London. I have some retail experience under my belt, so I'm just hoping that's enough to give me a chance amongst all the other students no doubt fleeing to London as well. And if I do find a job, I then have to find a place to live!!
I'm not feeling stressed though, because I simply don't feel stressed about that sort of thing. I feel excited and yes, maybe a little (lot) scared, but it's all an adventure and that's what matters really. If it all goes wrong, it goes wrong, but at least I gave it my best shot.
At the moment I have been finishing off Patrick Rothfuss's second in his trilogy - The Wise Man's Fear. His work is amazing - it looks like it should be just your generic fantasy, but if it was, I wouldn't be interested in it. It is about the main character, Kvothe, who has become the stuff of legends and is now hiding from the other stuff of legends - the evil stuff - by disguising himself (almost too well) as an innkeeper. A biographer turns up at the bar, having sniffed him out, and manages to get him to dictate his life story, right from the beginning - the true story. Not the legends, not the whispers, the reality of what really happened. (The wonderful thing is - they know what's happened - you don't.)
It's magnificent. Patrick Rothfuss puts so much quality into his book, into each tiny bit of it, from excellent characters to well-thought-out plots to a wonderful turn of phrase. As soon as you open the book you just get sucked into Kvothe's world. The first of the trilogy - The Name of the Wind - I finished in 2 days. It is 600 pages long and I am not a massively fast reader. I literally just could not stop until I reached the end. The author plays around beautifully with certain ideas, such as the problems and benefits of rumour, the problem with the unreliable narrator (is Kvothe overexaggerating sections? is he playing down other sections in a fit of modesty?), and really makes you question the whole idea of story-telling. The world and system of magic he has created seemes like top quality as well, though I am admittedly not an expert in those matters.
Certain characters really stand out. Denna - the generic-except-she-isn't-actually-generic-at-all - love interest is thoughtfully created, but my favourite by far is Bast, who is adorable and gives far more to the story than you initially think he will. I want to hug Bast. I want to hug him and wrap him in a duvet and then hug him some more. I also want to run far, far away from him.
I think the only real problem with this series is that it is produced very slowly. Those who got into The Name of the Wind straight away had to wait 2 whole years for the next book to come out. Rothfuss likes to spend his time making sure each section of the book is perfect. Now, I don't mind waiting for quality, but many others may do. Also, some parts of the fantasy are generic, especially at the beginning of Kvothe's story, but that's the curse of fantasy I'm afraid.
I have also just started The Painted Man by Peter Brett, recommended strongly to me by my well-read and very discerning friend Lisa. She told me it was better than Rothfuss's series, so I agreed to try it...at the moment I can't say it has particularly grabbed hold of me yet, but I am only on page 147, so I won't reject it yet. I rarely do that with books; the only one I can remember rejecting is Robinson Cruesoe, because I mean god. Way to turn an interesting idea extremely dull, Defoe. Uck.
All for now!
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